I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.
Elie Wiesel

No one likes a bully.

A bad memory:
As a teenager, my best friend and I befriended a young man with Down Syndrome. One chilly fall night we were at the corner grocery store. An older boy from another neighborhood made fun of this man. He berated him and made him take his pants off and threw them into the store. The man had to go into the store in his underwear to get his jeans. He cowered and cried. He was humiliated. My friend and I watched in silence. We were afraid. We did not take sides. We did not intervene. We encouraged the bully. I remain ashamed. I am sorry. I've done better since then.

15 years later:
The union steward loomed over me as I sat at my desk. I looked up at the older man with silver hair and contemptuous smile. He said with scorn, "You dress too nice for the job." He then told me when to go to coffee, how to cheat on my expense account, how to get overtime without working, and how to make my sales goals through deception. I ignored him. The union steward-a sleazy man-continued his efforts to intimidate me. He recruited others to give me a hard time, and I had a visit from the union president-a powerful person. I ignored them.

I would decide how I would dress, who I would drink coffee with, and at what level I would perform. I would decide if I wanted to be a dishonest person. Those were choices for me to make-not for bottom feeders to make for me.

A few months later one of the union bullies ridiculed a colleague the day before the frightened man went into treatment for alcoholism. I watched and seethed. The anxious victim sat helplessly. The bully left the office; I followed and stopped him. I told him our coworker felt terrified about treatment; he needed our support. I asked how he would feel if the man went home and killed himself. I told him if he mocked on our co-worker again, I would kick his behind. The union goons didn't bother me anymore.

I had nine promotions in the next 18 years. I met bullies at every management level. Their tactics changed as I went up the management ranks-they became more passive/aggressive--but the deeper dynamics stayed the same: insecure cowards tried to control and dominate others with threats and intimidation. I ignored them most of the time and confronted them at other times. I followed my own path. I've consulted since 1994. I've seen bullies in every organization I've worked in. Sometimes the bullies were senior union workers. Other times they were supervisors. Sometimes they were the plant manager, general manager, or vice president-even secretaries and office workers. Bullies lurk everywhere.

People enable bullies with cultures of fear, indifference, and non-accountability. I described such a culture: The culture and processes were designed to be blind to bad behavior (that includes bad leadership), to avoid holding people accountable, to pass problems off to others, and to quell conflict and disturbance to the status-quo-conflict often needed to energize creativity and change. Those who challenged the system were neutralized or expelled from it. Senior leaders-many more politician-like than leader-like--avoided engagement with front-line employees.

In cultures of non-accountability, leaders, managers, and supervisors abdicate their responsibilities-they deny and look the other way--and the leadership vacuum gets filled by actively disengaged employees who bully good workers to conform to their levels of mediocrity. The majority of employees-good and engaged people-comply with the unwritten rules of the organization and unwittingly collude with the villains. Afraid, they feel alone, and fail to stand up for themselves or for the victims of bullies.

Why would any but the most courageous employees stand up to bullies if they feel no one in authority cares? People become desensitized to wrong-doing as they proceed down the slippery slope of non-accountability. For example: minor bullying gets ignored and progresses to sexual harassment and to sexual assault that goes unreported. People create cultures of non-accountability by denying the bullying (or other problems) exist, and then design cultures and processes in ways that enable denial. The desire to belong and the fear to stand alone lead people to comply and often override their desire to do the right thing. Insidious, such cultures spread subtly--often deeply unconscious and intertwined-so much the norm that we cannot see them-and they require tough-love interventions to bring them to awareness and strong leadership with broad and deep mindfulness to change. The passive/aggressive nature of such cultures and their ability to drive off and wait out threats make such cultures difficult to change. We must have zero tolerance for bullying in any form. If we confront problems when small, we will not have large issues to deal with later.

For a culture of accountability:

• Select real leaders to lead your organization-people with vision, values, and purpose and the courage to live out their values-people who will confront the shadow side of the organization.
• Keep business units at 150 people or less. This size group has personal accountability based on relationships. In groups larger than this, accountability dissipates.
• Choose people for supervisory/management positions who have the talents needed to confront performance and behavior issues, deal with conflict effectively, and handle a coaching/discipline conversation-as a caring partner not as a parent in control.
• Require leaders to engage with and coach supervisors.
• Give every employee performance goals they help establish. Align the goals with the vision of the organization.
• Measure how people live the organization's values as well as performance.
• Have an honest and direct performance appraisal system with people evaluated by those they are accountable to --customers/clients/subordinates.
• Support and reward those who surface issues and tell the truth about problems,
• Keep supervisors and employees together (no annual rotation) and require them to deal with their issues directly,
• Require leaders to engage with front-line employees without acting as parents,
• Surface and deal directly with conflict,
• Use leaders to teach the culture of accountability, and
• Replace managers/supervisors who don't do their jobs.

In such cultures people thrive, feel alive, and do their best work. I've felt afraid when I've confronted bullies-as a leader and as a consultant. I've been threatened. Sometimes I feared an angry bully might punch me in the nose. I've had times of anxiety about workplace violence. Near the end of my corporate career, senior executives threatened my job, and I was afraid I would be fired for telling the truth. As a consultant, I've occasionally lost work when my reports exposed political wrong doing. Sometimes others who knew my words were true stood by silently and encouraged those who attacked me. Sometimes we pay a price for living true to our values. But we don't have to live with shameful memories of our cowardice.

My message to leaders, managers, and supervisors: Leadership and supervision in our organizations continues to get worse. You are responsible. If you do not have an engaged group of employees, you are not doing your job, regardless of your technical skills. If you allow a small minority of actively disengaged employees to bully good people, you share responsibility with the bullies for the harm they do to your fellow human beings and to the performance of your organization. If you do not care enough to give honest feedback (positive and critical), deal effectively with conflict, and handle a performance or behavior conversation with an employee, you lack the qualifications to lead and should voluntarily ask to move to another position before you do serious damage to others. If you know of the harmful impact of abusive employees on other people and do nothing, you collude with abuse. Each of us is responsible to confront lies, abuse, and injustice in the workplace. Robert Greenleaf wrote that caring is the essential motive for leadership. If we care, we take the actions necessary to have a responsible and accountable workplace-even when confrontation makes us uncomfortable.

My message to employees: You need to stand up and speak up to bullies and abuse in all its forms in the workplace. If you do not, you encourage the bullies and abusers. Greenleaf wrote that the problem in the world is not the bullies but the good people who have gone to sleep. You need to wake up and bear witness. I do not suggest this action lightly. You need to assess your situation wisely. I encourage you to talk to others before you act. I don't want you to endanger yourself. If you band together with others, you will feel stronger and can hold bullies and supervisors accountable. We bear responsibility for ourselves and for one another.

We need to interfere.

02/06/08

	Tom Heuerman, Ph.D., now resides in Fargo, North Dakota. Other writing by Tom Heuerman: Transformational Change a discussion of mechanistic change, transformational change ( including self-organization), the acceleration of organizational change, and sustainable change.
Articles written by Tom Heuerman for SelfHelp Magazine include: Farewell My Friend , Learning to Live , The New Leaders. Many more of Tom's articles can be found in the Careers & Work section.

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