The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that bullying behaviors consist of three parts:
1. Unwanted aggressive behavior
2. Observed or perceived power imbalance
3. Repetition or a high likelihood
This is important because it helps us to determine whether a given incident is labelled as bullying, fighting, or argumentativeness, or other such incident (Redd,2021). Sometimes bullying falls into other actions such as harassment, assault or mobbing. Unfortunately there are no federal laws against bullying-although almost all states have attempted to pass anti-bullying legislation. So bullying is therefore legal up to now.
In 2021, the Workplace Bullying Institute indicated in one of their surveys that 79 million people have been affected by workplace bullying in the United States. So how do we recognize a bully in our workplaces?
Bullies can appear friendly and kind, but they can exhibit destructive behavior, and they can manipulate others to get them the resources the bullies need to get ahead. Bullies, persuade, coax, convince others to do what they need, and the targets are simply ingratiating, afraid and seek attention and approval from these bullies.
We need to enforce policies of civility and respect towards one another-so people on the job will not take advantage of others. Staff need to become aware of how to deal with bullies on their job. By being assertive and standing up for oneself-understanding one's options on the job-targets can become more secure on the job each day.
Most importantly we need laws to combat bullying so that these behaviors are investigated and stopped.
What do you do when you are faced with a bully?
Please consider my services by looking at my website at: www.bullyingpreventionconsulting.com or write to me at bullyingpreventionconsulting@gmail.com. We offer individual consults as well as workshops for small or large scale groups.
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