KARLA PORTER

It’s pos­si­ble that hav­ing to do more with less dur­ing the eco­nomic down­turn has brought out the bully in more bosses  since addi­tional pres­sures have been placed on man­age­ment. Another pos­si­bil­ity is that  they tend to stand out more now that behav­ior in the work­place is a hot topic  and it has become less cul­tur­ally accept­able to mis­treat your reports. The good news is, in this age of career mobil­ity, reduced expec­ta­tion of cra­dle to grave employ­ment at the same com­pany and Gen Y strong ten­dency to move on when they aren’t happy, mod­ern day dic­ta­tors and ogres no longer have it so easy to rule the fief­dom with Atil­laesque etiquette .

If you have a boss that’s a bully who has man­aged to run under the radar of some­one that should have long ago stopped her in her tracks, there may still be hope. If you’re deter­mined to con­front the mon­key on your back it’s impor­tant to know it’s not per­sonal even when it feels like it is. Take care of your self-esteem and reas­sure your­self by know­ing that if you had per­for­mance issues that needed address­ing, there are well estab­lished pro­fes­sion­ally accepted ways of doing that with­out caus­ing humil­i­a­tion. What’s hap­pen­ing isn’t your fault. Every­one is respon­si­ble for their own behavior.

That means you too…

If you have resisted run­ning out the door because you love your job in every other way and want to work toward a more mutu­ally respectable rela­tion­ship, here is a process you can try. Dis­claimer: It’s not a magic bul­let. Even if a bully boss has a change of heart and man­age­ment style, dam­age has been done to the rela­tion­ship that is hard to for­give and for­get just like in any type of rela­tion­ship. You may never be truly con­tent work­ing under the per­son even in light of seem­ingly mirac­u­lous recovery.

Ulti­mately, you’ll need to make some tough career decisions.

Request a meet­ing with your bully boss and clearly state the behav­ior is inap­pro­pri­ate and must imme­di­ately be cor­rected. When you com­mu­ni­cate keep in mind that you should not mir­ror her offen­sive style. It might not be easy to keep your com­po­sure but it cer­tainly is in your best inter­est to be the “bet­ter per­son”. Use “I” state­ments, not “you” state­ments and keep a calm demeanor and firm but not angered tone and try hard to not cry or show other vis­i­ble signs of this behav­ior get­ting to you.

Here is an exam­ple of a con­ver­sa­tion starter for a first attempt to have con­struc­tive dia­log and bring your con­cern to the atten­tion of your bully boss.

“I’m dis­ap­pointed in our work­ing rela­tion­ship and how we com­mu­ni­cate. I come to work each day enthu­si­as­tic with the goal to be highly pro­duc­tive and when I feel talked down to or bul­lied it really demo­ti­vates me and neg­a­tively affects my per­for­mance. It’s not a win-win sit­u­a­tion for any­one. How can we improve the way we work together?”

Once the con­ver­sa­tion has ended and the sit­u­a­tion is no longer emo­tion­ally charged, write a follow-up email to your boss con­tain­ing a sum­mary of the sit­u­a­tion that was offen­sive, with focus on a com­mit­ment of mutual respect. It should be fac­tual and not emo­tional. This email should be blind copied to a per­sonal email address for pur­poses of doc­u­men­ta­tion reten­tion and serves to ensure that if your cor­re­spon­dence mag­i­cally dis­ap­pears off the com­pany server you still have an elec­tronic copy should you need it in the future if the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues. If the boss responds via email for­ward this email to your per­sonal email and retain it as well. You should not feel com­pelled to respond to the email. In fact, I dis­cour­age it. The last thing you need is bully ping pong.

Many times the per­son who receives this type of email will have mean­ing­ful reflec­tion on the sit­u­a­tion when it’s in black and white. They will also real­ize it has been doc­u­mented and this alone can often have a rev­e­la­tory effect. If the behav­ior occurs again request a meet­ing with the Human Resources Man­ager or in the absence of one, a Man­ager from another depart­ment. The ideal Man­ager should be of higher than but not less than equal rank to your Man­ager. In smaller orga­ni­za­tions where this may not be pos­si­ble, any­one in a super­vi­sory posi­tion or the owner would be appro­pri­ate to speak with. Explain the sit­u­a­tion, state it is unac­cept­able behav­ior that makes you uncom­fort­able and request assis­tance with a res­o­lu­tion. Ask when you will receive a response. Fol­low up with email doc­u­men­ta­tion in the same man­ner as with the bully.

This should be the end of your prob­lem. Most com­pa­nies will reas­sign report­ing struc­tures, pro­vide coach­ing and for­mal dis­ci­pli­nary action and even­tu­ally ter­mi­nate bad bosses.

If you con­tinue to be bul­lied and the com­pany per­mits this behav­ior after hav­ing been for­mally noti­fied, you may wish to con­sider vis­it­ing the EEOC web­site to see if you qual­ify to lodge a for­mal com­plaint with the government.

An employer must have a cer­tain num­ber of employ­ees to be cov­ered by the laws they enforce. This num­ber varies depend­ing on the type of employer (for exam­ple, whether the employer is a pri­vate com­pany, a state or local gov­ern­ment agency, a fed­eral agency, an employ­ment agency, or a labor union) and the kind of dis­crim­i­na­tion alleged (for exam­ple, dis­crim­i­na­tion based on a person’s race, color, reli­gion, sex (includ­ing preg­nancy), national ori­gin, age (40 or older), dis­abil­ity or genetic information).

Not every case of ver­bal abuse war­rants or qual­i­fies for an EEOC com­plaint. There is no law that requires peo­ple to speak nicely to one another or even to dis­trib­ute work­load equi­tably. Learn­ing to man­age the boss can be very effec­tive but quite frankly, if the behav­ior hasn’t been cor­rected after tak­ing the above men­tioned steps it is unlikely to ever improve and the best bet is to look for other opportunity.

You only live once, why allow it to be a bad experience?

Note: Bul­ly­ing is inap­pro­pri­ate con­duct and can be a form of harass­ment depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion. This type of con­duct should never be con­doned or accepted. As with domes­tic vio­lence offend­ers, the propen­sity to re-offend is prob­a­ble espe­cially if the behav­ior is tolerated.