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 issue in this series    Next issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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Related articles

More articles on Workplace Bullying:

Deniable Intimidation

Some people achieve or maintain power by intimidating others in deniable ways. Too often, when intimidators succeed, their success rests in part on our unwillingness to resist, or on our lack of skill. By understanding their tactics, and by preparing responses, we can deter intimidators.

Workplace Bullying and Workplace Conflict: I

Bullying is unlike other forms of toxic conflict. That's why the tools we use to address toxic conflict simply do not work for bullying. In this Part I, we contrast bullying and ordinary toxic conflict.

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.

Manipulators Beware

When manipulators try to manipulate others, they're attempting to unscrupulously influence their targets to decide or act in some way the manipulators prefer. But some targets manage to outwit their manipulators.

Double Binds at Work

At work, a double bind arises when someone in authority makes contradictory demands of a subordinate, who has no alternative but to choose among options that all lead to unwelcome results. Double binds are far more common than most of us realize.

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

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming May 14: Working with the Overconfident

A cognitive bias known as the Overconfidence Effect causes us to overestimate the reliability of our judgments. Decisions we make based on those judgments are therefore suspect. But there are steps we can take to make our confidence levels more realistic, and thus make our decisions more reliable. Available here and by RSS on May 14.

And on May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers

Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold project sponsors or other senior managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here's a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.

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