Common mistakes in understanding bullying and toxic leaders

This post is written by Susan Broomhall, CEO Bright Research and Insights, and author of Bullying & Harassment – Understanding the Psychological and Behavioural Tactics of the Toxic Leadership Stronghold. Susan Broomhall is a social scientist with a major in psychology and over 30 years practical in-field experience applying behavioural analysis and research to real world issues. With a passion for positive social impact she uses a unique, multidisciplinary approach to understanding human behaviour and society to improve lives and prevent harm. Susan works towards empowering people to be safe and well by raising understanding of issues and inspiring critical thinking to encourage people to design solutions that work for them and their community. She hopes to be part of the co-creation of a harmonious and peaceful society where love, caring and happiness are the valued commodities.

The problem: Bullying and toxic leadership have serious consequences for organisations and societies and are issues we continue to grapple with, seemingly without resolution, mainly because we make mistakes about what causes these issues.

Why it matters: Much of our attention to mitigate bullying and toxic leadership is misguided, with effort wasted on correlational rather than causational systemic problems.

The solution: Understanding the causes of systemic issues such as bullying and toxic leadership allows us to focus on where the problem begins, thereby preventing the problem from occurring at all.

There are many reasons why we continue to wrestle with issues of bullying including our understanding of it, definition of it, acceptance of it as part of human behaviour, and the overwhelming lament of ‘oh what can you do?’. When we mention ‘bullying’, oftentimes the first thing that comes to mind is schoolyard scuffles or workplace harassment, and we resign ourselves to deflecting the issue to those contexts to deal with managing bullying and harassment as being too hard for us to deal with individually.

However, bullying is a social construct that describes the establishment of a power imbalance and the maintenance of control existing in any context in which humans have a relationship, connection, or form of engagement with another. Basically, any situation where one has the capacity to unduly influence the other.

Where there is a toxic leader, there is bullying. Where there is bullying, there is a toxic leader. These are not mutually exclusive.

Bullying succeeds by establishing a powerhold. In the schoolyard, this can be the big kid pushing around the little kid. In domestic violence, this can be one partner having authority over all the finances. In sexual abuse, one might have photos and evidence to hold as a threat to ensure compliance. In government, rules, regulations, policies, and procedures design the system and are authorised by leaders thereby establishing a powerhold and authority over the organisation and society.

When problems are presented that require solutions and the solution resolution relies on a hierarchical structure deliberation, the ultimate control and authority is afforded to the apex authority. Where the decision-making by the apex is then made, that provides advantage to the apex and disadvantages the lower echelons, and that is toxic leadership.

Why do toxic leaders make decisions that benefit themselves? Power and money.

How do they get power and money? They establish a stronghold.

How do they establish a stronghold?

Bullying.

Common mistakes in understanding bullying

Bullying is a ‘wicked problem’, a social problem with many moving parts that is inherently unsolvable. Much of the ‘wickedness’ comes from the mistakes made in understanding bullying and how to address it. Add to that the complexities of toxic leadership and we have the wickedest of wicked problems.

When seeking to develop problem solutions, we must first unpick and understand the problem. And the best way to do that is to examine common mistakes.

“What can you do?”

Solutions and positive change can seem overwhelmingly unsolvable when we don’t understand the smaller pieces that make up the whole picture. To solve (or at least mitigate) wicked problems such as bullying, we first need to break down the problem into smaller issues that directly contribute to the overall cause of the problem. When looking at systemic problems such as bullying, first we need to give attention to each of the common mistakes we make in understanding bullying and toxic leadership, and seek to determine how each of these misconceptions leads to the perpetuation of the problem.

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