A big problem with bullying is that almost no one would ever admit that they bullied someone at work.

And yet, considering how widespread bullying is, chances are that many of us occasionally bully someone without realizing it. It is those situations when our bias leaks through our words and actions that hurt others while we are oblivious to our impact.

Power corrupts

Power corrupts. The more unchecked power someone has, the bigger chance they will act with bias and prejudice. Everyone in the organization must be held accountable—especially those with positional power. Checks and balances need to be in place. Otherwise, there is a strong chance that the organization will be full of injustice. When you have a biased person and give them power, it will lead to discrimination, excluding a specific person or a group of people from opportunities.

“Everyone in the organization must be held accountable. To create a just environment and encourage institutional courage, create processes, checks, and balances that will help everyone to deal with injustice.”

What do you do to make sure this doesn’t happen? In Just Work, Kim Scott talks about Institutional Courage. It happens when leaders proactively leverage their positional power to address and prevent workplace injustice. The exact opposite is Institutional Betrayal, when a leader tries very hard to ignore or even cover up any wrongdoings, thus making life even more miserable for victims.

The best way to create a just environment and encourage institutional courage is to create processes, checks, and balances that will make it easier for everyone to deal with injustice. It can be things like clear guidelines for setting compensation, easy-to-follow criteria for promotions done by a team or a committee, or a trustworthy and straightforward system for reporting workplace abuse.

Bloviating BS

Aside from the standard yelling, ridiculing, ignoring, and intimidating others, bullies impact productivity and the team’s climate in other ways. A typical one that may not even look like bullying is what Kim Scott calls bloviating BS. The bully comes to the meeting acting like they own the place and spend the whole time talking, throwing buzzwords around without saying anything useful or giving others a chance to contribute. At first glance, they may appear that they are trying to be helpful. In reality, they are silencing everyone, acting like only they have all the answers and others don’t matter. What makes this even worse is this type of bully is often from an overrepresented group. Therefore it leads to less diversity and less inclusion in the workplace.

“The meeting bully comes to the meeting acting like they own the place and spend the whole time talking, throwing buzzwords around without giving others a chance to contribute.”

Researchers from the University College London looked into who the bullshitters were and made interesting observations. Their definition of a bullshitter is someone who claims knowledge or expertise in an area where they have little experience or skill. The researchers asked a large sample of 40,550 young people from nine countries, both men and women, whether they were experts on 16 math topics, of which three were completely made up. The results show that men are bigger bullshitters than women, and socio-economically advantaged teenagers are more likely to be bullshitters than their disadvantaged peers. And to add the geographical and cultural aspects into the mix, young people in North America are more likely to bullshit about their knowledge and abilities than those from Europe.

The problem with BS bullies is that people show less propensity to call BS on those they perceive as having more power. This then leads to excessive confidence in those in power. The implication is clear. If you are in leadership, you need to be extra careful not to become a BS bully, as your team may not challenge you, and you can create a rather toxic and unproductive environment.

What to do about it?

People tend to bullshit when they are forced to provide opinions on topics they are not experts in or don’t have an opinion at all. That is especially true if they can get away with bullshitting.

“As a leader, you need to make sure everyone has a fair opportunity to speak and that no BS bully is allowed to hijack the meeting.”

The best way to ensure you don’t become a BS bully is to prepare, have your data straight, and then sit back and listen. Get involved in the conversation only when you have something real to contribute. Don’t speak just for the sake of visibility. Those who don’t know what they are talking about often try to mask it by talking the most without providing any real value. The sad thing is that it usually works, and they get ahead of quiet people. But it still doesn’t change the fact that they bullied the rest of the team and may even be rewarded for it by having visibility and appearing to be leading.

As a manager and a leader, you need to fight this dynamic. You need to ensure everyone has a fair opportunity to speak and that no BS bully can hijack the meeting.

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Photo: geralt / Pixabay.com

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