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

Disrupted Social Lives

Coworkers resent being involuntarily dragged into another person's misery, vicarious bullying. Even if they don't directly witness the misconduct, everyone knows what happened when the target emerges from a closed-door session with the bully. The slumped shoulders and defeated looks are painful to see. And the personal discomfort and realistic fear that they could be next combine to convince witnesses to isolate and eventually even abandon their colleagues.

Stress that bullied targets bring home affects their children and spouses in the form of displaced anger. Parents also transmit subtle cues about their own distress, and bullying prevents them from being emotionally present during their children's development. Neurological evidence suggests that if this kind of detachment continues unabated, neglected children can experience inadequate mental growth. The connection between misery brought home from a toxic workplace—and its effects on childhood bullying and aggression (due to complex child trauma)—is the topic of new research.

Coworkers sometimes voluntarily “ice out” their friends (tactic 4 in the list of tactics used by bullies) and can be easily persuaded to betray their colleagues at the bully's request or command (tactic 10). Excluding colleagues from the group's social life is surprisingly painful. Ostracism is a severe punishment for humans, who require social support to fend off destructive stress—and this type of isolation magnifies stress's already ...