Expert tips on how to deal with a bully manager

Do you have a bad manager? Someone who criticizes your each and every move? “Bullying is attracting increasing attention of organizations, as it has been associated with undesirable consequences such as increased employee turnover, absenteeism, stress, burnout, and lower levels of satisfaction, commitment, self-esteem, etc.,” says Manish Kumar, assistant professor (organizational behaviour and human resources), Indian Institute of ManagementKozhikode. Bullying essentially involves one or more actions against the target such as giving silent treatment, spreading rumours, attacking character or attitude of the target, excessive criticism, withholding information, excessive monitoring, depriving opportunities and resources and verbal aggression, adds Prof. Kumar. Precaution should, however, be exercised to not term stray incidents as harassment. He offers some ways of dealing with a bully manager: Sometimes bullying by a manager is a response to a subordinate who is a potential threat to the position of the manager. Typical symptoms of such cases are withholding of information and depriving of opportunities or resources. Subordinates may do well in such cases to seek continuous feedback on performance parameters and document improvements against those. In case performance parameters are vague, it may not be a bad idea to ask for a mid-course goal setting exercise. Further, as plan B, evidences of withholding of information, opportunities, and resources may have to be proactively collected. Good performance on parameters not considered by the manager but considered by say other managers or considered by your previous managers might have to be explored to corroborate your evidences for plan B. Similarly, undue pressure is built by managers on those who are below average performers. In such cases excessive criticism, monitoring and verbal aggression from managers and peers may follow. Employees should be able to demand minimum threshold of acceptable performance on jobs in such cases rather than more ad-hoc comparison or contrast-based evaluation. Apart from seeking continuous feedback on their performance , they can additionally request for a targeted development plan. Employees in these cases are in a difficult situation as chances of silent treatment, social isolation are also high. Such employees are pitted against social norms of performance, organizational systems and a resulting low confidence level. Such employees should also proactively identify what they are good at and how these contributions are important for the organization and proactively share the information with the management and the team. In difficult times of changes such as downsizing and restructuring, it is natural that resource scarcity will lead to politicking. Depriving opportunities and resources and withholding of information tactics are likely to be adopted by managers responsible for change management. Organizations are replete with instances of undue resource allocations/curtailment as common instances in such cases. In such cases don’t hesitate to ask and continue asking and persuading for terms which are necessary for your development and growth. Do ensure you live to see tomorrow; be it by coalition building, talking to those who are closer to the manager ; and get to act fast. Be visible to the manager. It is better to ask and not get it rather than never asking and never getting it.

It has to be borne in mind that the above suggestions are context dependent and a careful observation of your realities should be done before trying the suggestions.