The Bully-Free Workplace: Stop Jerks, Weasels, and Snakes From Killing Your Organization

A Working Definition

Workplace bullying is the repeated, health-harming mistreatment of an employee by one or more employees through acts of commission or omission manifested as: verbal abuse; behaviors—physical or nonverbal—that are threatening, intimidating, or humiliating; work sabotage, interference with production; exploitation of a vulnerability—physical, social, or psychological; or some combination of one or more categories.

The Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI)

We refer to the recipient of the mistreatment as a targeted—not victimized—worker. To be a target implies temporary mistreatment and abuse with the good likelihood of triumph over the situation when no longer targeted. Conversely, victimhood implies a permanent disruption of normal functioning. Victimhood breeds hopelessness. Perpetrators can be an individual bully acting alone or several acting in collusion.

Bullying at work is easily distinguished from “tough management” by asking “what has this got to do with work?” Bullying will always be used to advance a manager's personal agenda—rendering the target subservient, humiliating a person in front of his team—rather than about getting work done. Bullying actually prevents work from getting done; it's interference. Bullying undermines the government agency's mission and erodes a corporation's profits.

Tough managers are consistently harsh during crunch times. Everyone feels the wrath and mistreatment. Tough, but consistent and fair given the fact that misery ...