MZMORALE ZEROthe antithesis of employee engagement
DIRECTIVE 126 / BELONGING

LET THE BULLY STAY

Treat repeated intimidation as interpersonal friction until people stop reporting it.

Respond to recurring humiliation with reminders that everyone has different communication styles. Send both parties to conflict-resolution training and avoid naming the pattern. When the target withdraws, close the matter as a relationship issue.

THE MECHANISM

Sustained bullying minimized as a mutual personality conflict.

Primary: BELONGINGPOWERWORTH
RATIONALE
Individualizing the conflict keeps the organization out of the problem until the evidence becomes impossible to individualize.
SUCCESS INDICATOR
The behavior persists long enough to meet everyone's preferred threshold for proving that the behavior persists.
COMMON FAILURE
Recognizing repeated, power-imbalanced mistreatment as a workplace condition and intervening before targets are required to absorb enough exposure to establish the pattern conclusively.
THE UNFORTUNATE PART

Evidence, with limitations.

Claim

Workplace bullying is generally distinguished from isolated incivility by repeated exposure and power imbalance. Meta-analytic evidence associates exposure with poorer job attitudes, burnout, mental and physical health problems and stronger intentions to leave.

Evidence

A meta-analytic review synthesized 137 cross-sectional effect sizes from 66 independent samples and found workplace bullying associated with substantial job-related and health-related consequences.

Scientific boundary: Workplace bullying involves repeated harmful acts and power dynamics; one conflict or unpopular colleague is not equivalent to bullying.

Sources

These references offer context, not a completed review or a test of this instruction.

PREVIOUS

SKIP THE BREAK

NEXT

MAKE THE JOB HARDER THAN THE WORK