Today our posting is by guest author Valerie Cade, who is a world-wide authority and speaker on workplace bullying and author of Bully Free at Work™. Since some upset customers are bullies, we thought this article would be useful to you.
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Many people ask, “How is Workplace Bullying different from working with difficult people, and what exactly is workplace bullying anyway?”
Workplace bullying is repeated, deliberate, disrespectful behavior by one or more people toward another for their own gratification, which in turn harms the target.
- Bullying is deliberate, not accidental.
- Bullying is always disrespectful with intent.
- Bullying results in gratification for the bully, where the target feels severely disrespected.
- Difficult people are not necessarily out to harm another; they are out to protect their own needs. Therefore, if you can reason with a difficult person in order to show good will for their needs, they may change. A bully will not change.
Workplace bullying occurs in every country of the world, and one out of six people will report having being bullied in their lifetime. Statistics would be even higher if employees were more aware of what workplace bullying actually is.