The Boss as a Target: Recognizing and Stopping Upward Bullying

Listen.

I can’t work today and may need to leave to get away from the harassment. My work is important to me but X is attacking my reputation and ruining my career. X just keeps up the abuse. I’m a manager, so there’s nothing I can do about it. It will never stop.

These are the words of a manager who is the target of upward bullying. Upward bullying is repeated behavior directed at a manager by a subordinate that is intended to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. A groundbreaking study by Sara Branch and colleagues revealed 22 percent of managers reported being bullied by staff. Yet, this destructive and costly phenomenon is frequently unrecognized or ignored.

Managers usually come to mind as perpetrators of bullying because their position gives them formal authority over subordinates. Upward bullying is every bit as harmful as any other type of workplace bullying, but it is distinct because an employee or group of employees who lack formal authority leverage informal power to harm a manager.

It is time to recognize that any employee, no matter their position, can be the target of bullying.

The Costs of Upward Bullying

Upward bullying does more than cause enormous distress to the target. It also impacts witnesses and drains an organization’s resources. Decreased productivity, turnover, lack of leadership, poor morale and higher health care expenses are among the costs of upward bullying for an employer.

Over half of targeted managers report requiring medical treatment for emotional and physical health issues as a direct result of being bullied. Eva Gemzøe Mikkelsen and Ståle Einarsen demonstrated other serious impacts of workplace bullying in a study reported in 2004. They found 57 percent of targets exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Time and energy for routine business functions were limited by the demands of responding to constant challenges and investigations. Targets became concerned for their safety, and they grew anxious and wary of performing routine duties. They also consistently reported being afraid that seeking support would damage their career and said they could see no alternative except leaving their job.

In addition, the negative impacts of witnessing upward bullying can spread quickly throughout a work group. As the bullying behavior and conflict escalate, the environment is poisoned and the work group experiences generalized stress. Team productivity decreases, and talent may be lost as staff choses to leave the negative environment.

Other managers know when a peer’s life is being made miserable by an employee. Still, it is understandable when fellow managers are hesitant to act to stop undesirable behavior when they observe harmful results for a colleague and a lack of executive support.

Recognizing Upward Bullying

Upward bullying begins with low-intensity covert behaviors that escalate into high-intensity aggressive conduct as a perpetrator gains confidence and the legitimate authority of the targeted manager is worn away. A destructive cycle that includes some or all of the following actions repeats over time:

• Withholding information;
• Providing misleading information;
• Engaging in behaviors such as offering critiques, starting debates, sending excessive emails and “forgetting” policies or instructions that appear reasonable on the surface but are intended to obstruct and sabotage tasks;
• Ignoring or defying directives;
• Saying things such as “It won’t work” or “We’ve tried that before” in order to undermine the manager’s authority;
• Spreading negative gossip and falsehoods;
• Arguing and interrupting to turn meetings into a battlegrounds;
• Displaying overt incivility such as being rude, arguing, making derogatory comments, uttering obscenities and making offensive gestures;
• Leveraging social media and the internet to undermine the target’s reputation;
• Making threats, acting in an intimidating manner or being physically aggressive; and
• Complaining repeatedly and raising grievances without having legitimate reasons for doing so.

Understanding Risk Factors

The strongest predictor of upward bullying is a workplace undergoing change or reorganization. When the status quo is threatened, employees may blame and act out against the manager.

Other factors that may raise the risk for upward bullying include

• An individual who is new to the organization or managerial role,
• Highly bureaucratic environments,
• A stressful work environment with unclear responsibilities and role overload for managers, and
• A culture where incivility is tolerated or encouraged.

Treating Vexatious Complaints as Upward Bullying

Perpetrators of upward bulling commonly file repeated complaints, including allegations they themselves are being bullied, that are found to be without a factual basis. Such unfounded complaints effectively shift the focus from the perpetrator’s behavior to the target’s response. This makes the complaints a form of harassment.

Even if accusations are eventually dismissed, the investigative process damages the target’s reputation and inflicts harm. The target is subjected to questioning and inevitable gossip. Effectively, the bully’s rights are protected while the targeted manager is left with little if any recourse. As a result, even legitimate attempts to manage performance can give rise to allegations of retaliation. By the time another investigation is completed, the damage to the target is done.

For this reason, multiple unfounded complaints and grievances should be recognized as being vexatious and made with the primary intent of causing distress and damage to the targeted manager. The fact that repeated complaints and grievances are directed at the same manager by the same subordinate should itself be investigated as a potential instance of upward bullying and then dealt with in the same way as any other bullying or harassing behavior.

The Role of Senior Leadership

Imagine facing constant challenges and aggression from an employee while striving to be a manager who takes pride in doing a good job. Despite efforts to build a relationship, solve problems and manage performance, the situation worsens. Every day becomes a struggle.

When the bullied manager goes to senior leadership or human resources for guidance and support, they are met with the suggestion that they must not be managing effectively. Worse, they hear the situation described as a “personality conflict.”

As time goes on, the manager finds themselves scrutinized and blamed while the perpetrator’s rights are protected no matter how inappropriate the behavior. The manager eventually realizes that there is no recourse and they are powerless to stop the abuse.

This dynamic and lack of effective support from senior management is frequently reported by managers who are expected to continue performing their duties despite being bullied. An empirical study reported by Christina Björklund et al. in 2019 demonstrated that when senior leaders become involved, they often escalate the conflict by siding with the perpetrator and focusing on the target’s personal characteristics instead of the perpetrator’s behavior. The targeted manager may also find themselves scapegoated for the perpetrator’s preexisting, long-term negative behaviors within the organization that went unaddressed. In effect, the organization condones the perpetrator’s behavior until the targeted manager feels helpless to respond or resist.

Senior leaders and HR professionals may have difficulty identifying upward bullying because they do not acknowledge the force of informal power to inflict harm. It is especially difficult to understand and respond to cultural norms that allow bullying behavior to persist.

Even when upward bullying is recognized, senior leaders and the HR team may find themselves without effective tools to respond. Laws and policies prohibit harassment due to discrimination against members of protected classes, but organizations may lack formal policies to ban bullying. At the same time, leadership faces clear liability for failing to protect an employee’s rights to engage in protected speech and receive due process, even when those rights are weaponized.

Stopping Upward Bullying

No employee should be subjected to harm from aggressive or harmful behavior in the workplace. Upward bullying should be treated with the same seriousness as any other harassing or abusive behavior. However, identifying and effectively dealing with upward bullying can be challenging.

To avoid negative impacts, organizations should do the following:

• Acknowledge managers can be targets of bullying. All managers and HR professionals should be trained to identify the power dynamics and behaviors that characterize upward bullying, including vexatious complaints.
• Call bullying out when it occurs. Everyone in the organization should be required—if not by policy, by common decency modeled by leaders—to treat others with civility.
• Establish policies making it clear that incivility and bullying will not be tolerated. Organizations should create a culture that permits no incivility or bullying. The threshold for what constitutes aggressive and harmful behavior should be the same for all employees regardless of their position.
• Recognize that once the destructive cycle of upward bullying begins, the behavior is unlikely to stop without intervention. Upward bullying is not just a personality conflict, and it tends to escalate unless people in authority act to end the harmful behavior.
• Investigate facts fairly and be open to evidence presented by both the employee and the manager. Look carefully at the duration, context and pattern of behavior to distinguish bullying from simple incivility or isolated bad behavior.
• Be prepared to support managers with focused interventions and skilled assistance. Managers should feel confident in seeking support from senior leadership and HR.
• Be prepared to discipline each employee who exhibits bullying or harassing behavior regardless of the perpetrator’s rank or position.