December is always a good month to recap. Also the time of good resolutions. Thus, on the basis of 2019, let us look forward.
Workplace bullying has reached epidemic proportions. Improvements so far are mainly internal. Whatever is added institutionally however, can never be really safe. As it can never be independent and objective. What is more, Workplace Bullying goes far deeper than an additional contact point to share your story. What does it say about everyone involved and the organisation? Unless one addresses the core of the problems and tackle the root causes, no effective improvement can be expected.
This means that for now the most important recommendation for bullying victims is to : focus on yourself! Resistance against real, resolute changes within organisations cannot be lifted “overnight”. It is therefore essential that independent third parties get involved with and deal with Workplace Bullying in a very sound way.
Recommendations
Self- and Context Awareness
Focussing on yourself not only is the best recommendation under current (internal organisations) circumstances. It also is thé solution, thé way to survive Workplace Bullying and remedy the afflicted harm in a lasting way.
It is your life, your responsibility. Focus on yourself, protect yourself. Investigate what is going and why. Your own share. Where does it come from? The context : the bully/ies, the management, the organisation, the culture and all interactions. It brings a lot of insight, allowing you to increasingly distance and dissociate yourself from it. If you want to get through it and over it, you will have to research all of this. Self-observation. Looking whatever you come across straight in the eye, dealing with it and letting go of it, will bring you closer to yourself (awareness). It will restore your assaulted self-confidence, self-respect and power. Far from an easy job! But it is the only way.
And, if you really want to help yourself : seek independent, safe, external assistance. Because nothing is more important in your situation than genuinely being seen and heard.
Within the Organisation
Within organisations far more knowledge and expertise is needed regarding Workplace Bullying. As regards the complexity and stratification of the actual underlying problems. What does it say about all involved? The victim and the position in which (s)he ended up. What does it say about the bully? Why does (s)he resort to bullying? Apparently knowing that (s)he will get away with it in that particular work environment. Why does clique or mob forming take place? How is it possible that mobs can acquire so much power that they can, unhindered and unpunished, cause so much damage? What does it say about the organisation, the culture, in which such behaviour is possible, tolerated?, encouraged? What does it say about the management(-style)? Etc! Thát is what has to be looked at and tackled! Starting with actually listening to the bullying victim. As everything (s)he raises constitutes clear indications of where things are going wrong. The manner of approach to mistakes and failures can actually raise confidence in working relations to a great extent.
Third Parties
Much more expertise is also required for independent third parties! External assistance providers, physicians, lawyers, judges, etc. Far more know-how is needed to see through the manipulation and attack tactics of aggressors. Insight as to how Workplace Bullying is pertinently denied. Insight into how the path taken must, at all cost, be followed to the end! Insight into the inability to admit and remedy mistakes! The hiding behind rules and procedures. Insight into how dust is thrown into the eyes of work environments and third parties, who even end up helping the bullies! Into the ‘conspiracy of silence’ that ranks the reputation of the managers and the system higher than human dignity. ETC!
Third parties must proceed to truth-finding! And not let themselves be taken in by unfounded concoctions! It concerns an organisation against a totally isolated individual! They have many more means to endlessly produce one-sided documents with which all blame and all responsibility is shirked! Without fact-finding there can neither be administration of justice. Even less when aggressors go scot-free. That is the opposite of a constitutional state. That impunity must stop.
Let us agree that 2020 will bring the great turnaround!
Happy Holidays!
Maartje Rutten, The Hague, December 9th, 2019