What is workplace bullying?
Bullying can involve arguments and rudeness, but it can also be more subtle. Excluding and ignoring people and their contribution, unacceptable criticisms and overloading people with work are other forms of bullying.
What effect does bullying have?
Bullying can make working life miserable. You lose all faith in yourself, you can feel ill and depressed, and find it hard to motivate yourself to work.
What bully is not
You may hear different opinions about what is classed as bullying in the workplace, some of these include:-
- Clash of personalities – if you are being belittled, excluded to intimidated you are not classing with someone, this is bullying.
- Leadership style – aggressive or dominant managers may try and pass bullying off as their “style” of management, but if they make you feel threatened then this is bullying.
- Character building – negative remarks and actions towards you will not build any character, instead it will wear your character down, making you question yourself and affect your mental health.
But all these are cases off bullying.
What can I do?
Find yourself an ally. Don’t be ashamed to tell people what’s going on. Bullying is serious, and you need to let people know what’s happening so they can help you. By sharing your experiences you may discover that it’s happening to other people, too.
Here at Cheryl King Counselling we offer bullying counselling services to offer effective support mechanism for victims of bullying in terms of helping them understand what has happened to them, helping them to cope with anxiety and rebuilding self esteem and confidence.