How to Spot Bullying On Your Team - Know the Signs of a Bully at Work

Knowing how to spot bullying on your team as a manager is super useful. Bullying is very damaging to team motivation and performance.

Bullying is very tough for those on the receiving end of being bullying behaviour. Not doing anything about bullying – through ignorance, not knowing what to do or being unwilling to act – is very damaging to your reputation and standing as a manager.

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Many signs of a bully at work are subtle and therefore hard to spot. This makes the job of spotting bullying in the workplace a lot harder. Identifying workplace bullying is even harder because may other issues can produce similar symptoms in employees being bullied.

How to spot bullying as a manager is a crucial first step. To help you, this video takes you through 5 symptom behaviours of employees being bullied, and 17 tactics used by those bullying at work.

One of the most critical things to do for how to spot bullying in the workplace is to make the time to observe what is happening around you and check to make sure there are no signs of workplace bullying.

Once you have spotted signs of bullying at work and investigated, then knowing how to deal with bullying at work is the next step. It is super important to take action as quickly as possible.

At the end of this video, I take you through a few tips on how to tackle bullying in the workplace.

Bullying is a horrible thing to have to suffer at any point in your life. Make it as hard as possible for bullies to successfully bully other team members.

Unfortunately, many bullies at work are managers. Managers hold positions of responsibility and have more power and influence within the business as a result. It is easier for them to overstep the mark and engage in bullying behaviour.

Keep an eye on your team members to make sure that they are not being bullied by other managers in the business. Having regularly one-on-one meetings gives you a great platform to discuss these types of issues and demonstrate your support for them.

Do your best to stop bullying in the workplace.

00:00 Intro
02:30 Why the impacts of bullying matter to you
04:21 6 Signs of employees being bullied
06:11 5 types of not-so-subtle bullying
08:07 12 types of subtle or covert bullying
12:43 Summary

More videos that you will find useful:

If you have any questions on “How to Spot Bullying on Your Team”, please leave them in the comments section below and I will get back to you.

Jess Coles

[JimmyJaxJellyStax]

The bully is often incredibly gregarious with forming a positive social connection and charm of the manager as well.

[jarinorvanto]

Changing behaviour could entice, reward, the bullies. I 'defend' by sticking to work and keep outperforming. Once I detected bullying from inferior co-workers, it became ridiculous to let them be the arbiters of moral standard or just about anything. Learning about the dark traits of personalities and toxic work environments, and applying stoic principles, have been helpful.

[c.b.]

Good list and I've experienced things from all the lists presented. Bullies are deceptive sociopaths, they usually feel nothing for others and can be very narcissistic, willing to cause others to lose their jobs to help theirs or make them look good. They dont care if you end up on the street or how much your family suffers due to their behaviour, all they care about is themselves. If I am ever a manager and I so much as hear a squeak of a bully, I will take every disciplinary action available and applicable to the situation. I'll ensure that person thinks twice before trying to bully again.

[gregoryforrest]

A experienced manager that is actually interested in making the workplace a great workplace would know how to go forward, however there is a lot of managers that are seriously incompetent close minded and completely not interested in any of team building concerns they believe they are smarter than the teams and do not consult anyone on the team. Such managers usually destroy great organizations.

[lanovia]

let's be honest - no manager cares whether someone is bullied in their department.

[DaughterofZyion]

The bully is often friends with the manager

[juliahenderson]

Recently Left Corporate America due to my last three employers being Robber Barons. I keep getting offers for employment, but I'm far from ready to take any of them. This last place was so awful that I don't want to go back into an office ever again. Literally, I felt helpless, and HR is never for the employee. Moral injuries are the worst injuries.... most of my coworkers were abused, too.

[martinriley]

Having experienced this so often in different workplaces I think the U.K. workplace has now become so toxic it’s like being back in the 1970’s again when employment laws were nearly non-existent.

[karleighe]

Most bullies are narcissistic, in my experience

[stellameii]

Withholding information is SUCH a big thing. I was victim of this often. Thank you for bringing this up
Oh also a new thing: it depends on the work surroundings but I've once worked on a canadian farm with 2 mean french girls from france and belgium who were new there, too. The girl who told us the instructions was french, too (I can't speak french) and she explained everything in french so that I got excluded and made mistakes. They also gossiped right next to me in their language and even tho I didn't understand every word, I knew they talked about me. I had to ask them about every task so they made me dependent on them. The constellation 2 against 1 played a role, too. I feel like this would have never happened if it was only one girl and me. But anyways. I'm back in Germany now, thriving in a field they thought I wasn't capable of doing ;)

[xismecwilliams]

I’m a manager and I feel like I’m being bullied, I’m being so badly micromanaged my manager has been examining my spelling in emails to the point she has called me out for poor spelling because I missed the “d” off acknowledged. She’s also made me physically read out my emails to her so she can find a fault, to the point one time she told me have I proof read my email? I said yes what’s wrong with it? She said ok read it to me, so I started.. nothing told me to read the next paragraph again nothing. Eventually she said oh must just be me must have been another email.. I feel so degraded I have dyslexia and she knows this, my spelling will never be perfect even with tools to help. I stood up for myself today and said she’s done spelling mistakes so have my colleague and so have many others across the department but they never get highlighted so why are mine. She couldn’t say just put me on a support plan that I’ve refused to sign.

[Eri-Wi-]

It used to be called slightly bullying behind closed doors.
Or in the back office in the company with the bullying within the business.

Also, if the manager or management team will also assist within the bullying process of the business.

Course some time it's the whole damm management team.

[Cirkelo]

Thank you. I needed to see these facts and patterns objectively to understand my situation. You helped me see the truth in all the manipulation, that my own spider sense was tingling about. Namaste! I can now act, and be confident.

[OK-wbdy]

As to physical threats. I was the target of an incident where a boss threw a pen at my face. He justified himself by saying that “… the pen flew off his hand…”

[jenniferjohnson]

I am the sole target of the workplace bully. Any time I bring it up to my manager. He tries to turn it on me being the problem and makes excuses for her. She is a friend of his that he brought into the organization. Currently looking because I can't take it anymore

[nighatr]

I appreciate you making this video. This kind of behavior from people that bully is NOT right and they would face Jesus to explain how they treated HIS children!

[dwaynericketts]

Very helpful but what if the manager is the bully?

[metalbelles]

Unfortunately many companies dont care or not a lot if ypure bully. They may even side with the bully manager .they just hope you leave so it makes things easy for them

[julieb]

The covert bullying segment was great, thanks

[Blackmagicphenom]

This is amazing. Thank you so much for this.