When the Chair Is a Bully: III

Continuing our exploration of the tactics of bully chairs, we now turn to techniques that depend on the chair's abuse of the form of the meeting itself. See "When the Chair Is a Bully: I," Point Lookout for June 20, 2012, for more.

Abusing the executive session

The executive session, either formal or informal, is perhaps the most extreme form of participation control. It is especially tempting when the executive session attendees are trusted allies of the chair. When there are customs or bylaws that specify executive session attendees, the chair's ability to abuse this form is limited to overuse. That is, the chair allocates to executive sessions decisions regarding issues for which executive sessions aren't required. But when there is no definition of the reasons for convening executive sessions, any use at all potentially constitutes abuse.

Excluding members of a team that otherwise meets regularly as a whole should be a rare event. Frequent use might indicate intentional exclusion of disfavored attendees. Logging dates and times of all incidents is useful, but unfortunately it is possible only if the executive sessions themselves aren't secret.

Abusing the one-on-one

Some chairs feel that the "entire meeting is against me." Some distrust nearly all attendees. Others feel powerless to oppose the influence of disfavored attendees. To these bully chairs, the one-on-one provides control. They meet privately with each attendee, so as to eliminate open discussion altogether, and enhance their ability to control — or misrepresent — what the "attendees" can say to each other.

Since open discussion is an effective means of ensuring informed and sound decisions, chairs who adopt the serial one-on-one tactic are placing their organizations at risk. Log the frequency of open meetings and note trends in that frequency.

Limiting what the meeting can discuss or decide

It's typical for chairs to determine what is appropriate for discussion at meetings, or at what meetings particular topics can be discussed. This power is abused by chairs who schedule topics for meetings that disfavored attendees cannot attend, or who sequence agendas so as to schedule certain topics for portions of meetings in which disfavored attendees will be absent. Some chairs schedule topics so that disfavored attendees might be attending by means of a disadvantaged medium, such as telephone or video, when they usually attend in person. Some chairs decide that some topics won't be discussed at all.

Log all Excluding members of a team
that otherwise meets regularly
as a whole should be
a rare eventdecisions that appear to have been taken outside the meeting context, or when disfavored attendees are absent or disadvantaged. This information can be helpful in demonstrating a pattern of abuse.

Chairs are powerful. Bully chairs abuse that power. Proof of abuse requires both an unambiguous demonstration of a pattern of abuse, and an open-minded supervisor who is willing to examine the proof. First in this series   Top    Next Issue

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Related articles

More articles on Workplace Bullying:

On Being the Canary

Nobody else seems to be concerned about what's going on. You are. Should you raise the issue? What are the risks? What are the risks of not raising the issue?

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.

Dealing with Rapid-Fire Attacks

When a questioner repeatedly attacks someone within seconds of their starting to reply, complaining to management about a pattern of abuse can work — if management understands abuse, and if management wants deal with it. What if management is no help?

So You Want the Bullying to End: I

If you're the target of a workplace bully, you probably want the bullying to end. If you've ever been the target of a workplace bully, you probably remember wanting it to end. But how it ends can be more important than whether or when it ends.

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

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When we assess the costs of different options for solving a problem, we must take care not to commit a variety of errors in approach. These errors can lead to flawed decisions. One activity at risk for error is comparing the costs of two options. Available here and by RSS on January 27.

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