What Does Workplace Bullying Look Like?
The first step in addressing workplace bullying is knowing what it is and the tactics that workplace bullies use against their targets, experts say. According to WBI, bullying is defined as repeated, health-harming mistreatment that can include verbal abuse; threatening, humiliating, or offensive behavior/actions; and work interference, or sabotage, that prevents work from getting done. Bullies also employ many tactics to intimidate their targets, experts say. Some bullying is obvious screaming, yelling, belittling employees in front of others, throwing things, and name-calling. Other tactics, however, can be more subtle, such as stealing credit for work done by others, falsely accusing someone of errors not made, arbitrarily imposing standards or rules on the target, spreading or starting rumors that do harm to someone’s reputation, and lying about an employee’s performance on an evaluation. “Bullies are really intimidating, and they’re really good at this stuff,” Morford said. “They
