I remember being at primary school, about five or six years old, I saw a group of kids gathered around in a circle, lots of noise, so I went over to see what was going on.
As you might expect, there was bit of a ‘scrap’ going on. Kid A picking on Kid B, and everyone seemed to be cheering for Kid A. No idea why, whether anything had happened, but I thought “this ain’t right, this isn’t fair!”
So, I stepped in. Against what everyone else was doing, I stepped in to protect Kid B. I helped get him out of that situation and when we spoke about it afterwards, I seem to recall it was because of his clothes, because he wasn’t dressed in whatever it was six year olds wanted to wear back then! (all I remember is I loved wearing my He-Man t-shirt and Mr. T digital watch!)
Anyway, that’s how it started, that’s when I first experienced, and developed my intolerance for bullies.
Throughout my childhood, and teenage years, there are many stories where I stepped in to help other kids that were on the receiving end of bullying. Having changed schools, having learned martial arts to be able to defend myself, I had more confidence to tackle the bullies. Don’t get my wrong, I don’t like fighting, but I knew how to if I needed, and I wasn’t afraid of standing up for the right thing.
Fast forward to today, I’m older, much older, but the one thing I still can’t stand and do not tolerate, is bullying, of any kind.
Bullying in the workplace exists. Amazing considering workplaces are full of grown adults. I hope it’s not commonplace where you work, but it happens. It doesn’t (usually) take the form of punch ups and scraps surrounded by co-workers but tends to be more vindictive, aggressive, manipulative, and deliberate.
I had the misfortune recently to come across a bullying incident. I won’t go in to details but basically discovered a senior leader and their ‘associates’ bullying a junior member member of staff. It was all very verbal, and intimidating behaviour – no physical violence.
I did what I’ve always done. Stepped in. Confronted them to find out what was happening. They’d completely misunderstood a situation, and had a real issue with the organisation involved so were already feeling more angry about things. Their fury was taken out on the junior member of staff. I challenged them. Told them they were out of order, had misunderstood what was going on, and their behaviour was not appreciated in the situation were we in. I asked them (politely) to leave. They refused. Honestly, this individual was crazed. They ended up screaming at me and in full finger wagging mode!
After the event, I reported what had happened. I don’t expect anything to really be done about it, but thought the organisation needs to know that it happened.
The easy thing would be for me to ignore it. The safest thing would be to walk away and not worry about it. Not my problem after all. Whilst they were rude to me, I don’t need to see them again. So why care?
But here’s the thing. This was a senior leader. As such, they have responsibility for other people. How many others have been subjected to the abuse this person dishes out? I don’t know. Hopefully no one and hope hopefully they were having a bad day. But I had to do the right thing. I had to report it, for all I know, there could be a long list of reported bullying.
I will never, ever tolerate bullying.
If you see bullying of any kind, for any reason, I urge you not to take the easy option and turn your head, do the right thing and take action.
Think Can Will 