IS YOUR BOSS A BULLY?

Quote






This video is great! Thanks you so much for posting this! YES! My boss is a bully and I'm looking to leave. She won't change. YES, the COV corporate culture fosters this type of leadership.
 






been here since launch... the BIGGEST bully is CK.. she has managed to run off the majority of the reps.. and all the female managers..and no longer a regional.. wonder why? Lucky HB probably still sucking CK's nut sack... watch your back HB... your next in line~
 






SOOOOOOO true about Connie Kisinger! She should be on a poster for "nasty women managers".
Hear she moved to marketing but PLEASE if anyone had a bad experience and/or borderline illegal experiences with her, call the Covidien line. This lady needs to GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
 












How does this woman stay in pharma? She worked at JNJ as a Regional Manager. She like to take Fridays off and go to the Naperville pool with her kids without taking a day off. Manager,who was on vacation,ran into her and she said she deserved the day off without taking a vacation day. Very insecure,that's why she's hard to deal with. She had her favorites. Cara Reinhart? Feel bad for those who work with her.
 






























Women vs. Women in the Workplace
By ANNA WILD and JONANN BRADY Feb 24, 2009, 9:53 AM
The bullying magazine executive played by Meryl Streep in the film "The Devil Wears Prada" is played for laughs, but women bullying other female employees in the real world is no laughing matter.

Joan Frye, who worked in a hospital in Nashville, Tenn., said she endured nearly two years of bullying at the hands of her female boss, which led her to a mental breakdown and a long court battle.

Just four months into her job, Frye, 62, said she knew there was going to be trouble with her boss.

"She had me come into her office for my 90-day review, and she started, 'We don't click. ... What are you going to do about it?' Not what are we going to do, but what are you going to do about it," Frye said. "I knew then that we were going to have a serious problem."

Frye said her boss undermined her in front of employees, isolated her from senior management, gave her impossible deadlines and humiliated her. She dreaded going to work.

"One day she would be nice, and the next day she would attack," Frye said. "She would glare at me. She would make noise like 'haaa' if I was talking to somebody. She would walk between us and turn her back on me."

After she complained to human resources and senior management, she said, she was transferred to another department. After six months in her new position, Frye said the problems with her previous boss led to a mental breakdown, forcing her to take a medical leave of absence.

Frye filed a lawsuit against the company. Four years later, after exhausting her savings, the case was dismissed. The court did, however, describe her old boss as "an equal opportunity oppressor," calling her management style "abrasive" and declaring that the difficult relationship contributed to "disabling problems" for Frye.

Suffering in Silence

Many women are afraid to confront their bullying bosses and suffer in silence, said Gary Namie, a psychologist and founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute.

"You should not have to risk clinical depression, debilitating anxiety, or -- and as 30 percent of women experience -- post-traumatic stress disorder. You shouldn't have a war wound in the workplace," Namie said.

It's a war being fought across the country in all types of workplaces. An estimated 54 million people say they have been bullied at work, according to a 2007 survey by Zogby International.

While men tend to target male and female employees equally, women bosses are likely to aim their hostility toward other women more than 70 percent of the time, according to a survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute.

Workplace experts have different theories on why women more often target other women. Some say these women see female co-workers as possible competition for only a few top-level positions.

Namie said it's more important to get help, not try to analyze the tormenter's motives. The institute says more than 80 percent of those bullied lose their jobs, and 41 percent suffer clinical depression.

Recovering Bullies Confess

The Growth Leadership Center in California counsels women whose "tough" office demeanor amounted to aggression.

In a "bully broads" roundtable discussion, a group of women talked about their hostile workplace behavior.

"I actually made someone cry. I sort of went over the edge, and as I closed the door I thought, 'That was not me in there,'" said Christine Forter, one of the women in the roundtable.

"I knew I was a bully, but I thought I was justified. It is the perfection combined with the urgency that creates a lethal combination," said Christine King, another woman who took part in the discussion.

By attending counseling groups, some "bully broads" said, they hope they will be able to recognize how their negative behavior affects others and try to make changes in their management style.

"Like, you never say, 'That is stupid,' but you pause and say something like, 'That is an interesting idea, and let's talk about it,'" said Monica Palm, another group member.

But for people like Joan Frye who have been bullied, the debilitating effects of a hostile work environment may last forever.

"I feel like this took away my life as it was. It caused damage to my family; it caused damage to my reputation; it caused damage to us significantly financially," Frye said. "I feel like it was probably the worst thing that has happened to me in my entire life."

How to Fight Back

The Workplace Bullying Institute recommends these steps to deal with problems in the workplace.

Get support from family and friends. Talking about the problem eases the burden and lowers the chances of stress-related illness.

See a doctor or a therapist, especially if you're having stress symptoms, such as sleeplessness and appetite loss.

Get witnesses to help you build a record of the bully's actions for a future complaint.

Confront the bully with the same toughness he or she showed you. This should be done with a single witness or as a group.

File a complaint. It can be risky for your job, but if the previous steps didn't work, it's essential to establish a paper trail.

Make a case to remove the bully. You want to show your employer the costs of keeping the bully and of losing you.
 
























Legislative initiatives designed to discourage workplace bullying have been introduced in 21 states since 2003--- 11 states have active bills in their legislatures. New York State Sen. Diane Savino and Assemblyman Steven Englebright held a town meeting and press conference in Albany to discuss their Healthy Workplace Bill. The bill would amend the labor law to allow employees who have been harmed psychologically, physically or economically by bullying to sue for damages. (It was first introduced in 2006.)

"One of every five workers at some time in his career is subject to bullying," says Englebright, "and there needs to be an alternative to that type of purgatory. Why employers look the other way is beyond my ability to fully comprehend. It's reprehensive and needs a counterweight in law, in my opinion."

Under the New York law, a bully who is found guilty would be liable for lost wages, medical expenses, compensation for emotional distress, punitive damages and attorney's fees. The court could also order that the person be removed from the workplace. An employer would be civilly liable for failing to address the situation, with liability for emotional distress capped at $25,000 and no punitive damages.

The bill defines "abusive conduct" as malice against an employee by either a boss or co-worker that "a reasonable person would find to be hostile, offensive and unrelated to the employer's legitimate business interest." It would include repeated acts of verbal abuse, threatening language or behavior, intimidation or humiliation, or sabotage of an employee's work performance.

The press conference included testimony by Maria Morrissey, sister of Kevin Morrissey, an editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review who committed suicide in 2010. She says bullying played a role in her brother's death, which was widely covered by the media.

New York business groups oppose the measure. "We think it sets a terrible precedent for New York," says Michael Moran, director of communications for the Business Council of New York State. "We think there is already sufficient federal and state law protecting workers from a range of abuses. Creating a private right of action would lead to chaos and people looking to locate business elsewhere."

But WBI director Gary Namie, author of the forthcoming book "Bully-Free Workplace," calls it "a very pro-employer bill. You get exemption from vicarious liability if you put a policy in place and enforce it."

A growing pile of academic studies suggest that bullies diminish the bottom line along with their co-workers and subordinates. Sutton has found that productivity declines as much as 40 percent in workplaces dominated by bullies, "because they distract people and it gets contagious," he says. People who work for an abusive boss are more likely to call in sick when they're not, more likely to quit and less likely to put forth extra effort to help the organization, he notes.

In his book "The No-Asshole Rule," Sutton cites a Silicon Valley company that decided to calculate the cost of a legendary bully who consistently ranked in the top 5 percent of salespeople. He had a terrible temper, routinely insulted and belittled co-workers and couldn't keep an assistant. Over a five-year period, several employees had lodged "hostile workplace" complaints against him, Sutton writes. The company did a week-by-week calculation of the extra costs of the salesperson's nasty actions compared with more civilized peers: $160,000. But the bully wasn't fired. Instead, his employer deducted 60 percent of the costs of his behavior from his year-end bonus.

Namie says victims of bullying should try to calculate the bully's impact on the company, such as absenteeism rates, workers compensation claims for stress, litigation costs for nuisance suits, and threats of lawsuits that lead to settlements. Try to find others who left the company because of the bully, and try to show how the person is damaging morale and engagement.

"Make a non-emotional, fiscal argument and bring the complaint to the highest level person you can," Namie says. "If they refuse to see the impact on the organization, you will have to move on."

Sutton says the only method that works against a bully who is valuable to the organization is a group intervention. He tells the story of a non-profit organization where all the employees went to a board meeting and threatened to quit en masse unless the abusive executive director was fired. They won. "Doing it together is the hallmark of people who are successful in removing bullies," he says.
 












I didn’t expect bullying to be so prevalent at the workplace. Adults are facing it pretty tough, with woman-on-woman harassment on the rise. Thirty-five percent of Americans reported being bullied at work, according to a 2010 survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute. Women make much nastier office bullies than men, says psychologist Dr. Gary Namie, co-founder of the Institute.

Workplace bullying is four times more common than sexual harassment and racial discrimination, found the same study. Girls are taught to be critical about each other from adolescence, and it’s particularly vicious among working women; from playing favourites to badmouthing colleagues. Common careers where women face bullying? Law, finance or any other job where “women feel the need to be hyper-aggressive to get ahead in a male-dominated environment,” says Dr. Namie.

Debra Falzoi, a communications coordinator who was terrorized by a female boss at a Boston university, says:

“My female bully lied and gossiped about me and others. She used all indirect tactics. I have seen men also use indirect bullying tactics, but they’re much less frequent, and they have seemed solely to protect their ego rather than proactive moves to sabotage.

Falzoi eventually quit her job after reporting the harassment. Her boss did nothing, despite multiple complaints against the same woman.

Samantha Brick, a British journalist, wrote a story titled: ‘There are downsides to looking this pretty’: Why women hate me for being beautiful. ‘ It went viral, supplemented by comments questioning her beauty. Some readers even called her “ugly as a troll.” I’m not going to debate her story, but I thought the Financial Times Weekend published the best response to the media maelstrom. The controversy showed how women sabotage the careers of other women by being unsupportive, it said. The columnist highlighted “rope ladders,” where women climb to senior positions, then promptly haul up the ladder right behind them. While some tactically avoid helping other women in their careers, others can resort to passive-agressive behavior to protect their interests.

“Women bullies will often befriend you and then air all your secrets later, in boardrooms or at office gatherings. I’ve had patients that just can’t trust again after being humiliated like that at work,” says Dr. Namie. The problem persists, as there are no anti-bullying ethics or law in practice, unlike legal protection against sexual harassment or racial discrimination. Less than one percent of co-workers will stand up when they see their colleagues tormented, fearing their own jobs.

There’s only one truly effective way to report workplace bullying: treat it like a business problem. Dr. Namie says:

“Report to your superiors and make it a business case on how the bully is affecting your productivity and driving up absenteeism. The minute you talk about how emotionally traumatized you are, you’re unlikely to get any help.”

Your managers could brush it off by saying it’s a cultural difference or clash of ideas, he says. Follow your instincts if you think you’re in a hostile work environment, and report it the right way. The only time when you should leave your job without making a case is if you work in a small family-run business, according to him.

Have you ever been bullied at work? Is there a difference between male and female bullies, in your experience?
 






Have been bullied by both in my career. It was clear to me that both have insecurities and and are power whores. You would think the higher ups would be able to weed out bullies during the hiring process, but unfortunately....most of them are bullies themselves. Don't call HR, they will protect the bullies.
 


















Top Bottom
Back
Quote