In cases of systematic bullying, the works council should be involved.
(Photo: imago images / Westend61)
Dusseldorf “I remember the case of a manager who was very erratic and often reacted emotionally,” says Sebastian Reiche. The supervisor only wrote e-mails in capital letters. He downsized team members because of minimal mistakes or, for example, weaker sales figures. A clear case of bossing, says Reiche. He advises start-ups on HR issues and teaches as a management professor at IESE Barcelona.
Behind this is a perfidious kind of bullying at work. Perpetrators are those who are above their victims in the corporate hierarchy: bosses. This also makes it difficult for those affected to defend themselves. But there are strategies that can help.
There are many reasons why leaders abuse power. “One important explanation is the protection of one’s own self-esteem,” says Dieter Zapf. The professor at the Chair of Work and Organizational Psychology at Frankfurt’s Goethe University has been researching bullying in the workplace since the 1990s.
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