
Gregory B. Jaczko, the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). On May 21, 2012, he announced his resignation pending the confirmation of a successor. His resignation comes at the end of a tumultuous tenure, marked by bitter disputes between the Chairman and the other four commissioners, who have repeatedly accused the Chairman of using bullying tactics. Much of the discord centers around regulatory issues pertaining to safety, especially issues related to possible lessons learned from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Jaczko has been advocating for stronger safety regulation, and the other four commissioners have generally opposed this position and worked to delay action on Jaczko's proposals. All this is carefully detailed in "Regulatory Meltdown: How Four Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners Conspired to Delay and Weaken Nuclear Reactor Safety in the Wake of Fukushima", a report prepared by the staff of Congressman Edward Markey, a Democrat representing the seventh district of Massachusetts.
The situation provides an excellent example of the complexities of dealing with bullying. As explained in Markey's report, the divisions among the commissioners trace to political influence by the nuclear industry on the four commissioners who oppose Jaczko's positions. The tactics they have used in opposing the Chairman might well be considered bullying themselves. They include deception, ridicule, and blatantly false allegations of bullying.
When preparing a case to support a charge of bullying by a chair of a meeting, be aware that the charge of bullying can be lodged against the accuser as well, and such counter-charges are probably inevitable. It is essential that targets preparing such cases take great care not to create vulnerability by providing any evidence at all that they have engaged in conspiratorial bullying themselves. Photo courtesy U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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
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Is a workplace bully targeting you? Do you know what to do to end the bullying? Workplace bullying is so widespread that a 2014 survey indicated that 27% of American workers have experienced bullying firsthand, that 21% have witnessed it, and that 72% are aware that bullying happens. Yet, there are few laws to protect workers from bullies, and bullying is not a crime in most jurisdictions. 101 Tips for Targets of Workplace Bullies is filled with the insights targets of bullying need to find a way to survive, and then to finally end the bullying. Also available at Apple's iTunes store! Just . Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Bullying:
Intimidation Tactics: Touching
- Workplace touching can be friendly, or it can be dangerous and intimidating. When touching is used to
intimidate, it often works, because intimidators know how to select their targets. If you're targeted,
what can you do?
Confronting the Workplace Bully: II
- When bullied, one option is to fight back, but many don't, because they fear the consequences. Confrontation
is a better choice than many believe — if you know what you're doing.
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.
Overtalking: I
- Overtalking is the practice of using one's own talking to prevent others from talking. It can lead to
hurt feelings and toxic conflict. Why does it happen and what can we do about it?
Look Where You Aren't Looking
- Being blindsided by an adverse event could indicate the event's sudden, unexpected development. It can
also indicate a failure to anticipate what could have been reasonably anticipated. How can we improve
our ability to prepare for adverse events?
See also Workplace Bullying and Effective Meetings for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming April 14: What Micromanaging Is and Isn't
- Micromanaging is a particularly dysfunctional pattern of management behavior, involving interference in the work others are supposedly doing. Confusion about what it is and what it isn't makes effective response difficult. Available here and by RSS on April 14.
And on April 21: Choice-Supportive Bias
- Choice-supportive bias is a cognitive bias that causes us to evaluate our past choices as more fitting than they actually were. The erroneous judgments it produces can be especially costly to organizations interested in improving decision processes. Available here and by RSS on April 21.
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