Workplace bullying and mobbing: Recommended book list

It’s time for an update. Back in 2011, I wrote up a list of 20 recommended books on workplace bullying and related topics. A lot of valuable work has appeared since then, and so I’ve revised and expanded the list to 30 books. Some books from the 2011 list do not appear here, but they will reappear in future lists.

A few explanations before we jump into the new listing:

• First, this list emphasizes books that are primarily about workplace bullying, mobbing, and related behaviors, as well as the organizational cultures that fuel them.
• Second, I have not included several valuable books that look at bullying in specific occupational fields, such as education and health care.
• Third, there is a strong U.S.-based focus here, with a healthy sprinkling of international perspectives. That said, important work on this subject continues to expand on a global scale, and I won’t even try to capture all of it here.
• Fourth, with one exception (okay, a two-volume book set I co-edited!), I have tried to stick with single-volume works that, at least for more recent titles, are relatively affordable.
• Fifth, the older volumes are listed especially for researchers.
• Finally, I have not covered the growing number of self-published titles on these topics, including first-person accounts of those who have experienced severe workplace mistreatment. These works contain important insights and stories, but regrettably I have not been able to evaluate them for this list.

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Andrea Adams, with Neil Crawford, Bullying at Work: How to confront and overcome it (1992) — A pioneering work by a BBC journalist whose investigations helped to launch the workplace anti-bullying movement.

Paul Babiak & Robert D. Hare, Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (rev. ed., 2019) — Informative and gruesomely entertaining look at the very worst types of workplace abusers, authored by two leading experts in psychopathic behavior.

Judith Geneva Balcerzak, Workplace Bullying: Clinical and Organizational Perspectives (2015) — Written by a clinical social worker and published by the National Association of Social Workers, this book is helpful to anyone who wants to understand workplace bullying and is especially useful for those in the social work field.

Emily S. Bassman, Abuse in the Workplace: Management Remedies and Bottom Line Impact (1992) — Excellent examination of the organizational costs of emotional abuse at work.

Carroll M. Brodsky, The harassed worker (1976) — Perhaps the earliest book to document and analyze these behaviors, this out-of-print and hard to find volume is worthy of mention for serious researchers and scholars.

Carlo Caponecchia & Anne Wyatt, Preventing Workplace Bullying: An Evidence-Based Guide for Managers and Employees (2011) — Brisk overview with thought-provoking case studies, and applying research and analysis to practices and responses.

Duncan Chappell & Vittorio Di Martino, Violence at Work (3rd ed., 2006) — One of several treatments classifying bullying and mobbing under the rubric of workplace violence, this one published by the International Labour Office.

Ellen Pinkos Cobb, Workplace Bullying and Harassment: New Developments in International Law (2017) — A very handy and thorough global compilation and summary of laws and regulations pertaining to workplace bullying, mobbing, and harassment.

Lynne Curry, Beating the Workplace Bully: A Tactical Guide to Taking Charge (2016) — Authored by a management and human resources consultant who has experienced workplace bullying, this book takes a helpful, systematic, coaching-based approach for those who are dealing with bullying at work.

Teresa A. Daniel & Gary S. Metcalf, Stop Bullying at Work: Strategies and Tools for HR, Legal, & Risk Management Professionals (2nd ed., 2016) — An “inside the fish bowl,” management perspective on preventing and responding to workplace bullying, with valuable guidance for different levels of organizational leadership.

Noa Davenport, Ruth Distler Schwartz & Gail Pursell Elliott, Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace (2002) — An early, important work built around the European conceptualization of mobbing and the vitally important research of the late Heinz Leymann.

Maureen Duffy & David C. Yamada, eds., Workplace Bullying and Mobbing in the United States (2018) — A two-volume, encyclopedic, multidisciplinary examination of workplace bullying and mobbing from an American perspective, featuring over two dozen contributors. As a co-editor and chapter contributor, I’m obviously biased in recommending this title, but I believe it’s very good. It’s also pricey, however, and thus most likely an investment for researchers, practitioners, and academic and professional libraries. You can learn more about it here.

Maureen Duffy & Len Sperry, Mobbing: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions (2012) — A thorough, scholarly examination of mobbing behaviors and dynamics and how to respond to them, co-authored by two leading authorities on the subject.

Maureen Duffy & Len Sperry, Overcoming Mobbing: A Recovery Guide for Workplace Aggression and Bullying (2014) — For both a comprehensive examination of workplace mobbing and valuable guidance for individuals, employers, and other workplace stakeholders, this is the best one-volume treatment of the topic.

Stale Einarsen, Helge Hoel, Dieter Zapf & Cary L. Cooper, eds., Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace: Developments in Theory, Research, and Practice (3rd ed., 2020) — Third edition of the best one-volume, multidisciplinary, international collection of research and commentary on workplace bullying, with contributions from leading authorities. I contributed a chapter on international legal responses to workplace bullying.

Tim Field, Bully in Sight (1996) — One of the first works on workplace bullying by an early U.K. anti-bullying movement advocate, it remains an important commentary for serious students of this subject.

Suzi Fox & Paul E. Spector, eds., Counterproductive Work Behavior: Investigations of Actors and Targets (2005) — Very useful collection of chapter contributions that includes considerable research and commentary on bullying.

Marie-France Hirogoyen, Stalking the Soul: Emotional Abuse and the Erosion of Identity (English ed., 2004) — Important analysis of emotional abuse in private lives and in the workplace by a French psychiatrist and therapist.

Randy Hodson, Dignity at Work (2001) — Broad examination of dignity at work, including bullying behaviors, from a sociological perspective.

Harvey Hornstein, Brutal Bosses and Their Prey: How to Identify and Overcome Abuse in the Workplace (1996) — This work by a social psychologist examines bad boss behaviors, with especially relevant research findings and commentary about abusive supervision in the midst of difficult economic times.

Sheila M. Keegan, The Psychology of Fear in Organizations (2015) —  An important book by a British consultant and psychologist that links the experience of fear at work to organizational cultures, and suggests solutions for moving forward. Includes a chapter on workplace bullying.

Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik, Adult Bullying: A Nasty Piece of Work (2013) — A leading researcher on workplace bullying and related topics has gathered her journal articles, many of which are co-authored with other experts, into a single volume helpful to both scholars and those dealing with bullying at their workplaces.

Gary Namie & Ruth Namie, The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job (2nd ed., 2009) — A seminal work by the individuals most responsible for introducing the concept of workplace bullying to a North American audience. It remains the most readable, accessible book for targets of workplace bullying. (Disclosure note: I have worked with the Namies and their Workplace Bullying Institute on a pro bono basis for almost two decades, and my work is discussed in this book.)

Gary Namie & Ruth F. Namie, The Bully-Free Workplace (2011) — The Namies’ step-by-step program for employers that want to pro-actively address workplace bullying, drawing upon many years of research and consulting.

Charlotte Rayner, Helge Hoel & Cary L. Cooper, Workplace Bullying: What we know, who is to blame, and what can we do? (2002) — An early, foundational book by three leading authorities on bullying and stress at work.

Peter Schnall, Marnie Dobson & Ellen Rosskam, eds., Unhealthy Work: Causes, Consequences, Cures (2009) — Occupational health experts analyze the psychosocial aspects of work, public health impacts, and possible stakeholder responses.

Robert I. Sutton, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t (2007) — While the title alone guaranteed this book a fair amount of attention, its discussion of bullying and incivility at work is noteworthy in its own right.

Noreen Tehrani, ed., Workplace Bullying: Symptoms and Solutions (2012) — A thought-provoking collection of chapter contributions from an international group of scholars and practitioners, with an emphasis on European perspectives.

Kenneth Westhues, The Envy of Excellence: Administrative Mobbing of High Achieving Professors (2006) — Centers around a thorough case study of how a well-known theologian was mobbed out of his teaching position, full of insights about individual and organizational behaviors in mobbing situations. This is part of an excellent series of books on academic and professional mobbing by Westhues. (Disclosure note: My work is discussed and critiqued in this book, and I contributed an invited responsive essay to a followup volume.)

Judith Wyatt & Chauncey Hare, Work Abuse: How to Recognize and Survive It (1997) — One of the earliest books about psychological abuse at work, this is an important piece of the literature.

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This post was slightly updated in September 2021.

Getting beyond the justice lottery of the #MeToo movement

When Fox News program host Gretchen Carlson agreed to a $20 million settlement of her claim accusing Fox News chairperson Roger Ailes of sexual harassment, it helped to spark a movement underscored by the harsh reality that behaviors prohibited under law still manage to flourish in too many workplaces and other settings.

However, for those who have been victimized by sexual harassment and assault, the #MeToo movement remains something of a justice lottery, with some folks more eligible to win than others. A small number of women — mostly in positions of prominence — obtain very large settlements or verdicts in civil claims, and/or pursue successful criminal prosecutions of their abusers. Meanwhile, many others are left to look at these highly publicized outcomes and wonder what it will take to get similar results in their situations.

Please don’t get me wrong. The #MeToo movement is overdue and vitally important. It’s just that there’s a lot more progress to be made before the results obtained in headline-making cases become the norm rather than the exception. This will require cooperative grassroots organizing and support, legal and policy advocacy in the trenches, and media outlets willing to give voice to the stories of all victimized individuals. It also would help if those who are influential within this realm commit to the proposition that the #MeToo movement is not done until it reaches all walks of life.

After all, the chances of obtaining justice should not rival the odds of buying a winning lottery ticket.

On organizations, evil, and the seeds of mobbing: Ray Russell’s “The Case Against Satan”

In Ray Russell’s 1962 novel The Case Against Satan, we have a normally sweet and well-behaved teenaged girl named Susan Garth now acting in frightening and bizarre ways. Catholic Bishop Conrad Crimmings concludes that she may be demonically possessed, and he recruits the local parish priest, Gregory Sargent, to help perform an exorcism. Russell tells this chilling tale in under 140 pages, with almost all of the activity occurring within the rectory and adjoining rooms of the church.

Of course, if you’re familiar with late 20th century American pop culture, then you may be thinking that The Case Against Satan is a mere warm-up to William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, which gained fame first as a bestselling book (1971) and later as a blockbuster motion picture (1973).

But believe me, The Case Against Satan has more substance. I won’t give too much away, but in addition to being a darn good horror story, it goes as deep as a short novel can get into matters such as the culture and history of the Catholic Church, the nature of evil, and how community-based mobbing campaigns start. I picked up it because I was looking for a good, scary read that wouldn’t exceed my currently all-too-short attention span. I got something much more, including storylines that spoke to my work with surprising resonance.

 

Periodic reminder: Hobbies are good for us

The other day, a dear friend told me in a matter-of-fact way that I’m a workaholic. She’s right, I know, which may render me the wrong writer to extol the virtues of having an engaging hobby. Nevertheless, I’ve been doing so for many years on this blog (e.g., here, here, and here) and elsewhere.

Now comes a thought-provoking New York Times piece by Jaya Saxena, “The Case for Having a Hobby,” which explores our relationship with hobbies in a world where so many people feel pressured to be continually productive, and where so many others don’t have the luxury of time or resources to easily allow for a hobby. The article examines the impact of an achievement-oriented culture that undermines the pursuit of hobbies for pleasure. Ultimately, Saxena suggests doing “something you’re genuinely interested in and want to do just for the sake of doing it.”

Despite said workaholic tendencies, I’ve made conscious efforts to carve out time for hobbies. I thought I’d use this end-of-school-year juncture to once again share a few of my pastimes over the years:

A voice made for photographs?

For many years I’ve been taking a weekly voice class at the Boston Center for Adult Education. Here’s what I wrote about the experience a couple of years ago:

Every Tuesday, our class meets for a 90-minute session, led by Jane (a Juilliard-trained vocalist and instructor) and Maria (a classically trained piano accompanist). The format is simple. After group warm-ups, each student performs a song of their choosing and is coached before the group. Yup, each of us does a solo number every week!

…I select mostly numbers from the Great American Songbook — the stuff of the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Sinatra, etc. — but others perform contemporary pop, classic rock, folk, country, religious…you name it.

…On occasion we take our voices outside of the class to perform. Our group has gone to several local open mic cabaret nights, and we’ve done karaoke a few times as well.

…I often remark that the class and the people in it have saved me thousands of dollars in therapy costs. For me singing class is a form of mindfulness, an opportunity to be in the moment with music I enjoy, buoyed by terrific people who make it a supportive and fun experience. I count many of these folks as good friends.

Yeah, that’s a tornado dropping behind me

Since my boyhood days of growing up in northwest Indiana, I’ve been deeply fascinated by tornadoes. Ten years ago, I signed up for a storm chase tour hosted by Tempest Tours, a Texas-based company that takes its guests into bad weather throughout America’s heartland, led by expert storm chasers. In a remarkable stroke of lucky timing, within a few hours of leaving our base hotel in Oklahoma, we intercepted a single supercell that spawned multiple tornadoes throughout the day. It was an awe-inspiring experience, and I’ve gone on four more tours since then.

I’ve collected just about everything except heads

As a kid I was drawn to collecting. Stamps, coins, baseball cards, and more. Limited funds prevented me from accumulating too much stuff — a blessing for a pack rat like me, believe me — but I’ve still managed to hang on to some of my favorite collectibles. And although I don’t have time to collect stamps actively, I’m still drawn to their beauty and the historical stories they often tell. On occasion I’ll pick up an interesting stamp set or illustrated cover.

Replaying sports history with the APBA baseball simulation game

I’ve been a sports fan since boyhood days as well, and one manifestation of that fandom is playing and collecting tabletop sports simulation games that use statistics-based game models to recreate actual or imagined pro and college sports teams and play games with them. These are the analog precursors to popular sports video games like John Madden Football. Pictured above are player performance cards from one of the legendary tabletop baseball games, APBA Baseball. If you roll a 66 (6 on both 6-sided die), you’re almost guaranteed that the player hits a home run!

Heaven is time to read books

Of course, there are books. In my case, lots of them. Hundreds and hundreds. This, too, goes back to childhood, when books were both a joy and a refuge. I think the same could be said of them today.

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Looking back at what I just wrote, I wonder how much our penchant for hobbies has roots in our younger days. In my case, every one of these hobbies can be traced to my childhood. Perhaps some enterprising graduate student has already written a thesis on the linkages between childhood fascinations and adult hobbies, but for now I’ll simply acknowledge the connection for me. In addition, I hope that readers will pursue or discover hobbies that give them an enjoyable respite from life’s immediate challenges.

Are some companies starting to understand the costs of bullying bosses?

In a piece for Bloomberg, Matthew Townsend and Esme E. Deprez dig beneath media reports of sexual harassment and sex discrimination at Nike to find the presence of bullying behaviors:

After Nike Inc. ousted a handful of male executives for behavior issues over the past few months, some media reports tied the departures to the #MeToo movement and its revelations of sexual harassment and assault. Interviews with more than a dozen former Nike employees, including senior executives, however, paint a picture of a workplace contaminated by a different behavior: corporate bullying. The workers say the sneaker giant could be a bruising place for both men and women, and that females did bullying, too.

I was interviewed for the piece and suggested that maybe some companies are starting to get it:

“Some companies are realizing that a bullying boss isn’t the best way to manage a company,” says David Yamada, a professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston who’s authored antibullying legislation. “Maybe we’re starting to see a tipping point.”

Gary Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute “says one reason some companies have long tolerated or even encouraged such behavior is that many American managers believe the workplace is by nature rough around the edges.” This assumption pits worker against worker in a “‘zero-sum, competitive work environment where people feel they need to obliterate their competitors.'”

Workplace bullying and sexual harassment

The emergence of the #MeToo movement has drawn long overdue attention to sexual harassment and assault. I pointed out the ongoing links between sexual harassment and workplace bullying:

When executives feel entitled or untouchable, that often leads to bullying and then to other inappropriate behavior, Yamada says. In many of the workplace environments that resulted in some of the high-profile #MeToo moments, such as that at Weinstein Co., an “undercurrent” of bullying created a belief that mistreatment would go unpunished, he says. “It’s that bullying atmosphere that helps to enable and empower sexual harassment.”

These connections have been made repeatedly during the nascent history of the #MeToo movement. In an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, media professor David Lieberman stated that if we want to end sexual harassment, then we need to end workplace bullying:

But legislators can do more to address the problem. They can make workplace bullying illegal. Too many corporate leaders find it expedient to look the other way when bosses — especially ones they deem indispensable — systematically intimidate and humiliate underlings. Bullies who believe that their whims matter more than other people’s dignity often don’t see why their sexual impulses shouldn’t be just as indulged.

Here in Boston, noted public radio personality Tom Ashbrook was terminated from his job after initial complaints about sexual harassment led to a deeper inquiry about bullying behaviors. In a February post, I wrote:

Workplace bullying, not sexual harassment, prompted this week’s termination of popular Boston public radio program host Tom Ashbrook by his employer, Boston University, which owns the WBUR-FM radio station.

. . . In December, sexual harassment allegations against Ashbrook surfaced publicly, and soon it became evident that bullying-type behaviors were also part of the alleged misconduct.

Absence of legal protections

The Bloomberg article devotes considerable attention to the absence of legal protections for bullied workers, and, correspondingly, the lack of legal incentives for employers to address these behaviors:

One reason few companies have specific antibullying policies is that there aren’t federal or state laws in the U.S. outlawing the behavior, which makes America a laggard when compared with Western Europe, Canada, and Australia.

A lack of legal protections greatly reduces the possibility of liability for employers. It’s difficult to bring a lawsuit based on bullying, and businesses have worked to keep it that way. . . . If there were antibullying laws, companies would be liable and do more to deter the practice, according to Namie. “It’s the only form of abuse that hasn’t been addressed by law,” he says.

Nevertheless, as Townsend and Deprez point out, Nike is among the companies that have an anti-harassment policy covering bullying behaviors. It’s a stark reminder that policies alone are not enough. Without legal protections and organizational commitments to workplaces that embrace worker dignity as a core value and practice, bullying, mobbing, and abuse at work will continue to flourish.

When it comes to sexual misconduct allegations in politics and government, party affiliations mean very little

Multiple sexual misconduct allegations against New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have shocked a lot of people, including me. After all, Schneiderman had honed a public image as a supporter of the MeToo movement. Nevertheless, his fall has been brutally sudden and fast. An investigative piece by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow appeared in the New Yorker late yesterday. By early evening, Schneiderman had announced his resignation.

The New Yorker piece details allegations of physical abuse associated with sex and threats of retaliation experienced by four women who were either in relationships with Schneiderman or his potential romantic interests. The accounts sound very credible to me. They suggest the behavioral patterns of a serial abuser. (In fairness, I should note that Schneiderman has denied the allegations and stated that he has never committed sexual assault.)

The shock has been at two levels. First, as noted above, Schneiderman has built a reputation as a crusader against the very types of interpersonal abuse that he is now accused of committing. For many people, especially women who saw Schneiderman as being one of the “good guys” against sexual harassment and assault, this has been profoundly unsettling and destabilizing. As so many of have said in online comments and social media posts, if you can’t trust him, then who can you trust?

I’m afraid that I don’t have a response to that question. In terms of categorizing the good guys and the bad guys, I considered Schneiderman to be among the former. I can only imagine what a victim of sexual harassment or assault who believed in him must be feeling right now.

Secondly, Schneiderman is considered a liberal Democrat, and for those of us who generally identify with that label, this also shakes our foundation.

On that point, however, I want to say, get a clue. As I see it, when it comes to sexual misconduct allegations made against public officials, party affiliation means nothing. I’ve kept no running tally of allegations against Democrats versus Republicans, or liberals versus conservatives, but suffice it to say that these revelations seem to apply to both sides of the aisle. (Indeed, while Schneiderman has seized the headlines for today, in Missouri, Republican governor Eric Greitens faces a pending criminal trial and possible impeachment proceedings arising out of sexual misconduct charges.) 

I believe that a lot of these behaviors stem from the corrupting and intersecting influences of power and misogyny. Those on the left, center, and right may claim to be on the better side of arguments on policy issues, and we can debate those points endlessly. But when it comes to how we treat one another as human beings, well, I submit that this quality transcends political labels.