'The appalling day I discovered I was a workplace bully.'

The day I realised I was the workplace bully, I felt sick.

Deliberate bullies love the feeling of power they wield over another. I hated it. A set of circumstances had just blended together to create a situation where my very presence was making someone else nervous.

The definition of workplace bullying is “a pattern of unreasonable behaviour”. Making someone else nervous is unreasonable even if not intentional.

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“Amanda” was on a web production team that supported the online editorial team I was leading. I was two rungs above her. She had come from a call centre background and had a strong customer service ethic.

My team often needed answers in a hurry if something wasn’t working. If the answer was “I don’t know” – great – we could escalate the issue to outside tech support and solve the problem pronto.?We didn’t care who solved our issue as long as it was taken care of.

Unfortunately action was consistently delayed by Amanda’s need to try and provide answers she didn’t have. When asked a question she would go off on a long verbal trail without end, leaving the rest of us scratching our heads. “Huh?”

My interactions with Amanda were intensely frustrating. In response, I?was rolling my eyes, sighing deeply, frowning intensely, and issuing verbal prods to hurry her along. I dreaded our every interaction.

Worse, to my horror, I realised I was making her so nervous that she would start stuttering when I so much as looked in her direction.?Her explanations became even harder to decipher. I had to put the brakes on what was happening and turn things around by finding a way to boost her confidence in our interactions.

It wasn’t just a matter of doing the right thing – it was doing my head in.

In front of colleagues, I asked Amanda to go for coffee so I could ask her a personal favor. She was so pleased. I had a genuine favour up my sleeve – IT advice to help a relative. I put Amanda in the power position. It worked so well that in a separate chat I was able to help her see that sometimes “I don’t know” is the most helpful answer she could provide.

Changing behavior is not instant – I had to be mindful of my facial expressions and Amanda sometimes needed reminding that “I don’t know” is a legitimate option. However, we got back to being efficient as well as the people we wanted to be.

Best of all, we became friends and remain so to this day years after leaving our shared employer.

Action you can take to improve workplace relationships:

Every heard of the “Benjamin Franklin Effect”?

There is a theory that we do nice things for people we like and nothing or even bad things to people we don’t like. By doing nice things for people you don’t like, you trick your brain into thinking you actually like them. Conversely, if you are unkind to people – even inadvertently – you can trick your brain into thinking you don’t like them.

If you find a work relationship going south, take action quickly. Supporting an idea of theirs or asking their advice can work but you need to be genuine.

Is a misunderstanding the real issue?

I remember clashing with a marketing guy I felt he was always trying to get me to commit to unnecessary long term plans so he could tick a box.

One day, management made the whole team do a psychometric test to assess our work “styles”. We were measured against a million other people that had taken the test. In sharing our results we lined up on a wall to demonstrate our work-style preferences.

My nemesis was at the top of the line when it came to loving “structure” and planning. Guess who was at the end of the line? We smiled and waved to one another from our opposite ends as the penny dropped. We got on fine after that and found ways to accommodate each other.

If you’re senior or a big personality, realise your power

Amanda never made a complaint about me but even if she had, she may not have been supported.

Organisations struggle with calling people on workplace bullying?– especially when the bullying behaviour comes from a senior person, big moneymaker or someone popular. Managers are often supported while the person complaining about bullying is “managed” out the door. I’ve been a workplace writer for 15 years. People tell me their stories and I’ve heard some shockers.

Sure, there is such a thing as false bullying claims but if you talk to experts, as I have, they will tell you real cases vastly outweigh false claims.

We all need to remain self-aware. If you have power, use it wisely. Even if you reckon someone is just being oversensitive remember you can’t tell someone else how to feel. To them the distress is very real. Certainly don’t wait for a complaint – take action yourself.