The Houses of Parliament are the tip of the iceberg: business bullies are everywhere

The Houses of Parliament are the tip of the iceberg: business bullies are everywhere

It’s impossible to go through your school years without witnessing a bully in action. The boy who takes pleasure in inflicting pain; the girl who delights in making other children cry.

When I was at school, and saw vulnerable kids being picked on, I assumed that the bully would eventually grow out of it, that adults wouldn’t, couldn’t, behave like that. Oh, how naïve I was.

The headlines about bullying in the Houses of Parliament should come as no surprise. Business bullies operate everywhere. They can be male or female, young or old, high achiever or also-ran. Their true nature is often hidden behind charming smiles and a world-class propensity to suck up to their bosses or clients, while stamping hard on those over whom they have a degree of power, real or imagined, or someone who gets in their way.

Just like the child who waits for teacher to look the other way before unleashing a punch in the playground, so business bullies take care to keep their nasty, corrosive behaviour out of sight of those they need to impress. They put fierce energy into protecting their own interests.

But there is one thing that unites all bullies: they are cowards. Stand up to them, and their immediate, instinctive reaction is to lash out with a flash of anger, before crumbling.

The onus is on all of us, across all organisations, to make sure that business bullies don’t succeed.

Article date

November 9th, 2018

Robert Taylor

Media Trainer

@RT_MediaTrainer

My main passion is media training, and I’m proud to be one of the UK’s most experienced and successful trainers in this field.

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