A Harvard Business Review article titled: ‘Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?’ says that inspirational leaders “… selectively show their weaknesses” and individuals who bully may use this rationale as justification for bullying behaviour. However, the article goes on to say that inspirational leaders actually show their approachability and humanity by allowing others to see these weaknesses.

When determining if someone’s behaviour is tough management or bullying, there are a couple questions to consider:

• First, how pervasive is the behaviour? A one-off verbal outburst could potentially be understood and forgiven; ongoing behaviour and physical aggression cannot. Tough managers will apply their standards, however high they are, to all staff members while bullies often target one individual at a time.

• Second, what environment is the behaviour creating? Bullying creates an environment of fear, where the victim and other individuals walk on eggshells for fear of triggering an outburst. It can also create a climate of indifference or denial, where individuals who are not targeted by the bully convince themselves that the victim deserves the treatment, pretend that it is not happening, or convince themselves that it is not that big a deal. 

Tough managers create an environment where individuals know what the standards are and work hard to achieve those standards set. Anyone who fails to meet those standards knows what to expect from the manager.

A tough manager rather than a bully is also open to feedback about their behaviour and can modify it when it is unproductive. Individuals who are being bullied find it difficult, if not impossible, to give the bully feedback about their behaviour, not least because bullying undermines the individual’s confidence. Bullies also tend to be very savvy about controlling their image, particularly with individuals above them in the organisational hierarchy, which makes it even more difficult for victims to come forward and convince others of the severity of the problem.

An essential part of addressing any kind of bullying in the workplace is to have a performance management system that assesses individuals against both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of performance:

• The ‘what’ of performance includes objectives, key performance indicators and targets.
• The ‘how’ is the behaviour the organisation expects of its leaders.

Behavioural frameworks used for performance management should include both the positive expression of behaviours as well as the negative expression of those behaviours. For example, CHPD’s High Performance Behaviour framework includes positive influence - selling your ideas to others and looking for win-win solutions as well as negative influence – belittling others’ ideas in an effort to make your own ideas look better.

Organisations that look only at the ‘what’ of performance almost inevitably drive a focus on short-term Results, achieved through what often looks like bullying, while organisations that look at both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of performance drive sustainable Results because their employees remain engaged even when times are tough.

Influencing skills are critical in today’s business world because it frees leaders up to focus on the issues that genuinely require their attention. Bullying and coercion generates compliance, while influencing secures the genuine commitment of employees. Leaders who generate compliance will find that they have to oversee employees constantly to make sure they are doing what they have been told to do. They will also have to spend their time giving employees detailed instructions on how to do their jobs because individuals become so concerned that they will do something ‘wrong’ that they stop thinking for themselves. Leaders who generate commitment will find that their time is freed up for other activities that add much greater value than micro-managing and directing their staff.

Influencing skills are also critical because staff who are committed to an organisation and its leadership are much easier to retain, and human capital is the most valuable asset that most organisations have. Everyone has heard the saying that people join organisations and leave managers. Although current economic conditions mean that individuals who use bullying and coercion may be able to keep staff in the short-term, cultural values have shifted and most individuals are no longer willing to stay in organisations where leaders take an ‘command and control’ approach to leadership.

The most effective influencers are those that are both seen and heard. Speaking a great deal or very loudly does not mean that you are heard.

Factors that increase a leader’s ability to be heard include:

• Being respected
• Gaining people’s trust
• Having knowledge
• Being credibile
• Having a clear message
• Being confidence
• Having support from others (lobbying)

Factors that increase a leader’s ability to be seen include:

• Getting about within the organisation (taking the opportunities to travel)
• MBWA (Management By Walking About)
• Giving advice/opinion in response to requests for information
• Getting your name known
• Volunteering for additional projects that are cross-organisational
• Getting good PR – corporate videos, articles, etc.

Obviously, ‘being seen’ is easier when using influence in your own department or region. It is therefore vitally important to influence by ‘being heard’ when working across regions or remotely, for example, by e-mail.

One final thing to be aware of and that’s how non-verbal communication affects influencing. Mehrabian (1972) estimated that our understanding of another person is based:

• 55% on non-verbal signals - how they look and behave
• 38% on the way they say it - intonation
• 7% on what they actually say

As human beings we make instant judgements about each other. The starting point for non-verbal communication then is to recognise that you involuntarily send off messages to other people all the time and that people use mental shortcuts to make an assessment of you. 

So leaders should remember:

• Non-verbal messages must match verbal ones to effectively influence
• Lack of consistency between verbal and non-verbal messages is generally taken as an indication that someone is lying

A combination of the right performance management system and some appropriate influencing skills training should ensure that an organisation Benefits from effective influencing rather than damaging bullying.