The causes, conditions and signs of mobbing in the workplace

For mobbing, only one reason is enough to ruin the life of a person and their family. There are professions in which a colleague can be bullied “for a combination of reasons”: office workers in private and public companies and firms, journalists, school and university teachers, research institute employees, and theater actors. However, the reasons for mobbing can only mature under certain conditions. Let's take a closer look at the environment in which this “fruit” with a name that is still unfamiliar to Russian people, but, no doubt, with a very familiar “taste”, will ripen faster.

1. “A man who walks on two legs is an enemy” (J. Orwell's Animal Farm). Rejection of dissenters occurs in any team that has a strong leader with a totalitarian style of government combined with the unspoken status of “native father” /"native mother”. In this case, the team has the “Stockholm Syndrome” (the victim's attachment and even sympathy for his aggressor). Anyone who does not share this “sympathy”, does not look the boss in the mouth, does not write down his “smart thoughts” or allows himself to criticize his superiors, becomes the object of harassment by the team with the tacit consent, or even at the suggestion of the boss in order to teach a lesson to someone who does not want to walk like everyone else — on four legs.
2. Inability to discuss the situation with the boss normally. The type of boss described above, as a rule, also has a bad character, formed by a situation of impunity and irreplaceability. Tyranny, mood swings, playing good or bad “investigator” all create a situation where a mobbing victim cannot make direct contact with the boss and receive objective/professional advice or support from him.
3. A boss who believes in his impunity and irremovability, as a rule, he begins to selflessly intrigue and move “pawns” — employees on the chessboard, because he understands perfectly well that the longer he is in office, the more dissatisfied and potential competitors appear in his team. In order to distract his subordinates from seditious thoughts, he looks for an “enemy of the people” in the team and transfers underlying discontent to a new victim. The “ideal situation” for such a “lame duck” is when this victim sets himself up, namely, criticizing management or even applying for the position of boss (for example, applying for a contest). In this case, the boss creates a situation where it becomes unbearable for the whole team to work: not only bonuses are at risk, but also the payment of salaries, and layoffs are expected (the economic crisis is such a boss's best friend). At the peak of chaos, the boss draws attention to a “scapegoat” that “will make things even worse”. Frightened and infected with the “Stockholm Syndrome”, the subordinates bow to their “native father” and ask him to stay “in the kingdom”.
4. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (J. Orwell's Animal Farm). The lenient and encouraging attitude towards fans of intrigue and behind-the-scenes games is due to the fact that the boss himself is most likely a first-class schemer with several close associates who are ready to do anything to be “more equal than others”. As a rule, this situation occurs when the boss has levers of pressure on subordinates who are not related to the performance of their duties. For example, the boss knows that a person is afraid of losing this job for some reason (retirement is approaching, low qualifications, a single mother) or is eager for a promotion and hiring a close relative. In this case, the boss uses these people as “chain dogs” who do all the dirty work — poisoning the scapegoat's life.
5. The opaque nature of the organization's activities. Knowledge about how things are done in a company or department: how people are appointed, how bonuses are paid, who is going on a business trip or an internship and why, how salaries are calculated and “bonuses” are calculated is classified information. It is owned by the boss and sometimes by those “who are more equal”. As a rule, this situation occurs in a large structure where there is not even a hint of transparency at all levels — everything is shrouded in a secret that only bosses, including your boss, own. “Sacred knowledge” and a halo tightly pinned to his head give him the inalienable right to control people's destinies.
6. Lack of a well-functioning system of staff promotion and career opportunities. In most cases, this situation occurs in private companies that save on everything and whose “personnel policy” resembles the “personnel policy” of some dishonest and greedy market stalls who change sellers every month. If you regularly start browsing well-known job sites, be sure to note that in some companies the same vacancies “hang” for months or disappear for a while and then pop up again. We recommend that you never serve at such places. Most often, greedy management takes an applicant for a probationary period, and then begins to notice flaws in the new employee, nitpick, put an excessive burden on them, in short, look for any excuse to fire the “negligent” employee without waiting for the end of the probationary period. Then this place is empty for a while. These weeks and months, permanent employees are performing the duties of the dismissed person, languishing under the weight of working “for that guy”. They hire a new employee who cleans the “Augean stables”, but he, most likely, will also become a “scapegoat”.

This position is also typical for university mobbing, when teachers must be re-elected every 2, 4, 6 years, but who will be nominated by the department and for what position depends on the head of the department or department (as well as the distribution of the workload, which is also associated with participation in the upcoming elections). The manager manipulates people on the eve of the next election. Negotiations/trade with “candidates” are underway, conditions are being put forward. Accordingly, in such a team there will always be employees whose growth will be artificially restrained and those who are “more equal than other animals”. And if a scapegoat is chosen as the manager, the teachers will start poisoning him together, because it is in their interests to leave his job: some will get the “free hours”, someone will hold out until retirement, and the meanest and most diligent employee will be promoted.

Career growth is almost impossible in the school teaching staff, but here the most important reason for mobbing is envy of young and attractive professionals who are not even familiar with the term “professional burnout”. Unfortunately, young teachers who go through the “hazing” of colleagues and management are forced to quit their jobs and go where their vocation does not call them, but their desire to “just work without anyone putting a spoke in the wheel”.

1. It is a common practice to establish family ties between subordinates and management. The harmful practice of hiring relatives to all key positions dates back to the 1990s, when you couldn't trust anyone in business. The lack of trust has permeated society like a sponge, and even after almost twenty years, not only young people work in company offices as the “sons” and “daughters” of executives, but also “family contracts” are emerging in institutes and schools. Disrespectful attitude towards one of the relatives can result in both bullying by the boss's relative and mobbing by the boss himself for such an insensitive employee. One of the most important consequences of this phenomenon is the voluntary departure of professionals who do not want to follow the orders of amateurs.
2. Sexual harassment in the workplace. If the female part of the team undergoes professional “initiation” through the sofa in the boss's office, then the employee who ignored the invitation to such an “interview” usually becomes a victim of mobbing. “Harem” will not forgive her willfulness and will point out that “you can't stand out from the team”. They will not forgive the one who was honored by the boss for some time, but was dismissed, according to the new “staffing table”. And if one of the employees does not regard the “first lady” of the work team as Himself, they also risk becoming a “black sheep”. Theater and journalism were certainly leaders in this position, but nowadays commercial organizations and even schools are not far behind them.
3. The uneven workload of individual specialists in the team is fraught with irritation on the part of both overloaded and underloaded employees, especially if the workload is related to salaries and the bonus system. When applying for a job, try to clarify your duties, workload, and pay overtime. If you are required to do hard communist work after 8 pm and on weekends, citing your shortcomings, shortcomings during working hours and citing colleagues living at work as an example, then you should know that you have already been chosen as a scapegoat.
4. “Bad” jobs with strange specifics, in other words, someone's “private shops”. A loud sign and a beautiful website should alert you. You should not “peck” at names such as, for example, the Institute for Glamorous and Artistic Expertise. The spirit of incompetent authoritarianism and ostentatious vanity reigns in such places, and your competence will constantly irritate the flawed leadership. If you don't want to be used and then thrown away without being allowed to work until the end of your probationary period (see paragraph 6), and you still haven't realized that you've been mobbed from the first day you worked in a “bad place”, don't even think about applying for these wide-ranging jobs.

Psychological reasons for mobbing by persecutors

At first glance, everything is clear here, but, nevertheless, each point raises questions:

1. Jealousy

Someone might reproach you by saying that it's your own fault for the bullying, saying that you can't have such an outstanding appearance, charisma, and abilities; you can't be too young or, conversely, old; you can't say what you think; you can't talk about your successes in your professional field and in your personal life. In other words, you can't stand out on any grounds so as not to make your superiors and colleagues jealous. Of course, you can try to “extinguish” in one way or another your advantages, which turned into shortcomings, but where can you get away from yourself? How can you learn not to broadcast to people your triumph of undeniable virtues? How to hide successful achievements? How not to share your brilliant ideas? How do you look worse? After all, what do you do when you promised your parents to be “the best at everything”?

2. The desire to humiliate (for satisfaction, amusement, or (self) affirmation)

If you are shy and quiet and don't make your colleagues jealous, you can easily become another victim of a psychological rapist/rapist. A boss who humiliates his subordinates is usually a flawed person who solves his own psychological problems at the expense of the suffering of people dependent on him. The boss who yells and insults you is a lonely or not lonely woman who, as a rule, plays the role of a scapegoat in her family. At home, she has to put up with the infidelity or tyranny of her husband, parents, and the rudeness of her children, and at work, her “appointed” employee, a full-time “scapegoat” or a “scapegoat” on probation is responsible for her family humiliation. Men who humiliate employees also tend to experience various psychological difficulties. Maybe you should feel sorry for them all and, when applying for a new job, immediately begin to feel sorry for your boss in your mind, get into his position when, for example, he yells at you? They say that sympathy (like love and hate) is transmitted at a distance... But how can such “empathy” not cross the line beyond which the condition that psychologists have dubbed the “Stockholm Syndrome” begins? How not to lose self-esteem, which the Internet community has recently dubbed the abusive acronym CSV — “sense of self-importance”, while also stigmatizing those who understand the difference between the words “dignity” and “importance”.

3. The desire to subdue

It follows from the previous paragraph. “You're the boss — I'm stupid, I'm the boss — you're stupid!” and “I've suffered and now you're going to suffer!” — pure military bullying. “Grandfathers” are rotting Salag, but it couldn't be any other way, and it shouldn't be. A kind of reverse Cargo cult: white people also make airplanes out of straw, but they “pretend” better. This is probably the main problem of Russian society, with it still alive (but when did it get rid of it?) slave mentality. It is not without reason that as soon as the “fetters fell”, the main unit of the emerging civil society immediately became an organized criminal group (organized criminal group) with its desire to humiliate in order to subdue. Almost everyone who is in business and “in business” today has gone through this. How can you find a leader who has never been emotionally abused, and if so, has found the strength not to take the powerlessness experienced at the time onto his subordinates?

What conditions allow a “crowd” to classify a person as “acceptable”?

These “conditions” are as ancient and stereotypical as the persecution itself. French philosopher René Gerard spoke about them in detail in his monographic study “The Scapegoat” (see para. “Books”) and Alexander Etkind understood it well in the preface to this book. Recall that people in history have most often become “acceptable”

• members of ethnic and religious minorities;
• any individual who has difficulty adapting (“newcomer” at work and in class, newcomer, provincial, orphan who was the last to enroll/come, etc.);
• a person with physical and mental disabilities;
• a victim of a social anomaly, namely someone who went beyond the social norm/status. This individual can be located at the bottom or at the top of the social ladder (king and beggar).

This is how these traditional “conditions” adapt to modern “circumstances”. An employee can become a victim of mobbing in the following circumstances:

• if he is a young employee with good potential and can compete;
• if an employee differs from colleagues in their level of education, nationality, sense of humor, appearance, personal communication culture, etc.;
• if personnel changes, restructuring, and an economic crisis are coming;
• if a job election is just around the corner or a tempting vacancy is open (in this case, the team may “kill” the old boss or discourage a young employee from running for top positions);
• if he is a provincial who has recently joined the capital (typical for Moscow);
• if he is the youngest or oldest in the team (the age of employees is relative, it should be correlated with the average age of employees in the team);
• if he has a physical disability or is not attractive enough (typical for school mobbing);
• if a person is from a different social environment and his behavior and appearance constantly reminds us of this.

Can mobbing be prevented?

You can't! Even if you are a “king” or a “poor man”, a “boss” or a “worker”, if you are not a “novice” or a “provincial” in your team, you should not think that you will never be bullied or persecuted in your life. Down with complacency and complacency! All the advice we found on the Russian Internet from HR specialists is that people should merge with the team, “keep a low profile”, “don't stand out”, not show off their success, not talk about defeats and mistakes, not get too close to colleagues, but also not ignore corporate events, not be on a “short leg” with management, but not even speak out openly against them among “like-minded people”... This series of preventive measures could be continued, but their accurate implementation is likely to lead to nothing if “at the helm” in organizations are a person who is used to “dividing and ruling”, who benefits from dividing the “world” into “oprichnina” and “land”, who shuffles people like cards in a deck who is not afraid of anything, has entangled everyone with a web of promises and threats. Therefore, without completely abandoning the sensible but dull recommendations for “prevention”, we will focus on the most important thing, in our opinion — identifying the “primary and secondary signs” of mobbing. If you learn to distinguish mobbing from “easy at work”, you can assume that you have already avoided the status of a “victim”. Now you're a “player” or “one warrior” on the battlefield, with time to look around, “dig in,” or leave the battlefield before it begins.

Signs of mobbing on the part of management, which is commonly called “bossing”

• Your professional qualities are not taken into account: they do not recognize your achievements, but question them, underestimate the significance of your professional victories, which work for the common cause.
• They are happy to find and note mistakes in your work and exaggerate their significance.
• They give you a difficult job that you will most likely not be able to cope with within the specified time frame.
• They require work to be done overtime or on weekends.
• They don't talk to you directly even on business issues; they ignore your suggestions.
• They prevent you from taking the initiative that benefits the common cause and benefits your career growth.
• They make comments to you that are not related to the performance of your official duties, for example, they note your “bad” makeup or nail polish color.
• Suddenly, pretending to be a “friend”, they begin to sympathetically ask you about your family, about plans to expand the family.
• They are starting to bring your colleagues, whom you considered your friends and like-minded people, closer to you.
• They call them in and talk about how difficult the economic situation is and how difficult it is to manage such a large team without “losses”.
• They allow you to make inappropriate jokes and comments that you cannot respond to due to your upbringing or subordination.
• They frame you, claiming that they gave you a verbal order or put important documents on your desk, when in fact they did not happen.
• They make important orders, exclude you from the general email list, and then accuse you of negligence.
• Suddenly they give you “out of turn” vacation during the middle of working days or academic “creative leave”, during which they distribute your responsibilities among other employees, give lectures to other teachers, and in especially advanced cases even transfer your desktop and computer along with your duties to another employee.
• They hold meetings in your absence to raise issues related to you and put them to a general vote.
• They meet with those who support you in your absence and find “arguments” to win over your colleagues or students to their side.
• If you actively resist these “signs”, they begin to spread deliberately false information about you, preparing “public opinion” not only in your team, but perhaps even in your professional environment.

The signs of mobbing that your colleagues show

• They stop sharing “the latest news” with you, and then they don't include you in the general newsletter.
• You feel “strained” in communicating even with people who were easy and pleasant to communicate with.
• You understand that someone “broke into” your computer while you were away and was putting papers on your desk.
• The secretary stops smiling at you and helping you make photocopies; he “forgets” to inform you about important meetings and report dates.
• Your boss's “six” are suddenly starting to make personal comments to you and teach you life, although their conversations did not have these condescending and patronizing intonations before.
• People are looking at you differently. It's hard to convey, but a sensitive and attentive person should feel these negative “vibes”, but not drive away “bad thoughts”, but include them in their daily analysis. (Activate all your “work skills” — your sense of smell, cunning, and ingenuity — as soon as you feel that something is wrong and you feel uncomfortable being at work for no apparent reason).
• You understand/found out that your colleagues and “friends” have deprived you of important information that you need for your work.
• For some reason, they start telling you how an employee is “even worse” and needs to get into their position. In this case, only you should “log in”.
• Over time, they stop talking to you and stop talking to you when you enter the room where colleagues are sitting.
• If you have taken countermeasures (for example, seeking help from your superiors), then be prepared not only for quiet meanness “behind your back”, but for violent aggression from colleagues, which can be manifested in malicious speeches at general meetings and meetings. You will be accused of all deadly sins, defamed, made of you an “enemy of the people”, a pest against the team. They will turn your allies against you, slander you against your students and colleagues.
• If after all this you found the strength to work in this team, then, most likely, your colleagues, at the direct suggestion of their superiors, will begin to prove to you that they were right and all the charges against you are fair. All means will be used to prove your guilt — outright forgery, concealment of working information, etc.
• The team, in which everyone did not like each other very much, unites against a common enemy in a united impulse. When everyone suddenly starts to “be friends against you”, you should understand that mobbing on the part of your colleagues could not have taken place and had such a scale if it were not for the “puppeteer” behind it.

Just because any of the above is happening in your life right now, it doesn't mean you're already a victim of mobbing. This means that you are facing a choice: you can quickly become a victim of mobbing if you hesitate and rush around, or you can stop all at once and quit; you can “sit it out” while looking for a new job, or you can fight, but then you have to understand very well what you are going to do it for and what it will cost you and your family. But until you realize that the “crowd” is ready to sacrifice you, you are completely defenseless. When you understand this, you will be able to fight back, fight and maybe even win. But we need to understand this as soon as possible and take action immediately. And don't waste time rereading this article to compare the signs of mobbing and their dynamics with what is happening at your work. Take action!