Attack can be passive or active, intentional or unintentional, direct or indirect

The Behaviours Involved and How to Confront Them

By Aryanne Oade

Workplace bullying involves a deliberate attempt by one colleague to hurt another colleague emotionally or to injure their reputation or to undermine their self-esteem and self-confidence. A campaign of workplace bullying could involve a one-off attack or repeated attacks, but in each case the target experiences a personal assault which they find emotionally hurtful or professionally harmful.

At the heart of these attacks is the bully’s desire to remove personal power from the colleague they are targeting and retain that control for themselves.1 I have yet to hear about a campaign of true workplace bullying in which the bully did not use either active aggression or passive aggression or both.

This article explores:

• What constitutes active and passive aggression in workplace bullying.
• A range of behaviours associated with these different forms of aggression.
• How to confront these behaviours effectively.

Active and Passive Aggression: Behaviours Associated with these Forms of Aggression

Some workplace bullies use direct, active aggression to threaten the colleague they are targeting. Other use more indirect, passive aggression. Others again employ both tactics at different times during a campaign. What are the differences between the two forms of anger?

Bullies who use the tactic of active aggression are upfront and direct in their expression of aggression. They intimidate their target in a show of clear, observable anger. Each bully will have developed their own preferred behaviours but possible verbal or non-verbal tactics they could employ could include:

• Stomping up to their target using their physicality to convey contempt for them, before speaking to them in an openly hostile and demeaning way.
• Whispering confidentially to the person standing or seated next to them, while maintaining eye contact with the target, to imply that they are speaking unfavourably about the target (which they might be).
• Rolling their eyes and tutting each time the target speaks at a meeting, enters a room where the bully is already present, or walks past them.

Each of these behaviours is designed to cause the target to doubt themselves and experience lowered self-esteem, or cause co-workers to question their competence or commitment. Exactly the same aims are in the mind of a bully who employs the more indirect method of passive aggression. Bullies who use passive aggression may feel just as angry as those who use active aggression, but they express their emotion differently, letting it out in more subtle ways which may include:

• Regularly opposing the opinion of the colleague they are targeting, while using an apparently even-handed and reasonable tone to do so: their aim in disagreeing so consistently is to undermine the target by resisting them and frustrating their aims.
• Slandering and undermining the target behind their back, often quite skilfully presenting a truth (such as saying that the target was at so-and-so customer’s premises the previous day) and dressing it up in lies (such as implying that the target mishandled the meeting in a way which harmed the team’s or organisation’s credibility) again using a reasonable tone: their aim is to imply to anyone who might be unwary enough to listen that the colleague they are targeting is a poor worker, lacking skill or application, and is otherwise incompetent and not to be trusted.
• Doodling on a piece of paper while the target speaks during a meeting, displaying disrespect and contempt for the target’s input.

How to Confront these Behaviours Effectively

It is vital that anyone who is subject to active or passive aggression in the workplace recognises the tactic for what it is – a tactic designed to undermine or intimidate them – before finding a way of sending back a clear message to the bully that their tactic hasn’t worked: that it hasn’t caused self-doubt in the target, nor has it resulted in the target becoming confused about where their strengths lie. Any response along these lines will give the bully pause for thought, and will be self-protective and self-preserving for the target to some extent.

In the case of either form of aggression, it is vital that the target adopt an active approach to handling the situation, avoid remaining passive and silent, and put the issues back to the bully. On observing the bully doodling on a piece of paper when they input to a meeting, the target could address them directly by saying in a clear and firm voice: ‘I notice that you are doodling on your paper when I speak. What do you mean by that behaviour?’ When the bully stomps up to them in a corridor in an openly contemptuous and angry way, the target could take a step backwards, fold their arms smartly across their chest and say: ‘You have just stomped up to me in a bad mood. What’s this behaviour about?’

There are many variations on this theme, but in each case the objective of the target is to clearly feed back to the bully:

• A factual description of the behaviour they have just employed.
• A question which requires the bully to give account for that behaviour.

This combination of factors places the spotlight on the bully – while simultaneously removing the spotlight from the target – and will give the bully pause for thought. As a result of this approach, those bullies who only bully colleagues who inadvertently give them room for manoeuvre may well be persuaded to desist entirely, and those bullies who are more persistent in their campaigns will receive the clear message that this target will not be a straightforward person to bully.

1. Adapted from page 30 of Free Yourself from Workplace Bullying by Aryanne Oade (Mint Hall Publishing 2015)

This is the second of three articles in a series on bullying behaviour in the workplace. The next article will explore how authority issues play out in upwards bullying.

This article contains extracts from Aryanne’s latest bestselling book: Free Yourself from Workplace Bullying: Become Bully-Proof and Regain Control of Your Life. Visit www.minthallpublishing.com to order paperback copies at a discount, or buy smaller quantities and the eBook from Amazon.

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