Why Am I Being Bullied at Work?

"You're bullied at work because you have a strong work ethic."

I've been hearing some version of that since 2001, the year I first experienced workplace bullying. 

For a long time, I accepted it because it gave me a rational explanation for something irrational happening at work: workplace abuse. It was easier to believe that my work ethic was the reason I was being bullied than to accept that people were choosing to treat me that way. 

But the explanation always bothered me. 

It turned my work ethic into the cause of the workplace bullying. In other words, the reason I was being abused was something about me. The workplace bully's behavior became a reaction to my actions rather than a choice they made. 

I also understand why so many people embrace that narrative — even today. Being bullied at work leaves you feeling powerless. The idea that you're experiencing workplace bullying because you're hardworking, competent, or successful restores some of that power. I believed it myself for years. 

Eventually, though, it stopped making sense. 

The longer I was in a culture of workplace bullying, the more people I met who were being bullied. Many had strong work ethics. Many didn't. Some of the bullies had better work ethics than the people they were abusing. That was and is reality. 

What I kept seeing wasn't a pattern in the people being bullied at work.

I saw a pattern in the environments around them. 

Every story included someone willing to engage in abusive behavior. It included leaders who failed to stop it. It included colleagues who looked the other way because getting involved might cost them something. 

That's why the "strong work ethic" explanation eventually collapsed for me. 

The common denominator was never work ethic. 

The common denominator was workplace bullies. 

Bullies supported by people who tolerated the behavior, benefited from it, excused it, ignored it, or lacked the courage to challenge it. 

Yet for more than 20 years, I've watched the conversation return to the characteristics of the person being bullied at work. 

Maybe it's time we spent less time explaining the people being abused and more time explaining the people doing the abusing, the people who watch, and the leaders who refuse to intervene.

Are you questioning whether what you’re experiencing is workplace bullying?

Take the workplace bullying assessment and see whether what’s happening sounds familiar.