Do You Work For a Bully Boss? - Industry Trend or Event

New-economy managers can be tough to work for. Many are crossing the line into abuse.

Daniel Walker's boss had a nickname for him: the Village Idiot. He called him that at department meetings whenever Walker -- a 36-year-old group manager -- made a suggestion, and when he talked about Walker with other employees at the Southern California high-tech manufacturing company.

But the harassment didn't stop there. Walker's boss frequently screamed profanities at him in public, refused to share critical information on deadlines and productivity goals and gave Walker and his subordinates conflicting instructions.

"It was little things like that all the time," remembers Walker, who has since moved to a new job to escape his boss. "I just felt like I was there for him to thrash."

Workplace bullying is an experience that four out of five employees -- 23 million people -- will deal with at some point during their careers, according to a Wayne State University study. It doesn't just make for a hard day at the office. Being the victim of a brutal boss leads to clinical depression in 41 percent of victims, according to a survey by Bullybusters.org, an online nonprofit in Benicia, Calif., that advises victims of workplace abuse. The behavior also causes sleep disorders, ulcers, high blood pressure and even post-traumatic stress disorder. It eats away at self-confidence and leaves victims feeling inadequate and isolated.

Bullying is also bad for business. Studies show that overly aggressive bosses cause high turnover rates, reduced productivity and increased employee absences. But separating the bullies from the tough operators is a difficult and unpopular task, especially in high-tech and Internet industries where stress is considered a motivator and demanding higher-ups are the norm. And the victims are often hesitant to come forward, fearing that others will see them as weak or incompetent.

"It's a silent epidemic in U.S. business," claims Gary Namie, head of Bullybusters.

TOUGH GUY OR TERRORIST?

Paul Westlund worked his way up from temporary technician to the lead of the software development department at a San Francisco Bay Area payroll company before he ran into his bully. He says a new manager targeted him for abuse after Westlund defended a co-worker the manager was yelling at in public. After that, Westlund became the target.

His boss began finding small ways to harass him and make his job more difficult, says Westlund. He reduced Westlund's security clearance from 24-7 to business hours but refused to give a reason. He told Westlund's subordinates to ignore his instructions. And he gave him written warnings for mistakes Westlund says were fabricated.

That systematic attempt to undermine a target's work performance is one of the key factors separating a bully from a fair-but-demanding superior, says Namie. Bullies use a pattern of small and insidious events over a prolonged period of time. Each act by itself may not seem abusive, but the cumulative effect makes the work environment intolerable, he explains.

"Tough bosses draw a line in the sand: They say, 'Here are the goals you need to reach, and if you don't reach them here are the consequences,'" says Columbia University Professor Emeritus Harvey Hornstein, author of Brutal Basses and Their Prey. By contrast, bully bosses see information as power and use it to intimidate and impair their targets.

Namie of Bullybusters compares workplace bullying to domestic violence. In both situations, the victims often blame themselves, and their self-esteem suffers.

That was true for Westlund. The experience eroded his self-confidence and left him depressed and bitter, he says. Going to work made him feel like a "trapped animal."

"I enjoyed what I did and I wanted the place to be successful," notes the 36-year-old. "But I had to shut down to handle this guy. I felt so used. It changed my Life."

BULLIED TO DEATH

The consequences of bullying can also be physical. For one midlevel manager at a Large computer-software company in the Bay Area, being the target of a bully led to serious health problems.

"I was having nightmares and insomnia, I gained a lot of weight and I developed back problems," recalls the 45-year-old woman, who doesn't want to be named. Her bully was a female supervisor who had gone through five people in the victim's position in the previous year, she says.

The woman often dreamed her boss held other employees at gunpoint or physically attacked her. The situation became so stressful that she would develop migraine headaches on Sunday night just thinking of going to work the next day. Her doctor recommended she take antidepressants if she wanted to continue at her job.

That doesn't surprise Namie. He's tracked bullying cases that have led to strokes, heart attacks, even suicide. He adds that 50 percent of bullies are women -- and they target other women more than 80 percent of the time.

BAD FOR BUSINESS

While there is no simple answer for why bosses become tyrants, experts agree that the exponential growth of the economy during the mid-1990s, followed by today's corporate downsizing, has led to a culture where bullies flourish. And new-economy companies can be some of the worst culprits. During the flush days of the high-tech boom, talent was so hard to find that companies often promoted inexperienced managers who Lacked the expertise and people skills necessary to be successful leaders. As layoffs and closures continue, many of those managers are becoming tougher in an attempt to prove their worth to the company.