Project Bullies: Are You a Victim?
Bullying can be as harmful to projects as it is in schools and other areas of society, causing well-understood health impacts for the victims, plus a long list of challenges for project managers and the organizations where it is taking place. Sadly, the rates of workplace bullying are increasing dramatically.
To complicate matters, workplace bullies are often hard to identify clearly. Bullying is a tactic used by the perpetrator to get ahead in the workplace. The bullies are often highly skilled workers who are socially manipulative, targeting those who threaten their career path while adroitly charming those who serve it well. Thus, a senior manager or their supervisor may say, “that person seems great to me” or “she always gets results.” Remember, while good employers purge bullies, most promote them.
The good news is that there is a trend toward changes that may eventually bring about much better anti-bullying policies, strategies, and increased public awareness. Further, expanding illegalization of workplace bullying is helping open doors for efforts to prevent it. Employers are becoming more acutely aware of the human, legal, ethical, and financial costs associated with workplace bullying.
In order to directly and proactively address this issue, project managers and their organizations need to take action. Fortunately, there are many …
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"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons." - Douglas Adams |
