How Effective Leadership Can Prevent Workplace Bullying

The impact of workplace bullying on individual’s performance and well-being and how effective leadership can prevent workplace bullying
1. Introduction
Among the most salient aspects of an organizational climate potentially impacting an individual’s job satisfaction is workplace bullying on the part of coworkers or superiors. It constitutes any immoral or negative workplace issue such as abuse, harassment, etc. (Yahaya et al., 2012). It may be defined as a typically persistent, personal attack by one individual in a workplace on another, through the use of psychologically and emotionally abusive behaviors. This includes incessant unwelcome, demeaning, unpleasant conduct meted out by one or more people on another person or group within the organization. Yahaya and colleagues (2012) maintain that workplace bullying basically represents an act of aggression, frequently entailing psychological abuse and even, on occasion, minor levels of physical aggression. One must bear in mind the fact that the act of bullying can have very serious, potentially lethal consequences. In this paper, the negative effect workplace bullying has on personnel welfare and performance, besides the role of efficient leadership in preventing cases of workplace bullying, will be addressed.
Every individual naturally anticipates and welcomes a friendly work atmosphere, and the occurrence of adverse, immoral events will negatively impact personnel morale, turnover rates, and performance on the job; consequently, corporate results will suffer. A victim of bullying will be unable to function properly and effectively perform job tasks. Further, he/she will shy away from participating in certain extra-role behaviors that lend the company a competitive edge. Within the service sector, the client-service provider relationship determines personnel outcomes’ immense contribution to increasing client satisfaction with the service (Tag-Eldeen, Barakat and Dar, 2017). Hence, it is a rather vital task to examine workplace bullying, followed by tackling its sources and effects.
Workplace bullying has major consequences which must not be neglected. Its adverse impacts on the bullied person include decreased feelings of self-worth, anxiety, depression, stress, fatigue, and breakdown (Obicci, 2015). Furthermore, bullying has been linked to risks of developing PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and identity-related issues. The effects of bullying go beyond the workplace, impacting people’s overall quality of life. It has been found to be linked to increased powerlessness and decreased feelings of individual control and self-reliance.
2. Workplace bullying and individual’s performance
Personnel performance may be described as the capacity of handling external and internal relations and operations. This encompasses better communication, group and interpersonal processes, and capability of managing every sort of business issue. Further, it entails incorporation of better decision processes, increased efficacy and productivity, openness, better and more cost-effective resource utilization, increased collaboration and trust between members of the company, and enhanced destructive conflict management ability (Tag-Eldeen et al., 2017). The abovementioned objectives arise out of a value structure grounded in the following positive outlook towards mankind’s nature: individuals placed within supportive settings can attain superior growth and achievement levels.
Evidence exists to prove the fact that bullying within workplaces has adverse impacts, not only on the person being subject to it but also to the company. The victim may end up suffering from a decline in physical or psychological health. Psychological conditions may develop, which can ultimately result in loss of self-respect and self-esteem and even, in the worst case, suicidal ideation. Besides its influence on the victim, researchers indicate that individuals who are witness to such instances of bullying depict likelihood of experiencing certain aforementioned symptoms as well (Leblebici, 2012).
Prior researches into the association of bullying with job performance suggest that increased exposure to workplace bullying decreases job performance. Further, according to a meta-analysis, increased workplace bullying/harassment was weakly linked to poorer work performance levels (Obicci, 2015; Tag-Eldeen et al., 2017). With respect to counterproductive workplace conduct, the study by Dehue and coworkers (2012) demonstrated a substantial effect of interpersonal discord and other social stressors on counterproductive workplace conduct. According to the authors, workers subject to dissatisfaction or negative emotions will end up getting even by resorting to such conduct against the “hostile” entity responsible for the surfacing of such negative emotions within them. The findings of a meta-analysis by Devonish (2013) suggest an appreciable positive impact of workplace bullying on the intent to jump ship and counterproductive workplace conduct. Additionally, a scrutiny of workplace bullying’s contribution and victims’ related emotional responses demonstrated that with increase in bullying (and related adverse emotional response), counterproductive workplace conduct increases in frequency and intensity. A past research on the subject of individual-directed citizenship behaviors indicated that a growth in perceived abusive supervision was predictive of decreased citizenship behavior levels (Devonish, 2013; Leblebici, 2012). This research is not in the form of a direct scrutiny of workplace bullying but it does describe and operationalize abusive supervision by relying on behavioral descriptors such as terrorization, degradation, suppression of vital facts, and explicit and hidden aggressive conduct belonging to the behavioral domain of bullying at workplace settings.
Empirical research establishes the likelihood of affective psychological health mediating workplace bullying’s impacts (when considered in the form of a stressor) on performance at one’s job. Such researches prove the existence of important linkages between psychological health and bullying, besides relationships between performance and psychological welfare indicators. For instance, numerous longitudinal and cross-sectional researches indicate that the occurrence of workplace bullying adversely and directly affects job-related depression and job satisfaction (Giorgi et al., 2016; Tag-Eldeen et al., 2017). Further, one can find a similarly sound evidence pool suggesting that job-related depression and job satisfaction significantly predict personnel conduct and performance. This pool of evidence offers a robust academic base for arguing on and testing the likely case for indicators of psychological health as mediators of the personnel performance-workplace bullying link.
2.1. Workplace bullying, job satisfaction and performance
Studies targeted at ascertaining bullying incidence suggested that nursing staff victimized by workplace bullies reported substantially decreased work satisfaction levels, and increased turnover tendency, anxiety, and depression (Tag-Eldeen et al., 2017). But employer/organizational support was shown to be capable of safeguarding nursing staff from a few detrimental impacts of bullying. Likewise, other research scholars claim that exposure to bullying has the following negative consequences: decreased job satisfaction levels, potential to end up jobless, increased truancy, physical and psychosomatic disease symptoms, increased turnover intent, increased turnover rate and reduced efficiency and dedication to one’s job. Bullying as an affective relationship discord variant adversely influences personnel performance. But there are various factors including dissatisfaction, illness, truancy and turnover which render it challenging to explicitly establish the effects bullying experiences have on performance at one’s workplace activities and tasks, since certain workers are known to deliver adequate performance despite being victimized by bullies. Literature analyses indicate that notwithstanding the description, grouping, form, and strategy adopted in workplace bullying analysis, the act does influence personnel conduct and outlook. The research aimed at studying the link between workplace bullying, personnel performance and satisfaction keeping in mind an unindustrialized country as much of the pool of evidence available on the subject is based on information gleaned from industrialized countries.
Researches analyzing the association of job performance with job satisfaction yield controversial results. According to Obicci (2015), the concept of satisfied individuals exhibiting greater productivity was widely believed during the seventies. But it was tough to garner advocates for the theory that personnel performance was appreciably affected by job satisfaction. Aslam and Hussain (2015), in support of the above, observe that a majority of prior researches record a fragile, slightly inconsistent link between personnel performance at the workplace and their job satisfaction. Tag-Eldeen and colleagues’ (2017) findings, in contrast to prior opinions, demonstrated that job satisfaction predicted personnel performance and the association was more profound in case of professional jobs. Moreover, Yahaya and coworkers (2012) were able to establish a sound linkage between personnel performance and job satisfaction; nevertheless, they, too, observed that the linkage was inconsistent in nature. In other words, an inconclusive association exists between personnel performance and job satisfaction.
Leblebici (2012) established that personnel being subject to workplace bullying every day was a common phenomenon. Regardless of its intensity or kind, the act of bullying has an adverse influence on individuals’ job performance and overall wellness; in the interest of the company, it has to be shunned by management. A company’s workforce represents an important pillar of the business and in order for achieving corporate success, it is essential to offer personnel a friendly, supportive and favorable work climate. Indeed, personnel reporting less exposure to workplace bullying deliver more superior performance as compared to personnel with greater workplace bullying exposure. Likewise, bullying has an adverse impact on job satisfaction; further, a satisfied person will be able to deliver more superior performance. Consequently, it is imperative that corporations come up with, and implement, zero bullying tolerance policies through the application of harsh sanctions for bullies and the provision of appropriate assistance to their victims. Such a step will tend to decrease the act’s adverse impacts on personnel performance and job satisfaction.
3. Workplace bullying and impact on individual wellbeing
Bullying at organizations negatively affects victims’ health owing to the associated stress generated within them. They experience feelings of anxiety and dispiritedness. Experiences of workplace bullying take their toll on the victim’s physical and psychological health. Concurrently, a show of anxiety makes victims appear more vulnerable and convenient to target, resulting in escalated abuse and harassment (Hussain & Aslam, 2015).
Innumerable research works concentrate on workplace bullying’s impacts on physical and psychological health. Empirical studies based in several nations offer information alluding to the adverse impacts of bullying. An American study revealed that abused employees depicted weaker self-assessments within health status reports. Furthermore, perceived harassment at work was associated with a forty-two percent growth in projected truancy (Asfaw et al., 2014). A Turkey-based research noted that employees subject to bullying reported greater depression and anxiety, elevated work-induced stress levels, and decreased job satisfaction (Giorgi et al., 2016). A Dutch research revealed that personnel reporting bullying incidents at least once a week suffered from increased health issues, weak health, and greater absenteeism (Dehue et al., 2012). Within the population of Australia-based working pupils, workplace bullying experiences were associated with resignation intent and physical ailments.
Simply having to spend one’s time day after day in an atmosphere where one has to witness somebody else being bullied would make several people consider giving up. Coyne and colleagues (2017) assert that nursing staff who aren’t directly affected by bullying incidents but simply work within an atmosphere in which bullying incidents happen experienced a greater desire to resign as compared to the actual victims. Such “ambient” bullying can greatly impact firms, and its identification can add to a novel statistical outlook on the subject.
Researchers reveal that males and females experience identical forms of workplace bullying with associated adverse short-term health impacts being identical (Eriksen, Hogh & Hansen, 2016). But their long-run health results are rather dissimilar. Females are more negatively impacted in the long run, with a twofold increase in their sickness absence and greater consumption of antidepressants. Male victims of bullies depict a twofold greater likelihood of resigning as compared to non-bullied individuals; however no significant link was established between long-run treatment/sickness related absences and bullying (Wolke et al., 2013). In case of female victims of bullying, increased antidepressant consumption persists years following bullying exposure, suggesting long-run health effects of bullying. Male victims do not display any appreciable long-run health impacts; however, they do depict increased absenteeism.
3.1. Workplace Bullying and Psychological Distress
Empirical research into the subject of workplace bullying reveals a broad gamut of intangible consequences of bullying on victims, including mood disorders and detrimental effects on interpersonal relationships. Numerous scholars worldwide note serious psychological consequences like stress, depression, anxiety, aggressiveness, fatigue, psychosomatic indications, hatred, decreased self-worth, and medical symptoms like muscular pain, stomach ailments, trembling, headache and panic attacks (Giorgi et al., 2016). Giorgi and coworkers (2015) discovered an association between workplace bullying and weak psychological health connected, successively, with abnormal conduct. The gravity of this issue can be corroborated by workplace bullying’s identification as the greatest depression and anxiety predictor in comparison with other occupational stressors. Longitudinal studies have revealed a relationship between depression and workplace bullying (Hussain & Aslam, 2015).
Besides, in the worst instances, victims might, on account of agonizing experiences, end up taking their own lives or developing PTSD or other harmful consequences. A few PTSD indications include avoidance, isolation, attention issues, aggressiveness, irritability and emotional numbness (Arnsten et al., 2015). The aforementioned symptoms apparently indicate impairments in self-management capabilities like self-will, adaptableness, accomplishment drive and assiduousness. Thus, bullying experiences apparently give rise to mental distress that further results in reduced self-management.
In biological terms, stress-giving experiences end up impairing prefrontal cortex (in charge of the domain of flexible, objective-targeted conduct) functioning and reinforce the amygdala’s (in charge, chiefly, of emotional responses) innate psychological responses. Thus, an individual’s capacity of deterring improper impulses, regulating one’s attention and accurately grasping the nature and consequences of one’s actions will be hampered as well (Arnsten et al., 2015). Mental distress arising due to workplace bullying and other stressful experiences ultimately result in exacerbated cantankerousness, decreased comprehension and poor decisions.
4. Effective leadership in preventing workplace bullying
Owing to workplace bullying’s adverse impacts on employees as well as companies, an urgent need surfaces to react to and fight this phenomenon. At the level of the organization, it is pivotal to have managers at every level commit to deal with the issue. Additional steps might necessitate the involvement of every managerial level for evaluating the existing communication scenario, ascertaining avenues to improve, and bringing changes into effect. Leadership contributes greatly to permitting bullying within workplaces. Organizational leadership is certainly capable of influencing subordinates susceptible to bullying by clearly outlining acceptable and unacceptable conduct. Managers who promote a supportive workplace climate and, to be more specific, delineate what constitutes ethically correct (and incorrect) conduct ought to effectively tackle and decrease cases of bullying. An ethical manager positively impacts the workforce’s ethicality and pro-social conduct (Hutchinson & Hurley, 2013). This sort of ethical conduct improves moral reasoning, successively impacting how far personnel get targeted by ethically questionable workplace scenarios.
Unquestionably, steps to counter bullying should commence from the top levels in the organization. It is crucial for management to convey to the workforce that bullying is absolutely unacceptable. Quality companies have leaders who practice and preach dignity. The establishment of an open, transparent and reciprocally respectful channel of corporate communication contributes to decreasing bullying and similar maltreatment of workers. A socially intelligent manager can work wonders when it comes to the cultivation of a healthy workplace climate. Social intelligence necessitates prudence about as well as in social dealings (Tuckey et al., 2017). Compassion, concern for fellow human beings and other such attributes form the crux of social intelligence. Companies known for valuing employees recruit, galvanize and promote socially intelligent leaders (especially HR departmental heads and mid-level managers whose job description entails extensive dealings with all levels of workers). Such leaders ought to be knowledgeable on the subject of workplace bullying, endowed with the authority to deal with bullying-related issues in a timely, just manner, and receive full organizational support in such endeavors.
As workplace bullying represents an ethically problematic organizational phenomenon, situation, ethical management is anticipated to be linked negatively with bullying. Giorgi and colleagues (2016) maintain that for being considered an ethical manager, one needs to be an ethical individual with strong personal moral values including honesty, a sense of justice, trustworthiness, and principled. Another key ethical leadership characteristic is: an ethical manager needs to proactively strive towards shaping subordinates’ ethical (as well as unethical) conduct and prioritize ethics on the corporate agenda. Therefore, ethical managers underscore ethicality in their professional as well as personal lives, promote fairness, and set a fine example for subordinates.
Efficient leaders are responsible for the cultivation of a corporate climate which promotes professionalism, cooperation, open communication, and similar components vital to ensuring a safe atmosphere for employees to function effectively. It is crucial for companies to have in place a conduct code which outlines appropriate and inappropriate actions; this necessitates efficient leaders because if such leaders are present within a company, the workforce will acquire knowledge and training on what constitutes professional conduct. Moreover, it is imperative to hold every individual in the company accountable for exhibiting acceptable conduct (Laschinger & Fida, 2014; Hutchinson & Hurley, 2013). An efficient organizational management needs to strive towards guaranteeing their own conduct typifies identical standards as those established for the workforce. Organizational leadership ought to participate directly in the interacting with personnel and frequently going on rounds, demonstrating professionalism and monitoring workforce interaction and compliance with the company’s conduct code.
Successful, efficacious organizational managers ought to engage in constant interactions and demonstrate superior levels of professionalism when dealing with workers. Continuous staff education and training proves beneficial when it comes to clarifying the company’s conduct code and galvanizing and emboldening them to espouse values such as respect, collaboration and open communication which form part of positive company culture (Laschinger & Fida, 2014). Focused training and educational workshops may inculcate the skills of conflict management and team-building among employees, facilitating the prevention and alleviation of bullying behavior. Lastly, assertiveness training may educate employees on the subject of the right defense mechanisms that may be adopted to counter bullying.
5. Conclusion
The issue of workplace bullying represents an injurious problem which results in physical and mental individual damage. Furthermore, companies incur losses in the form of decreased productivity and performance, loss of personnel morale, and fiscal consequences. The phenomenon of workplace bullying results in poor physical as well as mental health (anxiety issues, decreased vitality, etc.) owing to victim exposure to highly stressful scenarios. Researches demonstrate the positive impacts of efficient leadership, in the form of reducing the adverse impacts of bullying at organizations on the victims, peers and the company itself. Management, supported by the whole company, must prove their dedication to cultivating and sustaining a safe, positive, healthy work atmosphere which promotes cooperation and transparency in communication, and forbids disruptive conduct such as bullying.






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