Tag: productivity

Bullying in the Workplace

Workplace Bullying

With bullying, the idea that usually comes to mind may involve children or teenagers misbehaving, discriminating, and/or harassing one another. Bullying commonly involves a power imbalance and includes behaviors that are unwanted, threatening, humiliating, harmful, aggressive, offensive, and/or intimidating. These can be both verbal and physical. Bullying can be thought of as a mechanism used to re-take control and proclaim dominance that an individual may have felt they lost at some point in their lives. Bullies usually target those who may seem smaller, weaker, younger, or more vulnerable than themselves.

However, these instances and behaviors are not exclusive to youngsters and are also prevalent in various aspects of adult life, such as interpersonal and professional relationships. Although it may be widely observed in society, it is not always recognized as ‘bullying’ and thus, appropriate interventions are not implemented. Whether it is between children, teenagers, or adults, bullying is an issue that deserves attention as it can have a detrimental impact on an individual’s mental and physical health. Mental health effects include worrying about work constantly, wanting to avoid going to work, needing time off to recover from stress, a general loss of interest, and an increased risk of anxiety and depression. The physical health effects include feeling sick or anxious when thinking about work, digestive problems, high blood pressure, headaches, decreased appetite, and poor quality of sleep.

Bullying in the workplace also causes financial difficulties as individuals tend to leave their jobs as a result of being bullied. Some examples of bullying in this context include personal attacks such as yelling, threatening, and spreading rumors, as well as manipulation tactics, such as isolation, sabotage, micromanagement, and unrealistic deadlines.

In the work environment, bullies are often found to be bosses or high-functioning employees who are valued and supported by others because of their status and contribution to the company. In these cases, bullying may involve the abuse of power such as unjustified negative performance reviews, denial of time off, and threats of termination or demotion. However, bullying can also occur in other levels of employment. Those working at the same level may bully through gossip, rumors, work sabotage, and/or criticism. Lower-level employees may bully those above them by showing continuous disrespect, refusing to complete tasks, and doing things that may portray their superior in a negative light. Bullying not only impacts the target but increases stress for all those who witness it. Employees are also impacted in the form of decreases in trust, productivity, morale, and efficiency as well as increases in absenteeism and employee turnover.

Bullying has been shown to be more prevalent in work environments that:

  • Are stressful
  • Change frequently
  • Have heavy workloads
  • Have unclear policies about employee behavior
  • Have poor employee communication and relationships
  • Have more employees who are bored and worried about job security

Bullying is recognized as a serious problem in many organizations, and while most have a zero-tolerance policy, bullying can be difficult to prove, which in turn, makes it difficult for the necessary measures to be taken. Witnesses to bullying often refrain from intervening and stay silent out of a fear of becoming a target themselves. It is important to speak up and attempt to stop bullying when we witness it, as ignoring it contributes to a harmful work environment.

Effective ways to help include:

Offering support – this could involve being a witness if the targeted individual wants to ask the bully to stop.

Listening – If someone being bullied doesn’t feel safe reporting the bullying to HR, they may find it beneficial to have someone to talk to.

Reporting the incident – A third-party account of what happened may help bring attention to the problem, allowing it to be taken seriously by management and others.

Transactional vs Transformative Leadership

The concept of leadership is quite simple: a leader is one that aims to motivate and guide others to achieve an agreed objective. However, when we consider the diversity of leaders, it starts to become a little more complicated. Immediately we start to notice vast differences in how each person leads.

Commonly known as leadership styles, it refers to a leader’s behavioral characteristics when directing, motivating, mentoring, and achieving work expectations. Fortunately, researchers have delved deep into this topic to ascertain how to better communicate and motivate teams. As a result, different theories and frameworks were developed to help identify and understand the various leadership styles.

Most leadership styles tend to be either transactional or transformative. Generally, each of these types of leadership has different ways to influence attitudes and motivation among the employees.

Transactional leadership

As the name suggests, the transactional leadership style views a leader-employee relationship as a transaction. Leaders who adopt this highly directive style base leadership on a system of rewards and penalties in order to motivate the employees. For example, higher pay given in an exchange for increased productivity. Transactional leaders use a pragmatic approach to tackle problems, think of solutions, and drive people to get things done. As a result, employees receive definite and clear commands and are often carefully monitored to ensure that these expectations are met.

Pros

  • Transactional leadership tends to be most effective when problems are straightforward and clear. This style also works better for crisis situations where a solution is needed immediately.
  • As the leader is in command, it removes room for confusion and guesswork errors.
  • Transactional leadership creates clearly defined roles. Employees know what they are told to do and what they can achieve in exchange for their performance.
  • As this leadership is based on different sources of motivation, employees are motivated to perform well and achieve these rewards.

Cons

  • A transactional approach discourages out-of-the-box thinking and creative input from the employees because of its straightforward leadership.
  • There is a lack of focus on building relationships within the work environment. Because of the strict focus on using rewards to motivate employees, transactional leaders may not consider the working environment and tend to miss an attempt to build relationships with their employees.

Transformational leadership

Transformational leadership is a leadership style that directs positive changes to the employees. Not only do these leaders aim at achieving team objectives, but they also do so by focusing on employee needs and encourages them to reach their full potential. Unlike transactional leaders, transformational leaders find solutions by brainstorming and encouraging creativity among everyone in the team through an approach that inspires, nurtures, and develops the employees.

Pros

  • Research shows that this style of leadership is associated with positive effects on career employee development, satisfaction, and wellbeing as their needs are considered when expectations are to be met.
  • Employee creative input is encouraged and valued.
  • The experience is considered purposeful and enjoyable by the employees as their own needs and growth are highlighted in the process.
  • Leaders are value-driven and ethics-focused which encourages a shared group vision.

Cons

  • Employees may experience confusion as transformational leaders tend to take more risks in their approach to meeting expectations.
  • Transformational leadership tends to become too conceptual as proper task focus may lack for those employees that need proper guidance.

Research has shown that employees are also more likely to feel inspired, empowered, and stimulated to be part of the team and exceed in their team responsibilities when they receive leadership that is transformational. As a result, employees led by a transformative leader are more satisfied and often report higher levels of individual and team performance.

Whether you learned about leadership styles after reading this blog, it is likely that you are already applying some of the elements of transactional and transformative leadership. Here are some questions that you can use as a start to reflect on if you are leading with components of transformational leadership within your professional work: These questions were adapted from and inspired by Carless, Wearing, and Mann’s (2000) work.

  • Creative: Do I encourage people to think outside the box? Do I ask questions or simply take policies and procedures at face value?
  • Interactive: Do I encourage and recognize my employees for the work they are doing? Do I make myself accessible?
  • Visionary: Do I articulate a clear vision of the future for my employees?
  • Empowering: Do I actively work to build trust and foster teamwork?
  • Passionate: Do I show enthusiasm for the work I am doing? Do I provide extra encouragement when my employees seem discouraged?
  • Relationship builders: Do I take the time to get to know my employees personally?
  • Influence agents: Do I strive to be a good role model to my employees?

To sum up the difference between transactional and transformative leadership: transactional leadership looks at how to get things done through the use of rewards and punishments, and transformational leadership looks at how to inspire and motivate people to do things.

Resilience at Work

A common recurring question within the work environment is ‘why do some people thrive and succeed in times of difficulty and others do not?’. Although there is no one right answer or characteristic of a person that guarantees organizational success, a skill that seems to significantly contribute is resilience. By definition, resilience is the ability to effectively adapt to difficulty and move forward. Several misconceptions surround the representation of a resilient person such as someone who is ‘thick-skinned’, never fails, never feels stress, and is immune to negative emotions. This stereotypical understanding of resilience is further propagated in the media for example, where individuals are praised and portrayed in a positive light for equating these unrealistic and inaccurate standards to the meaning of resilience. It is not a characteristic that some people possess, and others do not, rather, it is an active process that requires maintenance. In reality, being a resilient person does not mean being unaffected by negative situations or experiences. On the contrary, being resilient requires confronting the things that bring discomfort and experiencing emotional pain. In light of this, it is also important to realize that building resilience is a personal journey that requires considerable patience, effort, introspection, and practice.

While also considering that many individuals are now a part of a constantly connected and highly demanding work culture, resilience can be seen as especially useful in the workplace as for many people this can be a source of significant distress. Unrealistic demands, organizational change, lack of recognition, and poor interpersonal relationships are some of the most commonly reported work-related stressors, which can be naturally confusing and difficult to navigate. Coping with these stressors in a healthy way requires maintaining several interconnected factors of resilience. Such factors include how individuals manage their thoughts and feelings, set goals and foster self-motivation, focus on positive change in a way that encourages the acceptance of failures, and foster support systems inclusive of emotional and physical care.

In practice, to some people, this may look like journaling, engaging in prayer and religious rituals, or meditation and mindfulness practices. It can also look like taking time to engage in areas of their life other than work, such as pursuing a hobby or spending time with family and friends. In essence, these help individuals connect to themselves in a way that works for them and nurtures purpose in their lives as a whole, which in turn, helps them cope better with stressors in different aspects of their life such as work.

Being a resilient person in the workplace is equally important for employees of all statures as all of them, on some level, have to navigate difficult situations. Such instances may present themselves, for example, while working in collaboration with team members or adapting to a change in the organizational structure. Understanding the importance of resilience promotes empathy and consideration for others, allowing for increased internal support. Resilience enables people to separate themselves from their stressors and view their situations from an impersonal perspective. This further helps them communicate their needs and wants more effectively, handle challenges better and reduce their likelihood of burnout and presenteeism. From a broader perspective, viewing challenges as opportunities for growth and learning encourages an optimistic mindset, where individuals are passion-driven and proactively seek development, which further stimulates the progression and productivity of the company.