At an office party, MJ’s boss became drunk and behaved in an extremely inappropriate and offensive way towards MJ and one of her colleagues.
Two days later, the bullying began.
Bullying doesn’t announce itself
It reminds me of the stone slab outside my grandmother’s house, beneath the downpipe beside the drain. Over time, the constant dripping wore a hollow into the stone.
Bullying can wear away at a person in much the same way: gradually, persistently and sometimes almost unnoticed.
Like that stone, people who are bullied also feel hollow and worn down.
If you’ve ever been the victim of bullying, you’ll know how insidious it can be
Like that water dripping on stone, the impact frequently goes unnoticed initially. A bully’s victim often starts by rationalising the bully’s behaviour. They give the bully the benefit of the doubt — they don’t see bullying for what it really is.
By the time a person realises they are being bullied, they may have lost any confidence and self-esteem they once possessed. With no vestige of self-belief, they’re left in a terrible emotional — and sometimes physical — state. It’s a state from which it’s almost impossible for them to single-handedly combat bullying behaviour.
What do I mean by bullying?
Employment New Zealand currently defines workplace bullying as:
“Repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards an employee or a group of employees that can cause physical or mental harm.”
It also explains that bullying may be physical, verbal, psychological or social. A single rude or insensitive incident is not generally classed as workplace bullying, although it can still be serious and should not be ignored.
Competence doesn’t protect someone from bullying
In some cases, a bully may target a person they perceive as a threat. In others, they may exploit a difference in status, authority or confidence.
None of this means the person being bullied has caused the behaviour. The responsibility remains with the bully.
However, the way someone represents the bully in their mental landscape can intensify their sense of intimidation. The bully may appear extremely close, unusually large or positioned high above them — often all three. Changing that internal representation won’t change the bully, but it can help the person feel steadier and respond with more choice.
Self-esteem and a person’s mental landscape or social panorama are often tied together
(If you haven’t read my other article about mental landscapes and social panorama, pause here and read that first)
The social panorama model suggests that the way we think about someone affects how we relate to them
In my work, people who feel intimidated sometimes represent the bully as being extremely close, looming above them or quite literally ‘in their face’. So to deal with a bully using social panorama it’s useful to remember that some people don’t get bullied at all. That’s curious. A bully may feel threatened by many people, yet not bully all of them. How do they know who to bully and who to leave alone?
The answer may lie in the victim’s level of self-esteem.
How self-esteem connects to social panorama and bullying
Bullies frequently pick on people who are very competent. But, just because someone is competent doesn’t mean they’re also confident; they may have low self-esteem. Or the bully aims to undermine the victim’s self-esteem. ‘Low self’-esteem in social panorama terminology means that an individual places their own personality below the level of some others in their social panorama.
Here’s MJ’s case study to illustrate this
MJ was highly qualified and had started at the company as an intern about a year before I saw her. Immediately after the office party mentioned earlier, MJ’s boss treated both MJ and her colleague like princesses — probably
fearful of the repercussions should the company find out about his behaviour the previous night.
But shortly after, the bullying started
Her boss began making inappropriate comments about MJ’s personal appearance, continually told her how she needed to improve it by wearing make-up, styling her hair more fashionably and wearing nicer clothes. He told her how she would never make it in the job and didn’t have the required skill set, etc.
After almost a year of this treatment, her self-esteem was at rock bottom. We discussed the appropriate workplace channels for reporting and addressing her boss’s behaviour. However, MJ didn’t feel she could trust anyone in the organisation to support her. She feared that making a complaint might put her job at risk, so she wanted some practical ways to deal with her boss on her own.
Changing her Social Panorama was a way to feel less intimidated.
We started by examining her social panorama
In her mental landscape, MJ located most of her colleagues and family on the same level. Her boss was ‘up high’ and about 20 cm (8 inches) in front of her.
He was ‘in her face’ and ‘overpowering’ her — literally. No wonder she felt intimidated!
We experimented with moving him around in her social panorama. She decided that 3 metres (10 feet) away and much lower down helped her feel most comfortable. She wanted to keep him in front so she could ‘keep an eye on him’. Having done this, she took a deep breath and relaxed.
How does social panorama work with bullies?
Social panorama operates logically. Placing someone high in your Social Panorama may contribute to feeling deferential or less powerful around them. This may not be a problem if that person is someone they ‘look up to’ or who they hold in ‘high esteem’ or even a boss who is ‘higher up’ in the organisation.
But when, as with MJ, the person is also ‘in their face’ and ‘overpowering’ them, both literally and in their mental landscape, it affects a victim’s self-esteem. Moving the bully away from being ‘in her face’ and lower down improved her perception, so that he no longer appeared to overpower her.
But I wanted MJ to have a bigger shift
I asked her what would be the funniest kind of head that she could imagine on her boss’s shoulders. She said a horse. I commented a horse seemed perfect — he was obviously an ass. “A donkey!” she exclaimed with delight and promptly swapped, in her imagination, the horse’s head for that of a donkey.
By now she was laughing
I asked her what would be the funniest voice she could give him. She said, “like the Chipmunks”, and so I had her imagine him speaking with that silly voice. I suggested she check each morning following our session, before she went to work, that her boss was in the right place in her social panorama, that he had the donkey’s head and his new chipmunk voice. I got her to visualise how she would respond to him differently as she pictured him this way.
This change gave MJ more conscious influence over how she responded to her boss.
It’s important to know that MJ doesn’t have to keep consciously thinking about her bully boss and moving him around in her mental landscape each day. I merely wanted MJ to be aware of where she placed him so she would have control over it in the future.
I taught her some simple skills for dealing with him and asked her to imagine how she would behave differently with him the next day. She was laughing and said she felt excited about her ability to communicate with him effectively.
I didn’t need to wait long to find out how she’d got on
MJ called me the following evening. She said she’d had her best day at work in over six months. Her boss had been his usual intimidating self at the start of the day, questioning her appearance and dress choices. But MJ used the skills I’d taught her. These skills, combined with having changed his position in her social panorama, meant she no longer felt intimidated. She thought it was funny. She giggled as he was talking to her.
After each interaction with MJ, her boss had ‘gone away looking perplexed’ by her new responses. For the first time in months, MJ hadn’t felt intimidated by him. She had been able to hold her ground and respond differently.
What to remember if you’re being bullied
Changing where you place someone in your mental landscape can help you feel less intimidated and respond more confidently. It does not change the other person, excuse their behaviour or replace practical action.
If you believe you’re being bullied:
- Keep a written record of what happens, including dates, details and witnesses.
- Save relevant emails, messages and other evidence.
- Talk to someone you trust.
- Check your organisation’s bullying and complaints procedures.
- Seek help from an appropriate manager, HR or health and safety representative, your union or an employment adviser.
- Don’t confront the person alone if you feel unsafe.
For information about workplace bullying in New Zealand, visit Employment New Zealand’s workplace-bullying guidance. If you live elsewhere, check the relevant employment or workplace-safety service in your country.
MJ didn’t change her boss by moving him in her mental landscape. She changed the effect his presence had on her. That helped her regain her humour, think more clearly and use the practical communication skills she had learned.
You may still need to deal with the donkey in the workplace. You just don’t have to let him occupy the whole paddock in your head.
A big thank you to “MJ”, who gave me permission to share her experience in the hope that it might help someone else.
If you’d like some individual help changing how you think, feel or respond in a difficult relationship, you can find out more about SHIFT Coaching.
You may also enjoy Thinky Things, my short, weekly-ish email containing fresh reflections, questions and small things to notice.
I’d be interested to hear if you’ve been bullied and what you did to stop it.
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