
Tim Murphy, in an official photo for the 112th Congress (2011-2012), when he was representing District 18 of Pennsylvania as a Republican. His service ended abruptly in resignation following scandal in 2017. In the chaos, it was revealed that his management of his staff had been extremely abusive. The Pittsburg Post-Gazette reported about "…a June memo from Murphy's chief of staff, Susan Mosychuk, that said Murphy was creating a hostile work environment because of his 'inability to communicate without expressions of rage, criticisms or insults.' That behavior, she wrote, resulted in a 'near 100 percent turnover in one year's time.'"
These conditions are especially troubling given that Murphy, again quoting the Post-Gazette, as "a psychologist who spent much of his congressional tenure working on mental-health [sic] issues, once wrote a book called: Overcoming Passive-Aggression: How to Stop Hidden Anger From Spoiling Your Relationships, Career, and Happiness. The way he's acted, it makes you wonder if he's actually read it." See the P-G's report by Charlie Deitch.
Verbal abuse executed by a psychologist who is an expert in anger issues must be something very special to behold.
To abuse someone verbally is to treat him or her with cruelty, especially regularly or repeatedly. Verbal abuse in the workplace is a special case, though, because most employers have policies banning such behavior, and many even prescribe punitive or disciplinary action. So at work, verbal abusers often undertake their abusive acts at times, in settings, and with tones that afford them safety from organizational discipline. Executed in this way, verbal abuse is actually a kind of covert bullying. Abusers generally choose from three common approaches.
- Privacy
- Abuse conducted in private is more readily denied than abuse conducted before witnesses. Private settings are more common than one might at first believe. Beyond the closed-door office, there are otherwise-empty hallways, elevators, rest rooms, stairwells, the grounds around the building, and telephone conversations. And the privacy needed by abusers isn't the airtight one-on-one kind. All that's required is that there be no witnesses who are fellow employees. By this standard, restaurants, airline flights, and public spaces of all kinds can suffice.
- Abusers who depend on privacy for safety sometimes forget that the same privacy also affords safety to the person abused — the target — if the target chooses to respond forcefully. This safety is useful for protecting targets who choose responses that witnesses might regard as unnecessarily harsh or insubordinate, even though the target might regard the response as appropriate and necessary.
- Protection
- Some abusers are content with protection against disciplinary action. That is, they feel comfortable engaging in abuse so long as they're certain that there will be no disciplinary action. A typical scenario: the supervisor abusing a subordinate in an emergency meeting called to deal with a product recall or data breach. In such situations, there is an organizational tendency to place mission over manners and legalities.
- If the abuser's perception of protection from disciplinary action is accurate, organizational policy isn't relevant, and the target is in real danger. In such circumstances, appeals to Human Resources — rarely of much use to targets in any case — are almost certainly dangerous to the target. Voluntary termination or transfer is more likely to afford protection for the target. Transferring to the domain of someone more powerful than the abuser or the abuser's protector is an especially attractive option for targets.
- Ambiguity
- If the actions Verbal abusers often undertake their
abusive acts at times, in settings,
and with tones that afford them
safety from organizational disciplineof the abuser are at all ambiguous, then if questioned, the abuser can deny that any abusive behavior took place. That is, the abuser can assert that no abuse was intended and that the target is being "overly sensitive," or that the abuser was "only joking and <the target> took it the wrong way." In espionage and politics, this ambiguity strategy is called "plausible deniability." - Targets must examine carefully the tone and wording of the abuser's attack. If the attack can plausibly be interpreted as inoffensive by someone who's unfamiliar with the context of the relationship between the abuser and the target, the ambiguity strategy might be in effect. This is especially likely if fully grasping the intensity of the offense in the current attack requires special information about past attacks.
Knowing why the abuser considers himself or herself safe enough to engage in abuse is helpful to targets as they formulate powerful responses. We'll look at responses next time. Next in this series Top
Next Issue
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:
Some Truths About Lies: II
- Knowing when someone else is lying doesn't make you a more ethical person, but it sure can be an advantage
if you want to stay out of trouble. Here's Part II of a catalog of techniques misleaders use.
Confronting the Workplace Bully: I
- When a bully targets you, you have three options: accept the abuse; avoid the bully or escape; and confront
or fight back. Confrontation is a better choice than many believe — if you know what you're doing.
How Targets of Bullies Can Use OODA: I
- Most targets of bullies just want the bullying to stop, but most bullies don't stop unless they fear
for their own welfare if they continue the bullying. To end the bullying, targets must turn the tables.
Social Isolation and Workplace Bullying
- Social isolation is a tactic widely used by workplace bullies. What is it? How do bullies use it? Why
do bullies use it? What can targets do about it?
Unrecognized Bullying: I
- Much workplace bullying goes unrecognized. Three reasons: (a) conventional definitions of bullying exclude
much actual bullying; (b) perpetrators cleverly evade detection; and (c) cognitive biases skew our perceptions
so we don't see some bullying as bullying.
See also Workplace Bullying and Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming December 6: Off-Putting and Conversational Narcissism at Work: III
- Having off-putting interactions is one of four themes of conversational narcissism. Here are seven behavioral patterns that relate to off-putting interactions and how abusers use them to control conversations. Available here and by RSS on December 6.
And on December 13: Contrary Indicators of Psychological Safety: I
- To take the risks that learning and practicing new ways requires, we all need a sense that trial-and-error approaches are safe. Organizations seeking to improve processes would do well to begin by assessing their level of psychological safety. Available here and by RSS on December 13.
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