Adult Bulling
Most of the children we work with are
bullied on a regular basis. We offer
them tools to help them to cope. While childhood bullying is very serious,
adult bulling is an ongoing issue.
Adult bullying can happen in marriage, at work, in the community and
even in church. I hope this will give
you some tools on how to cope (like a
bee the following information has been “picked up” from many sources and placed
here).
Adult bullies are usually, narcissistic. Narcissistic people are self-centered with a grandiose sense of self-importance. They are preoccupied with success, power,
brilliance and/or their beauty. A
narcissist requires excessive
admiration, lacks empathy and humility and are rarely gracious.
The adult bully is invariably narcissistic and tend to attack when their ego is threatened.
Pushing their face into the truth doesn't seem to help, just makes them more
aggressive. As for compassion, there
isn't much. Everyone who does not agree
with or is an obstacle to the bully, are exceptionally stupid, socially inept,
or completely incompetent.
Leaders who bully will
often display the following characteristics:
·roles of staff are continuously changed to keep everyone guessing
·loyalty is demanded often with the words “do
you trust me”
·jealously and envy of the bully is
apparent to everyone except the bully
·invites
you to informal meetings which turn out to be disciplinary hearings
·encourages you to feel guilty and to
believe you are always the one at fault
·blames
others for errors
·makes
unreasonable demands
·criticizes
the work ability of others
·threatens
and insults others
·yells
and screams
·steals credit for other’s work
Bullies target people:
·
Who
are too good at their job (makes bully look bad)
·
Who are popular with people
·
Who are experts to whom people come to for
advice, getting more attention than the bully
·
Who have integrity, morals and values
Tips to cope with Bullies:
·
Don’t feed the beast. Stay calm.
·
Walk away from confrontations
·
If you can’t walk away Look at him/her calmly and squarely in the eye, and don’t
interrupt as they vent on you. After they finish, pause and say, “I’m sorry,
but my mind wandered (which you both know is clearly untrue) while you were
talking. All I heard was that you’re upset about something and would like me to
do something about it. Please tell me again exactly what’s troubling you
because I don’t want to do the wrong thing, and I need your input on how to do
it without it taking away from other things I’m supposed to be doing.” Most bullies are better at venting than they
are at solving and won’t be prepared for a fair and reasonable request.
Instead, your bully will get the clear message that they cannot push you into
rage or fear and force you to give in. They’ll probably look at you for a
moment just to make sure that they can’t find another way to run you over, then
will go bully someone else.
Signs that you are working with a bully
·
They
know what is best
·
They
think they have nothing to learn
·
They
believe they are more important than others
·
Everyone
is a pawn in their game
·
Their
excuses, excuse
·
Their
rules, rule
·
They
contradict themselves, change stories and then deny it.
·
They will keep asking you over and over “Do
you trust me” they want your full
allegiance. A person who is genuine in what they say and do very rarely needs
to ask you to trust them. find that the people I trust never have to ask it of
me, and that I never have to ask it of them.
