Women Bullies at Work, Can You Deal with Them?

by Oct 13, 2015

According to the result of a nationwide poll made by Employment Law Alliance, women are the new face of bullies in the workplace. Forty percent of the workplace bullies are women; they pick other women to be bullied more than seventy percent of the time. Women bullies prefer weaker women to intimidate and undermine.

Why do they do this? These workplace bullies want to enjoy the feeling of being powerful, especially when the person being attacked doesn’t try to defend herself. If they feel their position is being threatened by another worker’s success, they will step in to put a stop to it.

Workplace bullying might not be recognized instantly.  Generally, women are not straightforward when it comes to showing their abusive behavior, as they choose behaviors that are more insidious. The same is true in school age bullying, where boys tend to demonstrate outright aggressiveness where girls use what experts call “relational bullying.”

Workplace bullying should not be taken lightly.

Now, how to deal with these workplace bullies? There are ten tips shared by Dr. Michelle Callahan at HuffingtonPost.com.

Do you know how much money chronically bad behavior costs your company? Spoiler alert – it’s a LOT higher than you want it to be. Download our data and worksheet to see how it’s costing your organization and what you can do to fix it.

About Catherine Mattice

Catherine Mattice, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP is President of consulting and training firm, Civility Partners, and has been successfully providing programs in workplace bullying and building positive workplaces since 2007. Her clients include Fortune 500’s, the military, several universities and hospitals, government agencies, small businesses and nonprofits. She has published in a variety of trade magazines and has appeared several times on NPR, FOX, NBC, and ABC as an expert, as well as in USA Today, Inc Magazine, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more. Catherine is Past-President of the Association for Talent Development (ATD), San Diego Chapter and teaches at National University. In his book foreword, Ken Blanchard called her book, BACK OFF! Your Kick-Ass Guide to Ending Bullying at Work, “the most comprehensive and valuable handbook on the topic.” She recently released a second book entitled, SEEKING CIVILITY: How Leaders, Managers and HR Can Create a Workplace Free of Bullying.

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