Chapter 1: Knowledge is power
Thirteen myths about workplace bullying debunked

Cathy acted smart, but luck was on her side as well. Cathy was lucky that she worked for a company where leadership was committed to providing a safe work environment for everyone. Things definitely could have gone very differently for her, and she may have had to leave the company per the agreement she’d made with herself. She knew that her pride and dignity were not worth the paycheck she received every two weeks—peace of mind, happiness, and self-esteem are priceless.

Cathy’s smart actions included the following:
• After those three long years of abuse, she made a decision not to be a victim anymore.
• She started taking responsibility for her own well-being and happiness.
• After doing some research on workplace bullying and resilience, she knew she had to make a change in her attitude and her situation.
• She stopped focusing on how bad she felt and started focusing on the facts.
• She stopped allowing herself to be criticized and belittled and started focusing on assertiveness and projecting confidence with her body language.

While Cathy’s story is an inspiration, for many, things don’t turn out this way. Many people throughout the world have developed chronic anxiety, depression, and other such symptoms as a result of their situations at work. Some have even taken their own lives because of a bully at work, and because they didn’t see any way out of their “trap.” Cathy’s story is not at all that uncommon, but unfortunately most people—just like Cathy—do not realize that they are being bullied until it’s too late.

This book will help you, a target of bullying, recognize early signs before you sink to the point of no return. Cathy could have perhaps put an end to the bullying had she recognized the signs and addressed her boss’ behavior early on. We want you to be able to recognize bullying behaviors as soon as they surface. We want you to understand your situation and see it as one with options. You do have a choice, and you do have the power to change what’s happening every day at work. After reading this book, we hope you will do what Cathy did and find the strength within yourself to overcome this adverse situation. Ultimately, if your circumstances do not improve, we hope you will search your soul for the courage to leave your organization and find a new place to work.

This book will provide you with the information you need to get the bully to BACK OFF! Read each chapter carefully, and take action.

Before we explore workplace bullying and how to deal with it, it is important to clear up any misunderstandings you or others might have about it. In the case of workplace bullying, knowledge is power.

#1: There is no such thing as “workplace bullying”

When we think about “bullying,” most of us think about the schoolyard and not about the workplace. However, workplace bullying is very real, and its destructive effects are also very real.
Heinz Leymann, a social scientist from Sweden, was the first to document abusive behaviors in adults at work. He and a colleague, Bo-Göran Gustavsson, published the first ever article on psychological violence at work in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in 1984. Since then, Leymann has published several research articles on the topic, the most popular of which was his first paper in English, published in another scientific journal called Violence and Victims in 1990. Leymann is credited as the forefather of research on workplace bullying, and was the first to notice that it can result in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and even in suicide. Since the publication of his articles, thousands of research studies on aggressive and bullying behaviors at work have been conducted around the world—documenting how widespread, common, and damaging they are.
Should anyone try to tell you that you are not being bullied because, in their mind, that’s not something that happens to adults at work, tell them that 20+ years of research on workplace bullying says otherwise. Some research has indicated that 50% of the population is bullied (e.g., Rayner, 1997), and in some cases even as much as 75% (e.g., Einarsen & Raknes, 1997).
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), found in their study that almost 25% of American businesses have some level of bullying happening in their workplace. This study also found that 11% of the bullying incidents were committed against customers (Blosser, 2004).
CareerBuilder.com, a major job search engine, found in their recent survey of over 5,600 people that one in four people is bullied at work (Grasz, 2011).
The Workplace Bullying Institute, who conducted a study with Zogby International in 2007 and again in 2010, found that 35% of the American workforce is bullied, and an additional 15% have witnessed bullying against a co-worker in the past. That means, according to their studies, 50% of the workforce has been exposed to workplace bullying. Their studies also found that bullying is four times more prevalent than illegal forms of discrimination or harassment (bullying is not illegal, by the way).
The Employment Law Alliance, a group of 3,000 attorneys from around the world, found in their survey that nearly 45% of American workers have been bullied during their careers (Hirschfeld, 2007).
Finally, in the Corporate Leavers Survey, a survey conducted by an organization called the Level Playing Field Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on fairness in the workplace, 74% of respondents indicated they had been bullied at a former employer’s, and 71% indicated they had also been publicly humiliated (2007).
All of these numbers point to one thing: bullying at work is real and widespread.