Leadership or bullying? when one can become the other in the workplace

“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully…”

Jim Rohn  (Treasury of Quotes by Jim Rohn) 

It has been an interesting week at No. 10 and probably not what the Labour Party want in an election year. However, the Prime Minister, himself, has been put under the spotlight due to the allegations that there is a culture of bullying at No. 10. Last week, Gordon Brown was on the GMTV sofa being interviewed by Ben Sheppard. He said he “was not a bully” but that he “was a hard taskmaster…”

This is certainly a dilemma indeed, is it not, when the head of an organisation may be subject to such allegations of bullying and harassment?

What can one do, especially if that organisation is small and the CEO/MD is the only person within that organisation who runs the company?

Employers may not realise this, but there is a slight distinction between bullying and harassment.

With harassment, this (usually) centres around unwanted, or offensive, intrusive behaviour with a sexual, racial or physical component. It is unwanted physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct which has the purpose or effect of violating a recipient’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them. Bullying is intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, which through the abuse of or misuse of power, makes the recipient feel vulnerable, upset, humiliated and threatened.  Bullying is often seen as a form of harassment.

As such, bullying and harassment do give rise to a number of legal issues. Employers, remember:

1. You have implied duties in a contract, such as, but not limited to, a duty to provide a safe working environment and a duty to provide redress of grievances;
2. You may fall foul of discrimination legislation if you do not protect employees from harassment;
3. Beware of the Protection of Harassment Act 1997, where an employer is vicariously liable for conduct amounting to harassment by an employee; and
4. Have a clear policy. Set out clearly if the allegation is against a director/CEO; who does the employee direct the grievance to?

Bullying and harassment should not be tolerated in the workplace. However, managers should not live in fear of being firm and driven to maximise the potential in their employees.

If a senior member of your staff, or even the MD or CEO, is accused of bullying and/or harassment, you must deal with it. If you do not deal with it promptly, it may end up costing the company thousands of pounds.