To create a positive workplace culture, top leadership must model civility and the expected behaviors. (Part 1)

 

Before jumping into today’s topic I want to highlight an excellent, informative and inspiring podcast produced by Elizabeth Hart, founder of the organization Tailored for Success, it’s a nonprofit that works with jobseekers in transition. Elizabeth’s podcast is called Pivot Point: Success is a Journey. Pivot Point provides career and personal advice and inspiration for listeners pursuing their own journey for their success. Elizabeth interviewed yours truly on her podcast. The title, Workplace Bullying: Fired for Speaking Up, the episode was posted on March 8^th. It was a great conversation, do check out Elizabeth’s organization, and podcast, and our chat!

Governor as leader – accusations against Andrew Cuomo of poor treatment of employees and others

Bosses or organizational leaders have been all over the news lately for misconduct against their employees. Could a conscious company practice of civility change these behaviors? Maybe civility could be codified into a code of conduct that everyone from the top down is expected to follow, no exceptions.

Many of us have heard about the hot water that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is in for quite a few things, including his administration’s accounting for the number of people who died in nursing homes in New York at the height of the pandemic. I’m going to talk about what’s been said about his communication and management style. I’ll stick to things I can talk about.

Journalist Morgan Pehme wrote in the New York Post about his experience with the Governor’s staff member who called to berate him when he was about to publish a story that could implicate the governor’s administration in graft. Or cheating. The governor’s aide called the journalist at 4:30 in the morning and “threatened to destroy” his career. Here’s what Pehme said about the experience:

I remember vividly how I felt: scared. I had no reason to think these were idle threats. I was fully aware of the governor’s volcanic temper and track record of vindictiveness. If he wanted to crush me, he could and likely would.

This was a serious gut check for me. I worried about losing my livelihood, damaging my future, letting down my wife and daughter. But fortunately, I had bosses and colleagues who stood by the quality of our work. So we published the piece, like the press is supposed to do in the face of intimidation.

I’m no hero. The members of the Albany press corps regularly endure abusive calls like I received. And sometimes those calls come from the governor himself.

Pehme says that Andrew Cuomo likes “talking tough”, and says Cuomo thinks it’s a virtue. He also says Cuomo’s private abuse works in keeping a lid on negative coverage of his administration. And that’s really what abuse is, it’s an exhibition of power and wielding it over others. What other purpose does it serve other than for the practitioner’s ego?

Another article from the Washington Post is titled: Cuomo’s behavior created ‘hostile, toxic’ workplace culture for decades, former aides say.  The article refers to Cuomo’s “aggressive” style. In speaking with 20 of Cuomo’s former aides and advisers they described “a toxic culture” where the governor verbally attacks subordinates. “Some said he seemed to delight in humiliating his employees, particularly in group meetings, and would mock male aides for not being tough enough”.

Two former male aides shared names he called them that won’t be shared on this family-friendly blog.

A senior advisor for the governor, Rich Azzopardi, issued a statement that said that he never heard the governor use course language like the former male aides said he did.

Yeah… OK. Who believes that? And that’s why people like Cuomo get away with such behavior for too long. Enablers, defenders, and people who will lie for them. People who adopt his behavior like the aide who called up that journalist with threats at 4:30 in the morning.

I’ll end this story with this paragraph from the Post article.

Longtime aides described Cuomo as having a Jekyll and Hyde personality, alternately charming and raging with anger soon after. One person said, “You didn’t know which Andrew you were going to get”. Once he yelled at her so loudly that workers checked on her after. She said, it was so over the top, her own parents had never yelled at her like that.

Cuomo is given credit for having a strong work ethic and working late next to his staff. I think he could be that person without the abuse and disparagement of his staff. A strong work ethic doesn’t counteract decency… … does it?

You know, you could say, none of this is proveable. Except people have been saying these things about Cuomo for years, and the large number of people telling the same stories really has to make one think.

The modern workplace has to change. There are workplaces that do treat their employees with fairness and dignity, but what I’m trying to sound is that this is not the norm. Workplace misconduct and abuse are widespread. You wouldn’t know it from the upbeat LinkedIn articles teaching people how to be great leaders, etc. I suspect there’s a bias in LinkedIn where people who are inclined to manage the right way put themselves out there. I mean, who’s gonna post, “Ways to be an abusive leader”?! But the reality of what happens behind the curtain and within the actual organizations is another story.

Next post: Human Resources organizations’ survey results of widespread management misconduct.   

Materials and information referenced / links:

·       Pivot Point: https://anchor.fm/elizabeth-hart/episodes/Workplace-Bullying-Fired-for-Speaking-Up-eqmfre

 

·       Tailored for Success:  https://www.tailoredforsuccess.org/

 

·       Cuomo’s office terrorized me for doing my job as a journalist. By Morgan Pehme February 22, 2021: https://nypost.com/2021/02/22/cuomos-office-terrorized-me-for-doing-my-job-as-a-journalist/?utm_source=email_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons

 

·       Cuomo’s behavior created ‘hostile, toxic’ workplace culture for decades, former aides say. By Amy Brittain, Josh Dawsey, Hannah Knowles, Tracy Jan. March 6, 2021: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-toxic-workplace/2021/03/06/7f7c5b9c-7dd3-11eb-b3d1-9e5aa3d5220c_story.html

  

·       R.M. Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, 3^rd ed. (New York: Owl Books / Henry Holt, 2004).

 

·       EVERFI & HR.com HR Research Institute White Paper, Preventing Toxic Workplaces: http://info.everfi.com/rs/410-YCZ-984/images/Preventing_Toxic_Workplaces_Research_Report.pdf

 

·       SHRM Reports Toxic Workplace Cultures Cost Billions, Sept. 25, 2019. https://www.shrm.org/about-shrm/press-room/press-releases/Pages/SHRM-Reports-Toxic-Workplace-Cultures-Cost-Billions.aspx

 

·       Pfeffer, Jeffrey (2018, May 2) How your workplace is killing you. BBC.com. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180502-how-your-workplace-is-killing-you

 

·       Pfeffer, Jeffrey (2018). Dying For A Paycheck. HarperCollins.

 

·       Mastering Civility: A Manfesto for the Workplace. Christine Porath. 2016, Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

 

·       Powell, G.N. (1998) The abusive organization. Academy of Management Executive, 12(2), 5, 95-96. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1998.650520.

 

·       Your Co-Workers Might Be Killing You, by Jonah Lehrer   Wall Street Journal online, August 20, 2011.: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903392904576512233116576352

 

·       Ebeid, Fred; Kaul, Tej; Neumann, Kathleen; Shane, Hugh (2003) Workplace Abuse: Problems And Consequences. Workplace Abuse: Problems And Consequences. International Business & Economics Research Journal (IBER), 2(6). https://doi.org/10.19030/iber.v2i6.3811.

 

·       Estrin, C. B. (1996, March/April). Emotional abuse in the workplace. Legal Assistant Today, 1(2), 78-79. 

 

·       https://www.ethics.org/

 

·       https://www.shrm.org/

 

What Makes “A Great Place To Work”

 

What makes an organization a great place to work for, or, that place where you may go to and spend more time than you spend with your family – at least in pre-COVID times.

Energage is a company that organizations hire to conduct employee surveys, and every year they give a list of awards, on “Top Work Places” based on certain factors including the feedback of employees based on the surveys.

You can find the 2021 Awards for top workplaces companies at: https://topworkplaces.com/find-top-workplaces  

Energage says about “Top Places To Work”: Great Culture Is More Than Perks. Creating a Top Workplace is about more than offering great benefits and vacation time. It’s about organizational health. Employees want to align with the company’s vision, be challenged by a high-performance culture, and feel that they are valued and that their voices are heard.

Energage asked, what makes an organization a great place to work? Energage says “a healthy company culture is intentional. Some companies offer employees stock options. Others, like Google, provide their employees with free meals at work, etc. But great place to work criteria is about more than just fun employee perks.

They identified 9 qualities of what makes a great place to work, based on employee feedback surveys from various companies, this is what they learned and published on their site on August 5 of 2020, about the 9 qualities of great companies.

1.          Leadership is involved and engaged

2.          Communication is a top priority

3.          A healthy company culture is intentional

4.          Leadership understands threats and areas for improvement

5.          Innovation is critical to success

6.          Individuals are empowered to grow

7.          The focus is on employees

8.          Compensation and benefits are competitive

9.          They stand out as an employer of choice

I want to highlight some of the information they share under specific points:

1.   Leadership is involved and engaged: Employees find it easier to support the mission when they see leaders holding themselves to the same standard they hold others to. Energage says 83 percent of employees at Fortune 500 companies in the Best Companies to Work For category said about their leadership, that they “lived out the same values expected of employees, making them more trustworthy”. This contrasted with the 42 percent of employees, putting trust in their leadership at what Energage termed “average workplaces”.

4. Leadership understands threats and areas for improvement: Top Workplaces utilize employee feedback to better understand what makes a great workplace and also pinpoint areas where more effort is needed to create positive change. Transparency in this respect is often what makes a great workplace in the eyes of top talent who appreciate an organization that is committed to honesty and growth rather than denial and stagnation.

7. The focus is on employees: Great workplaces have shifted their focus from getting the most out of their employees to giving back to their employees to ensure their needs are met. This translates to better business outcomes that are often a result of employee-focused decisions. When organizations include employee survey data in their decision making, they are able to go straight to the heart of the business and better understand where they fall short. Building on survey insights not only brings about legitimate, actionable change, it also lets your employees actively participate in the growth of the organization.

Not all workplaces are in a position to implement every single item, but I think there is information that everyone who has employees can learn from.   Everyone can start with the basics, to start, such as a focus on employees, and empowerment of individuals contributing to the work.

Here’s an example. I recently visited a record store, the old-fashioned type that still sells vinyl records. I have visited the store for years. As I walked with a friend who is also a frequent visitor, they commented how helpful the people who work there are. I realized that in all the times I have visited I have never had one staffer be less than completely professional, pleasant, and helpful.

Then I thought about this. The owne is not always present. However, when he is there, he is always the same, courteous, polite helpful, to EVERY customer. When he is working in the store, unless you know who he is you would think he’s just another employee; he gives wide berth to his staff and lets them work with the customers without interference. I only know he’s the owner because a friend who has known him for years told me. It’s now clear to me that owner sets the pace for his employees. Leadership, as the cliché goes, starts from the top down. I have no doubt the owner of that record store treats his employees well, and they in turn pass that on to the customer, including following his example. You may say “it’s just a record store”, but their professionalism would hold up in any office setting.

One other thing, I have an acquaintance who worked in the store when he was new in town and he has since moved on to an excellent high-paying job. But, he still frequents the store and has nothing but positive words for the owner and his former colleagues.  Either the owner hires well, manages well, or both.

Back to Energage. Energage identifies itself as a Certified B Corporation. I have since learned that organizations that are certified B Corporations are organizations whose performance must meet certain standards such as: Social and environmental performance; public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. To become a B Corp, organizations go through the equivalent of “Fair Trade” certification, or the equivalent of the US Department of Agriculture regulatory process for foods. B Corp organizations identify themselves this way: they identify themselves as a community “that works toward reduced inequality, lower levels of poverty, a healthier environment, stronger communities, and the creation of more high–quality jobs with dignity and purpose”. In other words, they say they are committed to using business as a force for good.

What Makes an Employer a Great Place to Work, asked Mark Feffer. Feffer answered the question in an online article published June 1, 2015 by The Society for Human Resource Management (also called SHRM).  

Feffer talked about some of the perks offered by tech companies, while saying, those perks are “only part of the story”. He quotes China Gorman, a former CEO of the Great Place to Work Institute, the research and consulting firm behind the list of Fortune magazine’s annual 100 Best Companies to Work For. Gorman says, what also matters is to have a very intentional, people-centric culture.

Feffer says, the leaders of organizations that are in the Best Company to Work For category do the following: the leaders of these companies talk about their people not as employees who can be satisfied with the right compensation package, but as colleagues who are invested in the business. They talk about the importance of trust …by managers in employees … and by employees in managers; of the commitment employees must have to each other; and of the importance of engagement -- of employees being “all in” with regard to the business and its success.

Feffer ends by saying that to build a great culture takes intentionality, which comes from the organization’s leader, like the CEO who decided that the advantages of a great workplace outweighed the expense and effort involved in nurturing one. He also says, senior leadership is only part of it, that the executive team, middle managers, employees all need to actively make the organization’s approach work.

I would like to recognize the passing of an American icon.  Cicely Tyson. As an African American actress who Ms. Tyson selected and accepted roles that represented strong Black women. As an actress she resisted stereotypes, turning down roles that were demeaning to African Americans. She used her platform and fame to support and champion the Black American fight for civil rights. Ms. Tyson died on Thursday, January 28, age 96. When asked by an interviewer how she would like to be remembered, Ms. Tyson said, “I done my best. That’s all.”

Follow up on resignation of governor-general of Canada resignation for bullying behavior

In my previous post I talked about the governor-general of Canada resigned her post when accusations of abusive behavior towards her staff came to light. The allegations came from current and former staffers who said that she led an environment that was toxic and she and her deputy bullied staff. Background information on this story is in my previous post from January 25th.

 

In a letter to the editor on January 26th a male reader wrote that in his 50 years of practicing employment law he never saw a male leader lose a job for treating staff badly. I understand the point he makes, and that he underscores; treating people badly is always unacceptable, but penalties are applied unevenly. The writer does have a great point. It reminds me of a common belief that men who are considered heels in the workplace are hard-driving, and women who are heels are considered – well, they would be called a sexist word that I don’t use, but to limit the options that could come to the readers’ imaginations – they would be considered a word that rhymes with the word dish. 

 

I do recognize that women get penalized for certain behaviors in a way that men don’t. My belief is that a heel is a heel whether in male or female form. Treating people with kindness shouldn’t be relegated to a judgment of gender either. I have also learned from research about organizational behaviors that men also get penalized in certain environments for not being abrasive enough. 

 

On January 27th The Globe And Mail published an online article written by Robert Fife and Kristy Kirkup, titled, Review into Julie Payette’s tenure as governor-general details allegations of aggressive conduct, public humiliations.

 

(https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-review-into-payettes-tenure-as-governor-general-details-allegations-of/) Under Canada’s equivalent to U.S.’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) The Globe and Mail obtained the report prepared by Quintet, the company that investigated the allegations regarding Payette’s behavior.

 

The report included reports of “yelling, screaming, and aggressive conduct, demeaning comments, and public humiliations”. In reference to the comments by the former lawyer who said such behavior doesn’t lead to men getting fired, it’s a shame on us as a society that that behavior is tolerated anywhere. Ultimately, the only time that behavior is considered unacceptable is if it comes from a woman, however, from a man it’s normal. This is just so unfortunate. 

 

The Globe And Mail reported that the review team conducted 92 interviews, including current and former employees. The terms used by participants described the work environment during Payette’s tenure included the following: Hostile; negative; toxic; poisoned; climate or reign of fear or terror; walking on eggshells.

 

Other descriptions said the conditions included: “Disrespect, a non-inclusive workplace, employees were stressed and worn out.” Additionally, during Payette’s tenure many employees, including some who had worked for the office of Rideau Hall, left, permanently, temporarily or took sick leave, 13 of whom said they did so because of the work environment. Staff turnover was at “record levels” – 16 people left in less than 6 months. Quintet said the stories were so consistent regarding the negative environment that it was a “serious problem” that “required immediate attention”. 

 

As I said in the previous podcast, and my blog post, Payette said the following in a detailed statement: "We all experience things differently, but we should always strive to do better and be attentive to one another's perceptions." 

 

It would seem that Payette doesn’t understand why her behavior was unacceptable by suggesting that she thinks workplace abuse and bullying is about the perception of the people on the receiving end.

 

One of the complaints lobbed against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who appointed Payette to the post, is that Payette didn’t undergo a thorough background check, according to sources. The sources said that no one reached out to speak with previous colleagues who would have known her in the capacity of manager. I did read in another article where one fellow astronaut spoke about her as a great colleague as an astronaut and of her professionalism when they worked together. That doesn’t surprise me, I have seen too often people who treat “underlings” with disrespect who treat differently those they consider their equal in rank. 

 

Trudeau, for his part said that the vetting of Payette was rigorous. Yet, another article talks about how he disbanded a non-partisan committee of which the duties included recommending nominees hired into the governor-general position. Trudeau was wowed by Payette’s star power. She had dazzling credentials: A Former Chief Astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency, she had an Engineering degree, attended McGill University, speaks six languages, performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

 

If they had vetted just a bit more, they would have learned that in 2016 she “left as head of the Montreal Science Center” when employees complained of verbal abuse. Now Trudeau has to explain how that wasn’t discovered before. The other explanation is that may have been known information, but information that was ignored. There were similar complaints, The Globe And Mail said, from when she served on the Canadian Olympic Committee. 

 

One of the morals of this story is that policies should be applied equally. If an organization has determined a hiring policy, for example, then it should apply to everyone. When I worked in one previous Human Resources role, I was the person who ensured that hiring managers completed all steps of a background check (credentials and references). I angered at least one vice president by insisting that I could not authorize a hire on behalf of the organization until the background check was completed according to policy. 

 

In addition to self-preservation – meaning that I knew who would be blamed should there be an issue post-hire, it would be me -- it is so much more expensive and difficult to oust someone who has started a job should it be discovered that they had falsified their credentials. I have heard about those stories in the news media (including about college presidents who didn’t have an undergraduate degree and who lied about that in the hiring process, but the appropriate checks weren’t completed). I didn’t want our organization to be one of those featured in the papers because of a lack of due diligence … because of special treatment of a highly placed hire. 

 

While the Prime Minister says that the background process was followed, “sources” said that an application-based process was not. As the former “background check police” what I hear is she was so important and so high level that an exception was made to the normal processes. As I asked last time: Are there human beings organizations are willing to sacrifice at the altar of prestige, an individual with the right pedigree who is allowed to treat others poorly, with little to no accountability? 

 

Quintet’s report cost taxpayers close to C-$400K dollars. As I said last time, It costs a lot to protect bad management. 

The lessons are many, but here are my takeaways:

·      The people hired to do the job of vetting should have been allowed to do a thorough job.

·      If you have a policy, it should be applied fairly and equally; if you make exceptions, just be transparent and be sure you can defend the exception

·      Your rank-and-file workers keep the organization running, and who you choose to lead and motivate them matters; hiring someone who denigrates and doesn’t care about your employees is more expensive in the long run. 

PLEASE NOTE: Please stop by and listen to my podcast, Workplace Fairness and Dignity at http://buzzsprout.com/1603621.

Reputation Travels

The company Glassdoor is well known by job-seekers and companies alike. While people on the job hunt can look for jobs, they can also research the companies they are interested in and look at reviews from current and former employees. They can also research reviews by people who interviewed at a company to learn their experiences. I know this because I have seen reviews on a past employer posted about interview processes that did not go so well for the “candidate experience” because of inexperienced interviewers.

Employers, to state the obvious, don’t want negative reviews of their company. I have worked for organizations that spend time scrubbing negative reviews. I have also had the experience of making a contingent job offer and then being called back after the candidate was alerted to negative Glassdoor reviews about the company. To state another obvious fact, reputation matters. It is often said that successful employee matches with an organization come from referrals. If your organization has a reputation for misery and miserable management, it will get out. If this information doesn’t end up on Glassdoor, it will circulate by word of mouth.

In “60 Hiring Statistics You Need to Know” talks about how Job seekers will read six reviews on Glassdoor about a company to form an opinion. Also, the article says 69 percent of people looking for a job will not accept a company with a bad reputation (even if they were unemployed, according to Glassdoor); 84 percent would go to another company if offered a position if the company had an excellent corporate reputation. 1, 2

Those identified to manage employees will affect an organization’s reputation. For this reason and for the good of the human beings that are being supervised great care should be put into the determination to the selection of people-managers. When people are treated poorly under the patronage of an organization, the employer will be the entity whose reputation that suffers because that individual has been given the power, that they abuse, by the organization.

Personally speaking, I have been fortunate to have had for the most part decent to excellent bosses. These bosses have been a credit to the organization that selected them to manage people. I have taken enough risks throughout my career to have had a diverse number of jobs, a very few of which have brought in contact with bad bosses/managers. And I have managed at least one toxic employee in my management tenure.

Based on my research of best practices, and my own personal experience which confirms the research, bosses can fall into the following categories, depending on behavior:

Decent to good bosses:

• They let each person do what they are best at, and/or most enjoy doing
• They give workers the task and allow them to get it done – they were non-micromanagers
• They are respectful in treating the people that report to them as adults
• If there are issues, they address them directly, giving the opportunity for interaction
• They are respectful of the power bestowed on them by the company

Poor bosses:

• Are aware of and abuse their power, for example, they have staff do things that they should be doing because they can
• They have poor professional boundaries with the people they are charged with supervising and they transfer their way of interacting with people in their personal lives to their interactions with staff
• They thrive on getting people to fear them or attempt to intimidate staff, just because they can
• They micromanage, they assign work, then manage every detail of the work assigned
• Treat staff with disrespect in many ways, including infantilizing them, treat them like children

  

Organizations would do well to put people in positions over others if they are people who are held to a performance standard more like the former than the latter group. The organizations’ reputation would be the better for it.

Sources:

1,2 Mervyn Dinnen, 6 Recruiting Tips for Companies with Bad Reputations, www.glassdoor.co.uk., Jun 22, 2015. Jennifer Gladstone, 60 Hiring Statistics You Need to Know, Employment Background Investigations, Inc. www.ebiinc.com, May 25, 2017.

High-level government official forced to resign due to bullying and harassment in the workplace.

This week a friend shared a story with me about a high-level government official that was forced to resign when the bullying and harassment she practiced and presided over in the workplace came to light. This happened to a member of the Canadian government, Juliette Payette who, until her resignation was the governor general.

The Washington Post, on Thursday, January 27th, published the story, Canada’s embattled governor general resigns amid bullying, harassment allegations, written by reporter Amanda Coletta. A governor general is the Queen of England’s representative in Canada. The governor general serves as commander in chief of the Canadian armed forces; represents Canada at home and abroad; and grants royal assent to bills so that they become law, according to the Washington Post. The post said the findings in the Quintet report were so “scathing” and “blistering” that for Payette, a former Astronaut, it was untenable for her to have continued in her role. The story my friend sent to me was posted by the CBC online. The article, Payette stepping down as governor general after blistering report on Rideau Hall work environment, was written by Ashley Burke. Unsurprisingly, there was high turnover at Rideau Hall.

Allegations about Payette’s behavior came from 12 anonymous current and former staffers who said that “Payette verbally abused staffers, reduced them to tears, dismissed their work harshly in an effort to humiliate them and was prone to disquieting outbursts.” Independent consulting firm, Quintet Consulting Canada, whose website lists a specialty in HR management consulting, was hired by an office in the Canadian government to conduct an outside “workplace review” of Rideau Hall --- the offices of the Governor General, and they found that the Governor General, Julie Payette, and her Deputy led a “toxic” work environment that included workplace harassment. The Washington Post’s description of the events originally told to the CBC is “that Payette led a workplace that was a ‘house of horrors’ replete with harassment and bullying”. Payette’s “number two” in Rideau Hall who was also a long-time friend was accused of the same behavior.  

So often reports of bullying and harassment made by many, many people in one organization are buried or not taken seriously, including over a period of years. The questions that immediately came to mind when I read about this action taken by the Canadian government were: What led to this review, what was so bad, what was the inciting incident for what the CBC called an unprecedented third-party review? Who hired the independent consulting firm? The CBC reports that the Privy Council Office or PCO launched the review in July “in response to a CBC News report featuring a dozen public servants and former employees confidentially claiming Payette belittled and publicly humiliated the staff”. (The PCO is part of the secretariat and federal cabinet of Canada.) The head of the PCO described the report as “disturbing” and “worrisome”. He also talked about her giving her resignation to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau where they discussed the report.  

Payette acknowledged “tensions” and that everyone has  "a right to a healthy and safe work environment." Payette knows intellectually what she’s supposed to say; she understands intellectually the correct sentiment, regardless of her true understanding of correct behavior. But her actual behavior is proof that she doesn’t understand the meaning of the words, “healthy and safe work environment”. By calling what was referred to as a “house of horrors” as “tensions”, it’s clear that either Payette is incapable of taking responsibility for her actions, or maybe she just doesn’t care. 

She goes on to make the point in a formal statement that “no formal complaints or official grievances were made during her tenure (which started in 2017) which would have immediately triggered a detailed investigation as prescribed by law and the collective agreements in place, I still take these allegations very seriously”. She really had no defense, and, again, just no understanding of how she affected people. No one filed a formal grievance, etc. etc., she said. Well, yes, because they were terrified. They knew what would happen should they be identified in any way. Things would have gone to a house of horrors to who knows what? 

She continues, "We all experience things differently, but we should always strive to do better and be attentive to one another's perceptions." This provides more support for the argument that Payette doesn’t understand why her behavior was unacceptable by suggesting that workplace abuse and bullying is about how the people on the receiving end perceive it.  

Justin Trudeau’s statement said” Every employee in the Government of Canada has the right to work in a safe and healthy environment, and we will always take this very seriously”. The statement continued that “Today’s announcement provides an opportunity for new leadership at Rideau Hall to address the workplace concerns raised by employees during the review”.

In all honesty, the Post story reported that when news of workplace harassment first were launched, the Prime Minister defended Payette as an excellent governor general. There had been questions about whether she had been sufficiently vetted. She had dazzling credentials: A Former Chief Astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency, she had an Engineering degree, attended McGill University, speaks six languages, performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. My question is: Are there human beings organizations are willing to sacrifice at the altar of prestige, a truly maladjusted individual with the right pedigree who is allowed to treat others poorly, with little to no accountability? 

One, of the things I find noteworthy about this story is that a high-level official was forced to step down for mistreatment of employees. But first, there was the initial, and typical, denial by leadership. I suppose you could consider it loyalty, but what message does it send to the people who are experiencing the mistreatment. I think some people reading the articles about how the nice Canadians felt about their treatment at the Governor General’s hands may think, “disquieting outbursts”... Oh, you think that’s bad, let me tell you about… But, why should we have to do that? It’s not about everyone being super pleasant to each other all day long, it’s about people not being afraid to go to work, about people being treated with dignity as the expectation. There is no perfection, but we all know abuse is abuse, it shouldn’t come on a grade, as in, oh that’s not bad. People have bad days, but bad days should be the exception, not the norm and there should be limits to what type of behavior is allowed in any workplace.  

The fallout of not addressing the allegations when they were first brought to light about Payette’s behavior is: 

• The staffers went public; 
• C $150K is what it cost the taxpayer to handle the legal bills surrounding the accusations and for the office to hire a former Supreme Court justice to represent the accused. 

It always costs a lot to protect bad management. Gallup says poor managers drive employee disengagement; and they cause U.S. organizations $450-$550 billion a year! What if organizations plowed money they lose from propping up poor management into doing the following: 

• Maintaining a healthy work environment; 
• Demonstrating to employees that they matter, starting with maintaining a workplace that insisted on respectful communications, that has zero-tolerance for bullying behavior.   

An organization that adopted this philosophy would not need to do marketing to attract employees; the philosophy of employee care would sell itself. Think of the word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals that would come from employees, that is the ultimate in marketing. Moreover, think of the money the organization would save, thereby contributing to the profits!

Workplace Bullying: Who is bullied; why it happens.

 

Workplace bullying is a subset of an abusive and toxic workplace. Suffolk University Law Professor David Yamada is an architect of a “bullying bill” for the Massachusetts state legislature. In his 2008 article Workplace Bullying and Ethical Leadership,  in the Journal of Values-Based Leadership, he describes what workplace bullying is, and what it is not:

 

Workplace bullying does not concern everyday disagreements at work, the occasional loud argument, or simply having a bad day. Furthermore, it does not involve interpersonally difficult aspects of work, such as giving a fair and honest evaluation to an underperforming employee. It also is not about gruff vis-á-vis easygoing bosses, as bullying often transcends management styles. Rather, bullying encompasses a power relationship, whether vested in organizational hierarchies, interpersonal dynamics, or both, that has crossed a line and become abusive.

 

Yamada says that in addition to the direct costs due to litigation and medical costs for workers’ compensation claims, there are other indirect costs that stem from the effect that bullying has on other employees, even if they are not direct targets. These are factors such as other employees or witnesses to the abusive behavior feeling an environment of fear, mistrust, withdrawal, hiding mistakes.  

There are types of bullying that occur between targets and aggressors. Yamada states that where in the workplace the bullying tends to be “top-down” it is “disproportionately harmful to female workers. He shares findings from a survey done by the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) and Zogby in 2007 that reported findings. A more recent survey done in 2017 by the Workplace Bullying Institute on U.S. Workplace Bullying adjusted the numbers somewhat a decade later. A random sample of 1,008 adults found the following:

·       70 percent of bullies were male: Their targets by gender were female targets at 65 percent and male targets at 35 percent

·       30 percent of bullies were female: Their targets by gender were female at 67 percent, male targets were 33 percent

·       The racial group breakdown for targets of bullies were: Hispanic – 25 percent, 14 percent were witnesses; African American – 21 percent, 22 percent were witnesses; Asian – 7 percent, 44 percent were witnesses; White – 19 percent, 19 percent witnessed the  bullying

(Gary Namie 2017, Workplace Institute, www.workplacebullying.org )

According to Yamada, bullying targets are varied and the reasons certain people become targets are equally varied. They include weak performers, who may be vulnerable to bullying because of personality characteristics. High-level performers are also bullying targets who “trigger reactions from insecure bullies who see them as a threat”. Other targets may be bullied because of race, gender other characteristics that bring out the bully’s biases. 

The way to address bullying in an organization, Yamada writes, is for leaders at organizations’ highest levels to make clear that workplace bullying is unacceptable. In addition, the way sexual harassment and workplace violence have been incorporated into employee education, so should the issue of workplace bullying be incorporated. He addresses the issue that undoubtedly exists in many organizations. The bully is often someone who has become skilled at the “kiss up, kick down” strategies and able to “hide his abusive side from superiors who review his performance”. He can also be popular with management “including those who will determine his fate”. Even so, Yamada says corrective actions such as coaching and counseling tend to yield changes that are only temporary. Ultimately increased morale and lower attrition boosts productivity overall, more than one individual [i.e., the bully] can over the long term. 

 

An important point the Professor makes is, workplace bullying is not a single issue, it is not an “isolated” problem: “Workplace bullying is strongly associated with other forms of aggression and misconduct at work.” He says the idea that people are “entitled to be treated with dignity at work remains a somewhat revolutionary concept.” This is because of what I personally consider the normalization of bad behaviors such as bullying, intimidation, and abusive conduct and the concept that power in the workplace entitles people who have no business managing others to wield their power over others. They believe that their direct reports should conform to their personal interests rather than that prioritizing the interests of the larger organization of which they are both employees.  (Yamada, 2008)

 

Disclosure, I interviewed Professor Yamada for a story on workplace bullying for a blog I maintained while in graduate school. 

 People go to work to earn an honest paycheck.  They don’t go to work to earn a paycheck with a dose of abuse and an extra helping of humiliation.  They go to work to use their talent to improve the organization that employs them, to work alongside colleagues who are also there to do the same thing.

Poor management prevents employees from reaching their potential to help the organization succeed. Organizations that truly value their employees they need to address the issues that keep employees from performing to the best of their abilities for the organization. This would include addressing supervisors and management that mistreat the people doing day-to-day work that makes to company run.

 

Citation: Yamada, D. (2008) Workplace Bullying and Ethical Leadership. Values Based Leadership Journal. 1(2).  http://www.valuesbasedleadershipjournal.com/issues/vol1issue2/yamada.php