How Workplace Bullies Get Ahead
It can pay to be a bully.
In a rather disheartening study, a team of researchers led by
Darren C. Treadway,
of the University at Buffalo School of Management, found that many
workplace bullies receive positive evaluations from their supervisors
and achieve high levels of career success, despite organizational
efforts to curtail bullying.
The researchers sought to study the relationship between workplace
bullying and job performance. They collected behavioral and
job-performance data from 54 employees of a U.S. health-care firm, and
found a strong correlation between bullying, positive job evaluations
and social and political skill in the workplace.
The study defines workplace bullying as “systematic aggression and
violence targeted towards one or more individuals by one individual or
by a group.”
The researchers found that many bullies thrive by charming their
supervisors and manipulating others to help them get ahead, even while
they abuse their co-workers. Because many bullies can “possess high
levels of social ability,” they are “able to strategically abuse
co-workers and yet be evaluated positively by their supervisor,” the
authors write.
“If people are politically skilled, they can do bad things really well,” says Dr. Treadway.
(Political skill, Dr. Treadway says, is “the ability to effectively
understand others at work and to use such knowledge to influence others
to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or organizational
objectives.”)
The study notes that workplace bullying is prevalent: About half of
all U.S. employees have witnessed workplace bullying and more than a
third have been the target of bullying, according to past research.
The researchers suggest that firms assess civility and camaraderie as
part of performance and help staff develop skills to manage bullies.
The study was published earlier this year in the Journal of Managerial Psychology
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