Burn It Down
Stories of people who decide the only way forward — for real change — is to burn everything to the ground.
Joseph Catanzariti, J. and Egan, K. (2021). Workplace bullying (2nd edition), Reed International Books Australia, LexisNexis.
The contribution to this book offers the work environment perspective on bullying.
Frustrating working conditions and poorly managed interpersonal conflicts are the main antecedents of workplace bullying. This is in line with the work environment hypothesis, which claims that bullying is a consequence of problems in the prevailing psychosocial work environment. On the basis of a number of real‐life cases, research showed that inadequacies in leadership practices were a main precursor of workplace bullying. Although leaders are widely documented to be the main perpetrators of bullying, surprisingly few studies have looked at leadership behaviours and styles as antecedents and/or moderators of workplace bullying arising among co‐workers. However, we discovered in our OD practice that various forms of leader passivity are core components in the bullying process. Passive–avoidant leadership — namely, laissez‐faire leadership — is part of problematic and arrested OD. Laissez‐faire leadership is a non-responsive and avoidant type of leadership in situations when active leader involvement is needed. Laissez‐faire leaders do not meet the legitimate expectations of their subordinates. A wide range of negative consequences has been associated with this kind of leadership among subordinates, including increased role stress, interpersonal conflicts, emotional exhaustion, reduced job satisfaction and health problems. A passive–avoidant leadership style provides a fertile ground for bullying between colleagues. By turning a blind eye to escalating conflicts, or by failing to intervene properly, the laissez‐faire leader could easily be interpreted as condoning of the bullying behaviour. This may lead to escalation in the conflict involving more openly aggressive behavior and the perpetrators believing it is unlikely that their behaviour will be punished. This is in line with leadership research that showed that the abdication of superiors’ responsibilities, as is the case with laissez‐faire leadership, might result in high levels of conflict and bullying between co‐workers.
Kampen, J. (2015). Emotional Abuse and Neglect in the Workplace: How to restore normal organizational life. London-New York, Palgrave/Springer.
This book is based on my PhD dissertation in which I explore the reasons why my interventions as an organizational development (OD) consultant did not always have the desired effect. After searching in vain for an explanation in the change management literature, I happened upon knowledge from a different domain. I discovered that the terminology of developmental psychology described the phenomena I encountered
in my consultancy practice. I applied these concepts to organizations. This book introduces a new OD concept: ‘neglect in the workplace.’ That is what happens when an organization lacks leadership in the dimensions of structure and consideration for a protracted period of time. Everyday life in such organizations becomes destabilized. To cast it in terms from the field of developmental psychology, an organization in this state is no longer able to fulfill its developmental tasks. As a whole, it becomes a case of arrested development. Observing
this organizational reality through the lens of child development and parenting, I will focus on three aspects: similarities between parenting styles and leadership styles, the impact of an organization’s social context and people’s response to a lack of expectations, boundaries and recognition.
When change processes in an organization fail, it is a sign of arrested development. In such cases, there is usually a lot of management, but a lack of leadership (Bennis, 1989). Emotional neglect in an organization is never the result of a single, drastic reorganization process; neglect is always gradual and starts with habituation.
