Upward bullying is essentially bullying by an employee or group of employees towards their immediate manager, or someone in a more senior role.
It is all too easy to envisage a bully as someone in the workplace within a position of power, abusing that power to victimise those under their command and control. However, those in management are not immune to being bullied themselves, where there has been a marked incidence of cases of upward bullying, also known as subordinate bullying, in recent years.
This could be attributable to the prevalence of electronic communication and digital platforms in the workplace, where employees may behave differently online to how they would in person, or where disgruntled employees can more easily ‘band together’ against someone more senior.
As with all forms of bullying behaviour, the causes of upward bullying can be varied. It can arise, for example, out of organisational change which an employee or group of employees resent and for which they blame their manager. This might be because they do not accept a new manager who has been recruited externally or appointed ‘over their heads’, not least if a manager has taken on a role which one or more of their team members had applied for or aspired to secure. It can also occur if a manager or supervisor has become isolated in organisational terms, where their formal power has been eroded, or even where the perpetrator is enabled by support from a higher authority within the business.
This is a complex area, which means it can often be difficult in reality for those in a position of authority to initially realise that they are being bullied by their staff. It is usually with the passage of time that a manager or supervisor will be able to identity a pattern of upward bullying emerging, such as increased hostility from certain members of staff or even a change in the behaviour of their whole team towards them.
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