Final Discussion 5 pages Including Title and APA Format References (Minimum 800 Words)

HIERARCHAL BULLYING

Hierarchal bullying is an “abuse of power” (Schumann, Craig, & Rosu, 2014, p.846), which is directly aimed at forcing the employer’s will onto the employee by getting the employee to submit to what the employer wanted through psychological mind control and manipulation (D’Cruz & Noronha, 2010; De Cuyper, Baillien, & De Witte, 2009; Einarsen et al., 2009; Einarsen et al., 2011; Finne et al., 2011; Schumann et al., 2014).

Hierarchal bullying “encapsulates a series of systematically negative acts that derive into social, psychological, and psychosomatic problems for the victim” (Montes, Muniz, Leal- Rodrguez, & Leal-Millan, 2014, p.2659). Research showed that employer bullying starts with the first bullying action of public and private humiliation (Finne et al., 2011; Gumbus & Lyons, 2011; Hauge et al., 2010). Once the employer had successfully humiliated the employee, efforts were increased to sabotage the employee’s work and discredit the employee with co-workers (Hoefsmit et al., 2013; Hogh et al., 2011; Idris et al., 2014; Law et al., 2011).

Employees who are bullied at work by their managers are often isolated, because other employees fear the same reprimand or fate from management and engage in the bullying efforts in order to avoid being victimized as well (Hoefsmit et al., 2013; Hogh et al., 2011; Idris et al., 2014). According to the Workplace Bullying Institute (2014), hierarchal bullying exists and thrives in the workplace because of fear: Fear of being the next target; fear of not helping correctly and botching it; fear of being the only one from a group to act; fear of retaliation by the bully; fear of loss of one’s job and income. Thus, for coworkers as well as targets themselves, the workplace becomes a fear-plagued environment. (para.7).