Case study on case 7: Bullying Bosses

Q1.

Of the three type of organizational justice, explain which one workplace bullying most closely resembles.

Organizational justice is intellectualized as a multidimensional construct. This contained of 3 components such as distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice. Research also suggests the importance of affect and emotion in the appraisal of the fairness of a situation as well as ones behavioral and attitudinal reactions to the situation. A numerous of works in the industrial/organizational psychology field has examined organizational justice as well as the associated outcomes. Many of key organizational outcomes such as motivation and job satisfaction influence by perceptions of justice. Out of the three types of organizational justice, workplace bullying most closely resembles interactional justice because which is reflects the degree to which people no matter he or she are treated with politeness, dignity and respect by authorities or third parties involved in executing procedures or determining outcomes, its also refer to what one person may see as unfair another may see as perfectly suitable and appropriate. For example: A Supervisor loaded a lot of task to one particular person, that person may feel like he or she had bullied by superior, however, other people may reflect that this supervisor only trust that particular person thats why all task given to this same person. Interactional justice consisting of two precise types of interpersonal justice and informational justice . Interpersonal justice reflects the degree to which people are treated with politeness, dignity, and respect by authorities or third parties involved in executing procedures or determining outcomes, its also refer to perception of respect and propriety in ones treatment . While informational justice, focuses on the explanations provided to people that convey information about

why procedures were used in a certain way or why outcomes were distributed in a certain fashion. Where more adequacy of explanation is prevalent, the perceived level of informational justice is higher.

Q2.

If you were a victim of workplace bullying, discuss what steps would you take to try to reduce its occurrence. Explain what strategies would be most effective and what strategies might be ineffective. Discuss what would you do if one of your colleagues was a victim of an abusive supervisor.

Bullying can occur wherever people work together. Bullying is actually unwelcome behavior such as invalid criticism, isolation, harassment humiliated excessive monitoring and many more which create uncomfortable behavior to others person or party. Workplace bullying is repeated unreasonable behavior to an employee or group of employee that create a risk to health and safety. If you are a victim of workplace bullying you should take a necessary action to stop it before it become worse to your health and safety and to your organization. There a few step that you can take to stop it occurrence. Below are few step that might be effective is some cases. The first step u need to know is. Is it you are being bullied?. If it is, you need accept that fact so you can then take the next step of helping yourself with a sense of conviction to create protection for yourself. Seek the advice from the trusted person who may deal with this situation before. Ask the advise how to handle the situation and what step need to be done. Confront the bully in the professional manner. Stay as calm as possible. Don't be too emotional. The bullies normally are looking for this type of confrontation and it will encourage them to come back more. Don't show your weakness to the bullies such as crying. Don't allow the bully to intimidate you or make you feel bad about yourself. Be strong and calm. Document everything. Keep a journal of what happened when, how, witnessed and time as accurate as you can so that if you need to take formal action, you have the information you need to make your case.

Keep all those emails and notes. Do your job well. Concentrate to your job and try to remove the bully from your mind. Normally the bullies want you to fail and when you don't he or she will be defeated. Make sure your colleagues aware of your job. Workplace bullies normally try to spread the word that you are not doing your job well and will even go as far as to report the smallest infraction to your boss. Your action will carry more weight than his or her word. Don't allow bully to isolate you from your colleagues. Try to get close with your colleagues. A good support system can be an effective deterrent against bullies. Keep up your workplace friendships. Address the issue to your manager or to your human resource department for help in dealing with it.

Strategy would be more effective. The management should take a necessary action to prevent workplace bullying from occur in their organization. If it occur in their organization it is necessary to identify the problem area and develop the strategies for dealing with the issue. A good organization should have their own strategies in dealing with human behavior. Management should create a workplace free of bullying, management should promote awareness of the issue among employees, including managers and supervisors. By raising this awareness campaign, employers will be in a better position to identify workplace bullying, or circumstances in which bullying could occur. Awareness rising should make clear to everyone that bullying is unacceptable and that incidents of such behavior should be reported. Counseling for the manager about the responsibilities to implement the code of conduct and enforce standard of behavior, as well as his role in the crisis. Develop a 'no bullying' policy outlines an organization's standards of workplace behavior and makes a clear statement that bullying will not be tolerated. Develop the policy with relevant to existing OHS policy. Educate all employee in demeanor and behavior toward client, contractors, management and among others. Conduct a training on work ethic and company policy. Employers should also ensure that information about workplace bullying, any relevant policies and procedures should be included and is readily available to all employees. Strategies that might be ineffective Seek the advice from your peers. Not all your peers will help in this situation. Some of them will take the advantages on your situation for their own benefits. You may feel like youre in this struggle alone and may resent your co-workers lack of support. They may be too busy protecting themselves to help you. When do confront with the bullies. Some of the them won't accept even though you confront with polite

and in professional manner. Don't expect to change the bully. People behavior change is rather difficult and time consuming. You have no control over a bully's attitude to accept that they have a problem and to work on it. You can try to manage the situation, but it is really the company's responsibility to be observant and responsive to the needs of their workers and the general work environment. The worstcase is that you may need to leave your job or be prepared for a long hard fight with your bully and your employer. If one of your colleagues was a victim of abused supervisor you should Ask your colleague to seek advice from human resource and health and safety department on how to handle the issue. Ask your colleague to keep detail record of what happened place, date, time, person , witness and what was said or done and make sure it is accurate. This record will be useful later for formal step need to be taken. You can try to be a third party on behalf of a victim to approach to the bully and discuss and find resolution that is acceptable for both party. You need to be neutral in the discussion and listen to both side statements. Check for workplace bullying policy and complaint procedure. Check weather the company has a policy and complaint procedure for workplace bullying.

Q3.

Explain what factor do you believe contribute to workplace bullying. Discuss whether bullies are product of the situation, or are they flawed personalities. Discuss what situation and what personality factor might contribute to the presences of bullies.

Factor that contributed to workspace bullying can be divided to theses:1) Bullies I. II. Power, Control misuses of power and/or control which had been given by organization. Career advancement victim been sees as a stepping stone to accomplish goal. Victim could also been seen as a potential threat in order to achieve higher rank or better career advancement. III. Incapability afraid of the victim and cannot enforce a fair deal because they might lose the edge on winning if fare fight was applied.

IV.

Low self esteem employee boost morale and self esteem of the bullies. Which they feel is inadequate.

2) Victims I. Difference Bullies cannot appreciate or understand victims which might be difference in age, races, strength or of opposite sex. Those differences been seen as a thread to the bullies. II. Been seen as a threat- victim sometimes had been seen as a direct or indirect threat to the manager, supervisor or even peer. III. Incapability of the victim work place bullying could also be a method for removing incapable or weak employee.. IV. Newly hire employee - An individual or group may become targets of workplace bullying just because others perceive them as being new or different. 3) Organization I. II. Weak union or group that failed to support their members. Changes within the organization such as changes in leadership or restructure in work method. This sometimes happen when theres a merger or acquisition between two or more organization. III. Culture in the workplace that maybe develop over time which makes bullying been seen as a normal behaviour and work ethic. IV. Poor workplace relationship. Interpersonal conflict, jealous among each others. Gossiping among co-worker or groups on victims that may have been seen as threats or even threaten.

Are bullies products of the situation, or are they flawed personalities? Product of the situation. Bullies may have started the same way with other but change to be negative and resolve on taking someone else in order to make them feel better. Bullies are created from been bullied, pressure from officemate or even bad childhood background.

They could be just mad, scared or have history of been bullied in the past. It could also come from an act of abusive parent, even feeling of insecure or parent that pushes their kid to be high achiever.

Excessive bullying in an organization indicates that management are doing a very poor job protecting its employee. Management can have a poor communication skill; allowing bad moral standards; picking, special privileges and choosing only their favourite employee.

Situation of the workplace. The situation such as organization culture, organization factor, the changes in organization structure and many more will lead to workplace bullying to happen without people even realizing it. The workplace situation will be affecting certain people in the organization. Changes will give them the opportunity to start bullying others for their own benefit or satisfaction.

Flawed personalities Some bullies even have apparent charm but are artificial, ego maniac and have a high skill in art of manipulating people around them in the organization. There are conceited personalities which include ostentatious behaviour and very self centre and lacking in empathy toward others. This could also apply to manager and supervisor as well. They wanted to be high achiever and has no regrets on stepping on anyone that comes across goal they hope to achieve Perfectionists are difficult to be team up with. They tend to feel that others employee work in the organization could never be as good of what they can do. Perfectionists are tending to be firm and obstinate in character. They might also become tyrant. Psychopathic in nature businessmen are successful example of psychopath and criminal are the vice versa. An autocratic leadership will use their power against subordinates, style that are strict and directive whereby the worker were not involve in decision making and also has no flexibility. Laissez-faire leadership, also known as delegate leadership, This style of leadership usually give very little guidance for their subordinates. Let their subordinates make decision and solve their problems on their own matter. As a conclusion bullies can be both products of the situation, or flawed personalities.

Discuss what situation and what personality factors might contribute to the presence of bullies . 1) Organization having management that been doing a poor work in protecting it own employee. The management might have a bad communication skill, allowing bad ethical standards and picking their preferred employee while also giving them a special privileges or a post in the organization. These type of management always look for someone else to take a fall when thing are getting rough. In the case of poor management the abuse crates verbal abuse; completely ignoring the employee; threat of dismissal and disgrace. 2) Bullies might be having a bad personality, sees other as a stepping stone or might even be a threat. Bullies may seem to be quiet, reserved or even shy but under the skin they can cost quite damage to the individual which they do not like for reasons. Bullies may also have bad personalities such as superficial charm, insincerity, a propensity to manipulate, rigidity, stubbornness, dictatorial ism, and obsessive-compulsive leanings. The extremely dangerous bullies are someone that is a psychopath (mental illness). This kind of person feels little or no remorse at all over their actions. While all of these personality problems may have a genetic component, they frequently have roots in a disturbed childhood in which emotional needs went unfulfilled. They are sly and crafty at manipulating; can simply lie without having a second thought simply just because they having an upper position or even at the same rank of the victim. They lack of empathy toward others and have the tendency to be exploitative. 3) A fall victim could be difference in age, races, religion, and strength or of the opposite sex. These differences can be seen as a weakness or poses a threat to the bullies. Bullies could even loaded a lot of task to the victim simply just because they were seem to be trustworthy and useful in the bullies eye but been interpreted as bullying by the victims. 4) Self-esteem problems - bullies could actually have high self-esteem but it is also unstable. When they feel emotionally or psychologically slighted or insulted, their ego will provoke an extremely negative feeling that they are unable to tolerate to others. This situation will result in lash out defensively in anger in order to preserve the image they have of themselves as in control, powerful and superior compared to others subordinate or even peers. 5) Bullies with anger management difficulties have tough process and emotional reaction differ from others people. They view their interpersonal world in negative way. Often misinterpreting other people behaviour toward them as an enemy. This distorted perception of reality makes it extremely difficult for them to enter into healthy relationships with others and leads to deficits in social functioning. These bullies can become aggressively angry quicker than most people.