The Prevalence of Workplace Bullying
The author admits the widespread prevalence of workplace bullying. According to the author, two-thirds of Americans experience workplace bullying, up from 1988 by a factor of 0.5. (Simons, 2017).
Negative Impact on Organizations' Productivity
The author also claims that unkind actions by coworkers and managers are negatively harming organizations' productivity. The report gives an example of a law firm at Irvine Calif that has granite plaque that contains the 10-point codes of civility. Some of the code include employees always saying thank you, acknowledge the efforts of others, always say please and welcome feedback (Simons, 2017).
Codes of Civility
The author says that some may think that the codes should be meant for kindergarten rather than a law firm. The author acknowledges the benefits of the codes to ensure civility. Furthermore, the author says bullying and incivility lead to low productivity, decreased and decreased employee morale.
Relevancy
This article is relevant to the various topic of leadership that was learned in class. First and foremost, it is associated with the topic of the quality of a good leader. One of the primary qualities of a good leader is empathy. Empathy is when leaders put themselves in the circumstance of their followers and make decisions that are favorable to them. According to this article, leaders have neglected their followers by harassing and bullying them. Bullying and harassing the employees has, therefore, resulted in low productivity in the companies.
Additionally, this article also exhibits a coercive form of leadership. Coercive leadership is that form of leadership that leaders look down upon their followers hence they so not listen to their concerns and they are not even allowed to participate in decision making of the company. Also, this article relates to the employee motivation aspects. In leadership, some of the issues that are learned are how a leader can inspire his or her followers. This article demonstrates the failure of leaders to motivate and inspire their followers because there is an instance of uncommitted employees as a result of harassment.
There is also an aspect of codes of conducts and ethics that should govern an organization. The author talks about the Law firm that has simple systems that employees should follow. A leader’s task to lead can only be effective if there are codes, policies, and laws that the employees should follow. Hence, this article is relevant to leadership roles.
Reaction
The article is a good read and I believe it addresses a real issue facing the contemporary employees in the workplace; every manager should consider this as a hallmark for identifying the loopholes and strategizing on the best way forward. Based on the article, it is clear that the student feels that leaders in various companies should employ laissez-faire style of leadership to ensure organizations realize their goals and objectives. I believe this assertion is true because Laissez-faire leadership is non-authoritative and allows employees to make decisions. Hence, this form of leadership will ensure that leaders treat their employees in a courteous and respectful way.
Additionally, I perceive that making every employee comfortable by empathizing and understanding them reduces employee turnover rate making organizations realize their goals and objectives. Apart from those, this student also felt that bullying and harassment of employees is still high because of failure of the victims to report such cases for the fear of job insecurity.
Curbing Harassment and Abuse
It is also clear that unemployment is a global issue and once people are employed, they stay silent when they are harassed or abused for the fear of losing their job. One major way of curbing harassment and abuse of employees is through educating and creating awareness on the importance of reporting harassment from their superiors. Additionally, the state should formulate and implement policies that condemn employee bullying. Such laws can reduce in high percentage the cases of employee exploitation. Cultural diversity is an important aspect in work environments. Some form of bullying and harassment emerge as a result of a diverse workforce.
Embracing Diversity
Based on the article, I also get the perception that it is essential to train employees in accepting and understanding diversity within the company. When employees understand cultural diversity, oppression like harassment and bullying will be at its minimum. For the company to sustain cultural diversity, the leader must be in the forefront to inspire his or her followers to adopt the change. Finally, company management should have an efficient conflict management team that will diligently deal with any arising conflicts among co-workers so that the work environment can be peaceful. The student was attracted by the headline of this article but the contents of this article gave extensive information regarding employee abuse at the workplace. This article compares the statistics of the increase of bullying from 1988 hence giving a clear picture of the burden of bullying at the workplace.
Reference
Simons, J. (2017). Companies Wake Up to the Problem of Bullies at Work: Nearly two-thirds of Americans reported being bullied at work last year, up from roughly half of workers in 1998, according to recent research. The Wall Street Journal, [Website], retrieved from:
