When the Chair Is a Bully: I

Usually, when we say that Chairs "own" meetings, or when a Chair describes a meeting as "my meeting," we understand that the Chair is responsible for the meeting's processes, including making decisions, inviting attendees, setting agendas, and much more. Certainly, chairing a meeting is a hefty responsibility.

But in most cases, contributing insight and contributing to decisions are important responsibilities of attendees. When the Chair doesn't feel that attendees have these responsibilities, trouble looms. Some Chairs behave as bullies, injecting personal views so forcefully into meeting processes that they actually degrade the quality of the meeting's outcomes. Here's Part I of a collection of indicators of this kind of trouble.

Experiencing opposition as a challenge to the Chair's position

Although this (usually) erroneous interpretation of opposition doesn't in itself constitute bullying, the bully Chair uses it to justify personal behavior that he or she would otherwise regard as bullying. In effect, the bully Chair adopts the view that challengers have made the Chair's outrageous behavior necessary.

Log these incidents in detail. Each one in itself might seem inconsequential, but a clear pattern can provide strong evidence for a charge of bullying.

Ridiculing or retaliating against those who express alternative views

Ridiculing or retaliating against meeting attendees who disagree with the Chair is clear evidence of bullying. Both actions are primarily intended to cause harm, rather than to persuade anyone of the merits of the Chair's position.

Log these incidents, especially if one or two people are repeatedly targeted. Since attendee witnesses who aren't themselves targets have the greatest credibility and thus the greatest potential for effectively ending the bullying, they also have the greatest responsibility for capturing this information and presenting it to responsible authorities.

Killing messengers from time to time

Those who present unfavorable but factual news are sometimes metaphorically "killed" by the bully Chair. They're attacked even though the information they're providing is demonstrably factual. In this way, the bully Chair can eliminate from the discussion any data that presents difficulties for the Chair's views. See "Never, Ever, Kill the Messenger," Point Lookout for November 7, 2001, for more.

The indirect consequences of killing messengers are perhaps more destructive than the Ridiculing or retaliating against
meeting attendees who disagree
with the Chair is clear
evidence of bullyingattacks themselves. Those who witness the killing of messengers often conclude that presenting facts that the Chair views as unfavorable can be a career-dangerous act. Many will withhold such information in the future, which elevates the risk that the meeting might adopt mistaken courses of action. These incidents, too, should be logged, because killing messengers is a performance issue for any meeting Chair, bully or not.

These last two indicators exemplify overt bullying by the Chair, motivated by the Chair's experiencing opposition as a challenge to authority. In the next two installments, we'll examine more sophisticated bullying tactics. First in this series | Next in this series  Top    Next Issue

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Related articles

More articles on Workplace Bullying:

Responding to Threats: I

Threats are one form of communication common to many organizational cultures, especially as pressure mounts. Understanding the varieties of threats can be helpful in determining a response that fits for you.

How Workplace Bullies Use OODA: I

Workplace bullies who succeed in carrying on their activities over a long period of time rely on more than mere intimidation to escape prosecution. They proactively shape their environments to make them safe for bullying. The OODA model gives us insights into how they accomplish this.

When the Chair Is a Bully: II

Assertiveness by chairs of meetings isn't a problem in itself, but it becomes problematic when the chair's dominance deprives the meeting of contributions from some of its members. Here's Part II of our exploration of the problem of bully chairs.

When the Chair Is a Bully: III

When the Chair of the meeting is so dominant that attendees withhold comments or slant contributions to please the Chair, meeting output is at risk of corruption. Because Chairs usually can retaliate against attendees who aren't "cooperative," this problem is difficult to address. Here's Part III of our exploration of the problem of bully chairs.

The Paradox of Structure and Workplace Bullying

Structures of all kinds — organizations, domains of knowledge, cities, whatever — are both enabling and limiting. To gain more of the benefits of structure, while avoiding their limits, it helps to understand this paradox and learn to recognize its effects.

See also Workplace Bullying and Effective Meetings for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming July 25: Exploiting Functional Fixedness: II

A cognitive bias called functional fixedness causes difficulty in recognizing new uses for familiar things. It also makes for difficulty in recognizing devious uses of everyday behaviors. Here's Part II of a catalog of deviousness based on functional fixedness. Available here and by RSS on July 25.

And on August 1: Strategies of Verbal Abusers

Verbal abuse at work has special properties, because it takes place in an environment in which verbal abuse is supposedly proscribed. Yet verbal abuse does happen at work. Here are three strategies abusers rely on to avoid disciplinary action. Available here and by RSS on August 1.

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