How to Stop the Office Bully
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As a call center manager, most of you have had to deal with a team bully at one time or another. Here is an article by Paul Ryder with his advice on handling the bully.
An office bully, or any bully for that matter can make their victims life a living nightmare if they are allowed to. Although it is sometimes hard to define how the bully is abusing another person, it is essential to nip it in the bud as quickly as possible.
Bullies will bully if they are allowed to of that there is no doubt, but how does a person stop them from abusing them?
The general bully tactic is to “silently abuse” the victim with a comment that could be perceived as a joking comment to others but will hurt the victims feeling and may trigger inner fears of rejection.
With this style of abuse if the victim tries to fight back, the bully can turn around and say they were only joking and/or say the victim is being soft, giving the impression to the victim that they are weak and the others do not act this way, the victim may then feel self conscious and back down feeling out of place.
There are many ways to stop the bully in their tracks, but a great one is to “out smooth” them. This technique means to be respectful to them and acknowledge them but do not try to gain their attention by speaking to them in a let’s be friends manner.
One response when a bully attacks their victims is the victim will attempt to do anything to be the bully’s friend, thereby if they are their friend, they will stop attacking them. However this is exactly what the bully wants to do as it is a great way for them to feel wanted and focused on. If the bully is spoken to as a person (acknowledged) but not desired as a person (a friend) they may feel rejected themselves and stop doing the actions which are causing the pain, in this case, bullying the victim. Another way to do this is to acknowledge the bully as a person but show significantly more attention to other people who are friendly. A bully will fear rejection more than anything!
It is essential to asses the situation before trying this tactic, it has had fantastic results with my clients who have tried the talking to” and “reasoning” tactics with no result as the bully feels even more desired
The author of this Article is a Paul Ryder who is a UK based emotional intelligence, coach, personal trainer and author and is the director of Future Mind Training. To find out further information on the standard of coaching please visit the home page http://www.futuremindtraining.com and browse the site for free information and personal development downloads.
Or for further information on wealth creation strategies and powerful internet marketing information to grow business visit http://www.successfulprosperity.com
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