Dr. Kenneth Harris of Indiana University-Southwest (with Drs. Ranida Harris and Ana Rossi) presented a study on the effects of sustained abusive supervision on work outcomes, using a sample of Brazilian workers. One of their key findings is that many targets engaged in “upward undermining” as a response to the abuse.

In other words, bullied workers did what they could to make their bosses look bad.

Interestingly, as the bullying got worse, some targets increased work efforts on their own behalf, which Harris suggested may reflect attempts to keep their jobs despite the onslaught of mistreatment.

It makes sense, especially with bosses who have a kiss up, kick down mentality: They so underestimate the importance of subordinates that they have no idea about the little ways in which targets of their abuse can withhold support or even quietly sabotage their work and reputation.

***

The biennial “Work, Stress and Health” conference is co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP).

That said…

…I think we can make some credible assertions and raise important questions about the bullying of volunteers:

1. Why not? – There’s no reason why bullying-type behaviors should be uncommon among and between volunteers as compared to people in other settings with frequent human interaction. Most organizations have tensions, conflicts, and rivalries. Why should it be any different with those heavily staffed by volunteers?

2. Emotional stakes — In fact, in some cases the emotional stakes may be even greater among pure volunteers than among paid staff.

For example, in hyper-charged, cause-type situations, emotions can run especially high and play host to all sorts of negative behaviors, running the gamut from conflict to incivility to bullying. If the volunteers are working on behalf of a cause in which they have an important personal stake, the emotional ante is ratcheted up and buttons may be easily pushed, especially with “underdog” issues where people already feel marginalized.

Conversely, if the volunteer activity is associated with high levels of community prestige or power, there may be a lot of competition and posturing that create their own drama and give rise to the possibility of bullying behaviors. Ambition and recognition are not limited to paid employment, after all!

And even if social change or prestige isn’t at stake, community connections may well be. For many, volunteer activities such as coaching youth sports or organizing a church choir may be lifelines to their communities, and being cut out or pushed out of them may be painfully isolating.

3. Institutional status — The bullying of volunteers raises all sorts of institutional status questions. Are we talking about rank-and-file volunteers who are doing the on-the-ground grunt work? Or maybe this is about bullying within non-profit boards? Are there differences between all-volunteer groups and those that have a mix of staff and volunteers? And what if bullying behaviors cross certain groups within these organizations, involving staff, volunteers, and board members?

4. Behaviors — The bullying of volunteers also raises questions of specific behaviors: Do they lean toward direct or indirect? Do the emotional elements of some volunteer-driven causes plant the seeds for mobbing-type mistreatment? Given the increasing role of the Internet in linking volunteers, is online bullying more common than in, say, brick & mortar work settings?

Important stuff

We may not know a lot about bullying in the voluntary sector, but we should be taking the experiences of volunteers more seriously.

After all, the voluntary sector is significant, especially in the U.S. The unique, central role of civic organizations in the fabric of American life was recognized two centuries ago by Alexis de Tocqueville, in his classic work, Democracy in America (1835 & 1840):

Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.

In other words, voluntary associations are a societal cornerstone, and a lot of folks devote time to them. Their experiences as volunteers not only impact them personally, but also have a ripple effect on our communities in general. It follows that we should understand the significance of when and how working relationships among volunteers become dysfunctional and even abusive.

***

Dissertation, anyone?

In January, I wrote up a list of research ideas about workplace bullying and related topics for scholars and graduate students, drawn from past blog posts. I definitely would add bullying of volunteers to the list.

As I explained in that earlier blog post, I’m not a social science researcher. But I’d bet that many of the quantitative and qualitative research approaches used to study workplace bullying would apply easily to examining the bullying of volunteers.

Related posts

Workplace bullying in the non-profit sector (2011)

When the bullying comes from a board member (2011)

Related article

Labor attorney and law professor Mitchell Rubinstein’s 2006 law review article, “Our Nation’s Forgotten Workers: The Unprotected Volunteers,” explains the precarious legal status of volunteers in terms of workplace protections.

I’m spending an extended weekend in Los Angeles, attending and participating in the biennial “Work, Stress and Health” conference co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and Society for Occupational Health Psychology. This year’s conference theme is “Protecting and Promoting Total Worker Health,” and the agenda packs in four solid days of speeches, panel discussions, symposia, workshops, and poster presentations.

Despite its serious sounding title (anything with “stress” in the name tells us something, yes?), Work, Stress and Health is my favorite larger-scale conference. It’s where I learn the most from fellow participants, and it’s where I’ve had opportunities to present my work to knowledgeable, savvy colleagues.

These days I find myself less and less drawn to big conferences. To me, they’re usually too impersonal and have the feeling of being caught in an urban commuter rail station during rush hour. Work, Stress and Health, however, manages to overcome my predispositions, and here’s why:

First, it’s multidisciplinary. Although the fields of industrial/organizational psychology and occupational health psychology frame the overall conference, it draws presenters and attendees from many occupations related to employee relations. Tackling the challenges of making our workplaces healthy and productive requires input from many different perspectives, and this conference does a very good job of bringing many of them together.

Second, it’s relevant to both research and practice. Academics and graduate students form the largest cadre at the conference, but the programs typically carry significance for scholars and practitioners alike. Equally important, most people drawn to this conference bring a genuine respect for both research and practice.

Third, it’s friendly. Frequent conference goers understand the significance of that statement. Too many such gatherings are cold, stuffy, uptight assemblages, and I greet them with dread. Work, Stress and Health manages to avoid that look and feel. I actually look forward to being a part of it.

Fourth, it’s a great place to learn. Here, too, conference devotees get what I mean. Frankly, at some conferences, all you really care about is not saying something really stupid during your own presentation. The rest of the conference holds scant interest to you. By contrast, at Work, Stress and Health, there’s a lot of compelling stuff being presented, and not infrequently one has to make a choice among two or three appealing programs during the same time slot.

Finally, it connects and reconnects me with good people. This conference enables me to reconnect with valued associates and make new ones. Indeed, last night I joined long-time friends Gary & Ruth Namie (Workplace Bullying Institute), Kathy Rospenda (University of Illinois-Chicago), and Stale Einarsen (University of Bergen, Norway) for an excellent dinner and lots of story swapping at Mio Babbo’s Ristorante in Westwood Village. These folks are among the pioneers in helping us to understand workplace bullying, and I always enjoy their company.

l to r: Gary Namie, Ruth Namie, Kathy Rospenda, DY, and Stale Einarsen

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I look forward to sharing several future posts summarizing and commenting on information and research presented at the conference.

I deliberately gave this post a somewhat breezy title, but you’ll see my intent is to be more “big picture” as opposed to “checklist” or “plug-and-play.” What follows are hardly the first or last words about making a difference, but perhaps you’ll find them useful. In no particular order:

1. Be responsibly bold — I’ve been using this phrase a lot in talking about social change. Real change is neither reckless nor timid.

2. Take a next step — If you’re stuck, take a next step. It doesn’t have to be the next step, but it should be an affirmative one. It may lead you to something significant.

3. Put it on paper — Writing out your ideas pushes you to think logically about your passion. Let your right brain inspire your left brain, and vice versa.

4. Persevere – Sounds obvious, right? Well, if you’ve ever seen the resume of a very smart, able individual whose work record is a long list of short gigs, you know what I mean. Or maybe it’s someone who cares deeply about a cause but keeps addressing it in stops and starts or by constantly switching gears. Chances are they’ve never stuck with something long enough to make a deeper impact.

5. Learn — Change agents are lifelong learners. Pick up a book, talk to people (and listen!), dig into that website, read that journal article, scan the paper, watch a documentary, just keeping learning. A key to your initiative may be in the next study you read.

6. Affiliate and organize – Individuals can make a difference, but it’s awfully hard to effect change as a lone wolf. The right affiliations with other individuals and organizations can have a tremendously galvanizing effect and bring together complementary skill sets. (And if you find that there’s no core group of people addressing your cause, start one!)

7. Take a break — Burnout is real. Sometimes the best step forward is to step out for a bit.

8. Plan, do, evaluate, repeat — A good mantra to follow.

9. Celebrate victories, then get back to work — If you celebrate too long, you risk deluding yourself that the task is over. If you don’t celebrate at all, you’ll be pretty glum and miss a chance to recharge your spirit. So, take occasional bows, and then ask what comes next.

10. When despairing, dig deep — Changing some small part of the world for the better can be challenging, frustrating, and difficult work. Setbacks are almost inevitable. When they occur, dig deep . . . perhaps into your devotion to the cause, your faith or spirituality, or your connection with others who share your commitment.

But one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to pick and choose wisely among these markers of achievement. If you fail to do so, you may find yourself living an inauthentic life (at least the part spent at work), and your psyche may struggle with the grudging realization that you’re pursuing someone else’s definition of success. It’s an easy recipe for a midlife crisis.

This month, as thousands of people line up to accept their degrees at college and university Commencement ceremonies around the country, these thoughts deserve extra consideration.

Regrets

In the popular Marc and Angel Hack Life blog, Angel Chernoff writes about the “10 Choices You Will Regret in 10 Years.” The first two screamed out at me:

• “Wearing a mask to impress others”
• “Letting someone else create your dreams for you”

In graduate and professional schools, I see this process occurring all the time. It’s all about pursuing a fast track to success, and that path and destination are defined by others who have a vested interest in keeping it that way.

Especially susceptible to this messaging are younger folks who have never been afforded the privilege of thinking for themselves. And the better their grades and test scores, they more likely they are to be pushed onto certain paths.

My summer of discontent

My first major lesson in career inauthenticity came as a law student. I entered law school intending to be a public interest lawyer, and I envisioned a career spent in social and political change work. However, I temporarily succumbed to the siren call of corporate law, and I accepted a “summer associate” position with a large commercial law firm in Chicago.

Summer jobs at big law firms are a mix of tryout camp and wine-and-dining. Over roughly a 10-week period, the work of a summer associate is evaluated closely for the purpose of considering that individual for a full-time associate attorney position after graduation. In return, the law firm pays the summer associate handsomely (typically, a pro-rated equivalent of a first-year attorney’s salary) and hosts a variety of social events to sell the firm as a desirable place to work.

This Chicago law firm treated me with genuine respect and gave me a variety of challenging assignments. But within a few weeks of starting my summer gig, I knew the corporate law sector was not for me. Despite good colleagues and intellectually demanding work, throughout the summer I felt like I was giving an acting performance. It just didn’t feel right.

Although I was invited to return to the firm as an associate attorney after graduation, I declined the offer. Instead, I embraced my original aspirations and, during my final year of law school, accepted a job offer from the New York City Legal Aid Society. No regrets, not even when the student loan bills started to match my monthly rent!

Trade-offs

Of course, having and making choices doesn’t necessarily mean that we can have it all. As I suggested two years ago in a post about work-life balance, even the best of lives usually involve trade-offs. Electing to do something often forecloses doing another, at least for the time being.

That said, Big Life regrets tend to emanate more from inaction than actions, unless the latter are reckless or foolish. In her “10 Choices” blog post, Angel Chernoff warns against “(e)ndlessly waiting until tomorrow”:

The trouble is, you always think you have more time than you do.  But one day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to work on the things you’ve always wanted to do.

Not always a choice

I understand that all of the above presumes a degree of choice in the matter.

However, sometimes that isn’t the case: Jobs that pay the bills and support families are in short supply these days, and pursuing an occupation that delivers a psychological reward beyond a decent paycheck may not be an immediate option.

If you have choices that create mere possibilities for matching passions with income, consider yourself very privileged. Countless millions of people in this world do not.

Avocations

The challenges of matching dreams with paychecks are among the reasons why I’ve devoted a number of blog posts to the concept of avocation. As I wrote last year:

An avocation falls somewhere between a job and a hobby. It’s an activity that may produce some modest income, and perhaps show promise of turning into a full-time job, but which ultimately we are drawn to because it is very satisfying on a personal level. Avocations may be among the keys to individual fulfillment during tough times when jobs that deliver both a decent income and psychic rewards are in short supply.

Avocations are highly underrated as potential door openers and as satisfying ends in themselves.

If you have the gift of choices…

…make them, don’t let others make them for you. Learn from the experiences and insights of others, and then incorporate those lessons into your own world view.

It’s an ongoing process. And except for a blessed few, it involves some stumbling and bumbling along, hopefully forward more often than backward.

Next Avenue on Boomer Suicides

Suzanne Gerber, in a disturbing blog post for Next Avenue, examines the large spike in suicides rates among Baby Boomers during the economic meltdown era:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report on suicide rates in this country last week, and the news was shocking. From 1999 to 2010, the age-adjusted suicide rate for 35- to 64-year-olds in the United States was up by 28.4 percent (to 13.7 per 100,000).

The dire economic situation and other pressures may well be the reasons:

Noting that suicide rates tend to rise during times of financial stress — and 2008 might go down in the history books as one of the worst years in modern American history — Dr. Ileana Arias, CDC deputy director, acknowledged, “The increase does coincide with a decrease in financial standing for a lot of families over the same time period.”

…Arias further observed that the spike in suicide rates could be a reflection of a combination of stressors specific to baby boomers. As the sandwich generation, many of us, while fighting our own financial battles, are also taking caring of aging parents, many with dementia, and providing economic and emotional support to our adult children, who are having difficulties launching their own independent lives.

Gary Namie on WBI’s “Target-centric” Perspective

In a lengthy and strongly worded blog post, Dr. Gary Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute writes that in the mix between bullying target and aggressor, he’s taking the side of the target and won’t apologize for the aggressors. Here’s a snippet:

Are bullies demons? Bully apologists abhor “demonizing” abusers in the workplace. What’s the alternative? Revere them. Thank them for showing us how loathsome and dark can be the human condition? Ignore their cruelty foisted on the best and brightest workers whose principal goal of every day is to be “left alone” to do their jobs? Of course, that’s exactly what bully apologists do. We think they stand on the wrong side of the moral fence.

We at WBI are target-centric. We’ve chosen the other side. We didn’t start the U.S. Workplace Bullying movement to treat it as an academic exercise in neutrality. Targets deserve and need support. Institutions do a fine job of defending perpetrators.

USA Today on Unpaid Internships

Susannah Griffie reports for USA Today on a petition drive by a New York University sophomore to press the school’s career services office to stop listing unpaid internships:

Would you ever work up to 40 hours a week for free?

That’s what many college students do. It’s called the unpaid internship.

New York University sophomore Christina Isnardi is publicly pushing back against the trend of unpaid internships by petitioning the NYU Wasserman Career Center to remove illegal unpaid internship postings on its job search website, CareerNet.

A 49-year-old nurse who provided direct evidence that her employer was seeking “young rising stars” to replace older workers is entitled to proceed to trial on her federal and state law claims that she was demoted from a shift leader position due to her age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and state law, a federal district court in Tennessee held May 8 . . ..

The case is Woody v. Covenant Health, decided by the federal district court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, docket no. 11-cv-62, dated May 8, 2013. The defendant had moved for summary judgment, a procedural tool that, if granted, would have resulted in the case being dismissed even before going to trial. The court ruled the other way, finding that Nurse Woody is entitled to her day in court.

According to the Daily Labor Report summary of the case, not only did a supervisor express a “stated preference for younger shift supervisors,” but also the supervisor produced a job announcement expressly seeking younger applicants.

Age bias suits face uphill battles

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act and its state law counterparts prohibit employment discrimination against job applicants and workers age 40 or over.

Compassion may have ensured our survival because of its tremendous benefits for both physical and mental health and overall well-being. Research by APS William James Fellow Ed Diener, a leading researcher in positive psychology, and APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Martin Seligman, a pioneer of the psychology of happiness and human flourishing, suggests that connecting with others in a meaningful way helps us enjoy better mental and physical health and speeds up recovery from disease; furthermore, research by Stephanie Brown, at Stony Brook University, and Sara Konrath, at the University of Michigan, has shown that it may even lengthen our life spans.

The article appears in the May-June issue of the Observer, published by the Association for Psychological Science. It discusses whether compassion is natural or learned, the benefits of compassion for physical and psychological health, how compassion can change the world for the better, and how we can cultivate it.

Compassion at Work?

Is it naive to suggest that we could use more compassion in our workplaces?

Five years ago, I wrote a law review article suggesting that human dignity should be the framing concept for American employment laws. I noted, among other things, that considerations of human dignity are rarely voiced directly in connection with U.S. employment policy.

The idea of compassion seems even more, well, weird to associate with everyday employee relations.

Which is a big part of the problem. Too many of our workplaces are downright mean and utterly devoid of compassion. (That statement includes public service and non-profit employers, as well as profit-making businesses.) Within such organizations, incivility, bullying, violence, and other forms of aggression are common.

I understand that workplaces must be productive, however one defines the term, in order to thrive and survive and deliver our paychecks. So I’m not suggesting that we turn our places of employment into a giant support group. We have work to do — I get that.

But maybe someday we’ll understand that most of us do our best work in environments that are safe, supportive, and — yes — compassionate. Saying so isn’t naive; rather, it makes good sense.

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Emma Seppala is the Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University. Go here to access her website.

Workplace bullies are good at this

We’ve seen it countless times: Workplace bullies claiming to be the victims of workplace bullying. And the smartest aggressors often are experts at doing this.

There is no foolproof method to prevent bullies from alleging victim status, but at the very least we don’t want to help them make their case. Here is some advice toward that end:

Don’t retaliate or act impulsively

I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat it in this context: Being bullied at work sometimes leads targets to retaliate or act impulsively, saying or doing things they’d like to take back. It’s a natural response, but resist doing so with all your might. Otherwise, it may provide a reason for the bully to say she’s being victimized.

Don’t mob the bully

The bully may be engaging in horrible mistreatment of you and maybe others, but trying to organize a mob to go after him may lead to excesses that validate his claims of martyrdom. While it can be very helpful to document abuses visited upon multiple co-workers and to act in concert carefully and strategically, being perceived as an organized mob can undermine efforts to stop the behaviors or remove the bully. It’s also the wrong thing to do.

Don’t vent online

Consider the risks of posting specifics about your own bullying situation in public places such as Facebook, particularly when it comes to naming names. Repeatedly doing so, especially in angry, emotional tones, heightens the possibility that the aggressor may find out and claim that he’s the victim of an online vendetta.

The risks of direct confrontation

I’ve written before about the hazards of directly confronting workplace aggressors, Here’s how and why some of them apply here:

First, bullying targets usually (and understandably) are not in the best frame of mind when dealing directly with their abuser. People in these circumstances are more likely to say or do something that could fuel the bully’s claim of victimhood.

Second, if there’s no third party to observe the conversation, it’s the target’s word against the bully’s as to what transpired. Especially if the bully is a boss who has mastered the art of “kiss up, kick down,” management is more likely to believe his allegation that he was the actual “victim” of the encounter.

Third, when bullying is covert or indirect, it’s doubly hard to confront the tormenter, who often will deny there’s any such behavior going on and may even act like she was wrongfully accused. The conversation may trigger the target’s anger and frustration and lead to behaviors that will be turned against her. (This dynamic also may relate to the bullying tactic of “gaslighting” that I wrote about last December.)

Document, document, document

As many readers know, some bullying situations require attention to detail merely to understand. Time lines and sequences of events matter. Maintain a chronology of everything that happens. Save e-mails, notes, and any other physical evidence, while taking care not to obtain anything in a manner that could lead to discipline or worse.

Easier said than done

Yup, it’s easier for me to give this advice than for someone in a bad work situation to follow it. Nevertheless, if you’re being treated horribly at work, it’s especially important to keep your wits about you. This includes taking steps to help ensure that your tormenter(s) cannot claim victim status at your expense.

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FOR MORE

Although I’m not in a position right now to provide individual counseling or coaching, the Need Help? section of this blog contains other resources for bullying targets, their families, and their friends.

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Clip art: Mersea Island Judo Club

Well, there’s yet another plastic ring to grab for, and it will enable you to show upward mobility on your resume without giving up the warm fuzzy feeling of not being paid for your work. It’s called the “non-stipendiary fellowship.”

A new non-job category

I was clued into the term “non-stipendiary fellowship” by members of the Intern Labor Rights page on Facebook. I didn’t know that this was becoming another way to create work opportunities without income, especially in the arts and humanities.

If you’d like an example, here’s a recent job position posting from the Bard Graduate Center:

The Bard Graduate Center invites applications for up to four non-stipendiary research fellowships lasting from 3 to 9 months. Since its founding in 1993, the Bard Graduate Center has aimed to become the leading institute for study of the cultural history of the material world through its MA and PhD programs, scholarly exhibitions, and publications, seminars, and symposia. . . . We provide office space, and rental accommodation maybe available at Bard Hall. Visiting scholars are expected to participate in the public intellectual life of the BGC, and to give one more talks on their current work. The Research Fellow may take up residence at any point after 15 August 2013.

Unpaid internships on steroids

Please excuse the snarky tone of this post, but I am incredulous that organizations have the gall to use the term “non-stipendiary fellowship.” Like unpaid internships, it’s wage-free work, only with a fancier title and a longer expected duration. This trend adds to the mounting evidence of worker exploitation in our creative and intellectual sectors.

Are “non-stipendiary jobs” next? Stay tuned.

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Hat tip to Elizabeth Daley of the Intern Labor Rights Facebook group for the Bard position posting.