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

Good Managers and Leaders Should Control Psychosocial Factors

When managers are left to learn how to manage people on their own, they tend to rely on shoddy stereotypes of “bosses” from television or the movies. Managing others should be taught. Organizational behavior classes in business education programs sensitize students to fundamental psychological principles that help them in real-world situations. One of those principles is that positive reinforcement follows desirable and correct actions and is the only way to ensure long-lasting, self-perpetuating good performance by employees. Without learning about the studies with rats, pigeons, and people, the untrained manager might think that barking commands in a way to that instills fear is the best way to treat workers (as seen on television). They would rise up the ranks (rewarded by executives who never knew that positives pay off more than negatives) only to be surprised when subordinates abandon them and rebel when they need loyalty from underlings the most.

But training budgets are routinely the first sacrifice in hard times. Tough times or not, find a way to train your managers in interpersonal skills. Bad bosses treat subordinates as undeserving humans. We are able to abuse and mistreat people and animals only if we consider them less deserving of the respect and dignity we expect to receive from others. Ignore people skills at your peril.

The first defense of a bully is always that he or she never learned an alternative ...