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:

Looking the Other Way

Sometimes when we notice wrongdoing, and we aren't directly involved, we don't report it, and we don't intervene. We look the other way. Typically, we do this to avoid the risks of making a report. But looking the other way is also risky. What are the risks of looking the other way?

How Targets of Bullies Can Use OODA: II

To make the bullying stop, many targets of bullies try to defend themselves. But defense alone is not sufficient — someone must make the bully stop. That's why counterattack is much more likely to work.

See No Bully, Hear No Bully

Supervisors of bullies sometimes are unaware of bullying activity in their organizations. Here's a collection of indicators for supervisors who suspect bullying but who haven't witnessed it directly.

Judging Others

Being "judgmental" is a stance most people recognize as transgressing beyond widely accepted social norms. But what's the harm in judging others? And why do so many people do it so often?

Even "Isolated Incidents" Can Be Bullying

Many organizations have anti-bullying policies that address only repeated patterns of interpersonal aggression. Such definitions expose the organization and its people to the harmful effects of "isolated incidents" of interpersonal aggression, because even isolated incidents can be bullying.

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

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 2: Mitigating the Trauma of Being Laid Off

Trauma is an emotional response to horrible events — accidents, crimes, disasters, physical abuse, emotional abuse, gross injustices — and layoffs. Layoff trauma is real. Employers know how to execute layoffs with compassion, but some act out of cruelty. Know how to defend yourself. Available here and by RSS on April 2.

And on April 9: Defining Workplace Bullying

When we set out to control the incidence of workplace bullying, problem number one is defining bullying behavior. We know much more about bullying in children than we do about adult bullying, and more about adult bullying than we know about workplace bullying. Available here and by RSS on April 9.

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