Workplace bullying is well-documented as harmful to individuals and organizations. When the bully is a high-performing worker making significant financial or operational contributions, organizations often hesitate to take action. Dr. Laura Persky, Ken Pinnock, and myself researched this subject and compared the positive and negative organizational effects of maintaining high-performance bullies in the workplace. We researched the differences between demanding and bullying behaviors and provided examples that illustrate why high performing bullies remain in organizations. We researched how their behavior is exposed to public view, and the resulting consequences and outcomes. Social media plays a significant factor in highlighting and resolving bullying. This paper offers suggestions for managing high-performance bullies through a combination of education, organizational structure, job design and a pro-active data gathering process through social media and internal outreach. It may be helpful to our colleagues as they face these issues in their organizations.
The paper was published in the Global Journal of Business Research, v. 13 (1) p. 71-81, 2019, and has been a top ten journal download.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3408215
#bullying #bullyingprevention #birchtreeglobal #laurapersky #kenpinnock
