Working in fear
And the devastating consequences of this for culture
I still can’t make my mind up.
A fellow coach posted something on LinkedIn. It was a question that - paraphrased - said something like this:
My boss is displaying bad behaviour. HR is only down the corridor. Should I go and talk to them?
To which she said:
No. The writing is on the wall. This behaviour is being condoned in this organisation. Go and find yourself another job.
It came hot on the heels of not one but TWO conversations I had with people who had senior managers shouting at them, or at someone in their team. (I’ve still got a poll going on LinkedIn, come and play!).
My overarching feeling about this is this:
Why should it always be the employee, the victim of this sort of behaviour, who takes the can?
Why should someone work long into the night to make up for perceived ‘wrongs’? Why should someone have to start looking for another job? Why should someone be driven to illness and ultimately resignation?
Only because someone in a professional environment doesn’t have the self-awareness to contain their anger (or - worse - uses anger as a weapon to manipulate people)?
The reasons people shout at work
I once heard a colleague say that a man she knew socially changed into a total d*ck (excuse the language) when he entered the office where I worked at the time. She pulled him up on it. He couldn’t explain why he did it. It was the culture, he said.
So why DO people do it? Why do they display behaviour at work they would never display at home? Why do they think it’s acceptable to shout at work, display bad behaviour?
Well, here are some of my explanations:
Lack of self-awareness
Imagine having such a lack of self-awareness that you don’t know when your emotions are about to overwhelm you. Imagine not knowing the impact you’re making on others. Imagine reacting instead of responding. Letting your emotions get the better of you.
I know that’s not you. But can you imagine it? Over half of people in my poll said they believed Emotional Intelligence is one thing that should be on the national curriculum starting in primary school. I believe that. You?
Stress
Stress can have unwanted effects on you and your ability to manage your emotions.
Feeling insecure
Someone might feel trapped or threatened in their situation and lash out (even - as some of the stories I heard tell - to the wrong person).
Trauma
Someone might have experienced trauma in their past. Any situation might trigger those old fears and lead to unwanted behaviour like shouting.
Not trained to deal with conflict
Oh, I could write pages and pages about the lack of management training.
The CIPD did a survey amongst 5,000 employees and found that 25% of employees had experienced workplace conflict and suggested that employers need to prioritise management training.
It’s a vicious circle this one: managers are expected to be able to manage, they don’t get training because - you know - the bottom line, end up displaying bad behaviour, people leave, impacting culture and - you guessed it - the bottom line!
Culture
I mentioned it before. Sometimes the culture allows, even encourages, certain behaviours. People find themselves behaving in ways they’d never display outside of the office. Just because it’s the ‘done’ thing to do, or because it’s rewarded.
Is that OK? No, of course it isn’t. Except it does happen.
Using fear to manipulate
Leaving this one to last. Some people use fear to manipulate. To get what they want they shout at people. they manipulate, they bully, they divide and rule.
When done in meetings it doesn’t just create fear in the person being targeted, but also in the people witnessing this behaviour.
Consequences of bad behaviour
You know what? In the short term bad behaviour probably gets you what you want. I’ve seen it lead to people working into the night to get things ‘right’, to make the person happy (or happier).
But in the long run? The consequences are devastating:
For you
As I said, 1 in 4 employees has experienced conflicts at work. Only 50% of those people affected were happy at work.
So yes, the impact on you is enormous! Even more so if you are going through stress, have a background of trauma, or are in a difficult situation at home.
You’ll lose trust in the organisation, in people. And losing trust, not feeling safe at work, has a devastating impact on your ability to do your best work.
And - last but not least - it can literally make you ill, and may lead you to resign, with or without a job to go to, putting YOU in danger. Whilst the person or persons displaying the behaviour get to continue doing so and poison their environment in the process.
For the person displaying the behaviour
Apart from when you’re losing your cool, there must be something in it. The short term gain I talked about. Getting people to perform better, doing what they want, how they want it.
But in the long term?
As the responses to my poll indicate, they may have to apologise, sometimes publicly. They might be disciplined.
But more devastatingly? The people around them will start disliking and distrusting them. Instead of intrinsically motivated to do their best work, they’ll now start doing it out of fear and not to the best of their ability.
Until they leave, that is. After which a new person has to be recruited, leading to costs.
For the organisation
Needless to say that this lack of trust and the fear instilled in the organisation is devastating for the culture and ultimately for the performance and bottom line.
Who can you trust?
I started this article by saying that I wasn’t sure. What I meant was that I wasn’t sure about the advice given.
Because shouldn’t you be able to report bad behaviour to someone? Clearly some of the HR people reacting to the post thought so.
But I’d say this: it depends.
It depends on the organisation you work in and its level of toxicity. Niven Postma’s book ‘If you don’t do politics, politics will do you’ gives you a GREAT way of deciphering how toxic (or highly or pathologically politicised) an organisation is.
If an organisation is toxic, my only advice - like that of the career coach I talked about - is ‘Get out’. Start making your way out, sooner rather than later.
But if it’s not? Then, like some of the respondents, you might be able to talk to that nice HR person, talk to the person in question or escalate it to a senior manager to resolve.
Ultimately the best person to decide if you feel safe to report it (and get something done about it) is you. Based on the information you’ve got.
What can you do
Of course there are things you can do. The responses to my poll show a diversity of approaches taken.
Stay calm
There literally is no point in having TWO shouting people in a room. So keep your cool. Wait, observe, and keep your emotions under control.
Assess the situation
Who is the bad behaviour aimed at? Was it you? Was it RIGHTLY you - or accidentally aimed at you as you just happened to be there?
If it wasn’t aimed at you, how can you support the person it WAS aimed at? Sometimes just an acknowledgement of the emotional impact of an incident or behaviour helps the person to feel safer.
Also, can you assess WHY the person is doing what they’re doing? Did they loose their cool because of stress or is it a planned campaign? Was it mean and hurtful - or not meant maliciously? Was it manipulative, or spontaneous?
And finally, what type of organisation are you working in? How toxic is the organisation?
Decide your approach
Based on the organisation and your relationships you can determine what you’d like to do next:
Talk to the person - tell him or her how you feel about what’s happening and how you’d like to resolve whatever the issue at hand was or is.
Escalate - go to the senior manager and report what’s happening. This may lead to further action, potentially an apology and contact with HR too.
Go to HR - it’s in the interest of the Human Resources department to create a healthy culture. They’ll have procedures in place to deal with incidents or worse, campaigns, like this.
Forgive, but not forget
To move on it’s healthiest if you can give it a place, take the emotional weight out of it. In other words, forgive but not forget: try to get to a place where you no longer get a knot in your stomach thinking about what happened, whilst at the same time not forgetting what happened and learning the lessons from it.
What I’m saying is this:
Conflict is ‘normal’, 25% of people in the workplace are affected by it, and I’d like to think that people are NOT doing it for manipulative reasons (but I have my suspicions - especially now I’ve read Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test).
You’d LIKE to think you can resolve issues amicably or via the correct procedures - but this is not always the case, especially in toxic organisations.
The important thing is to look after yourself. Sometimes life is not fair. Sometimes you find yourself in unpleasant situations that you’d do well to get out of. Or need to take actions that feel scary or uncomfortable. Trust in yourself and your ability to resolve issues and build relations with the people who can help you.
And yes, if you find yourself in a toxic situation or organisation, don’t stay. Get out. Get out in the best way possible.
So, now over to you: have YOU experienced conflict or bad behaviour at work? What did YOU do? Let us know in the comments.
Meanwhile, stay safe out there!
Tineke X
P.S. I’d like to offer you the opportunity to tell YOUR story of bad behaviour at work. Other women I’ve offered this to have found it ‘cathartic’ to talk about something so emotionally damaging as bad behaviour, bullying, being shouted at, abuse at work (whilst all you want to do is do a good job at work).
So if this is you? Feel free to book a call below. All calls are completely confidential.
P.S.2. In August and September I advertised the next round of the Positive Intelligence programme, a group programme helping you build your mental fitness.
There are LOTS of improvements on its way for the programme, which is why I’ve decided to postpone the running of the programme in September and will run a new (beta) programme. I’ll tell you more about the improvements and how YOU can get involved soon!
🔴🟡🟠
Tineke Tammes is a Career & Creativity Coach supporting professional women in creating fulfilling work and happy careers. Besides that she is also a lifelong feminist, part-time portrait artist, never-only-read-one-book-at-any-time reader, and obsessive doodler.
Sign up to this newsletter today and get it delivered into your mailbox every Friday.
THIS "Using fear to manipulate" - so harmful!