‘They stand you in a corner; you are not to speak’: Nurses tell of abusive indoctrination in work teams dominated by bullies

Abstract

This paper reports some of the findings from the first qualitative stage of a large national study of bullying in the nursing workplace currently being undertaken in Australia. The findings reported here reveal how relationships between bullies were embedded within informal organizational alliances, enabling bullies to control work teams and use emotional abuse and psychological violence as a means of enforcing bully-defined 'rules of work'. Within nursing teams, bullies controlled work roles, tasks, and status in the nursing hierarchy through enforcing their 'rules'. Bullies enforced these rules through a process of ritual indoctrination, destroying the self-confidence and self-image of those targeted, and forcing them to eventually resign their position or acquiesce to survive. The merciless, calculated and deliberate nature of the bullying resulted in profound harm for many of those targeted. The findings of this research have implications for the understanding and management of workplace bullying.

“The Worse You Behave, The More You Seem, to be Rewarded”: Bullying in Nursing as Organizational Corruption

“…Those who raised concerns were told to 'shut their mouths' and told to 'watch my back because [names individual] was out to get me' (Susan, para 80). Organizational restructure and change processes were also reported to provide an opportunity for alliances to work together to abuse legitimate authority towards their own ends (see Hutchinson et al 2005Hutchinson et al , 2006c. The behaviour of these bullies is a form of corruption.…”

“For the Crime of Being Different…”:

“…Adversarial relations in teams have also been recognised as being detrimental to group collaboration, as well as negatively impacting individual and group performance (Adler and Kwon 2002;Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994;Xia et al 2009). Critical reviews of teams and teamwork have confirmed that the individual experience of team membership may not be positive, and that teams may not be supportive at all (see, for example, Shin 2005; Parris 2003; Parris and Vickers 2005;Hutchinson et al 2006;Harley 2001;Wageman et al 2009;Coutu and Beschloss 2009). However, there remains insufficient attention as to how working in a team might be negatively experienced by workers with MS, or those with any other stigma.…”

“…This suggests the need for a critical review of many contemporary workplaces, including their team processes, and the ways such organisational processes shape employee experiences in relation to issues of diversity and equality (Ogbonna and Harris 2006). This continuation of recent, more critical, reviews of teams and team processes (see, for examples, Hutchinson et al 2006;Parris and Vickers 2005), should include an orientation re-directed back to the value of diversity in organisations and recognising the potential for negative social processes operating in team environments. Without a radical rethinking of the way work is organised, including how teams operate, people with disability will have little chance of improving their opportunities for gaining and continuing employment (Barnes 1999).…”

Towards Employee Wellness: Rethinking Bullying Paradoxes and Masks

“…This, in turn, can undermine confidence, and cause stress (Lee, 2002, p. 205). The emerging literature confirms that workplace bullying inflicts harmful, even devastating, effects on its targets and can sabotage morale, and undercut productivity and loyalty (Hutchinson, Vickers, Jackson, & Wilkes, 2005, 2006aYamada, 2000, p. 476).…”

“…There is now extensive evidence that bullying has a severe impact on individuals, as does mobbing 1 (Hutchinson et al, 2005(Hutchinson et al, , 2006aMayhew et al, 2004). For example, Leymann and Gustaffsson (1996;cited in Mayhew et al, 2004) found that the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) reactions of train drivers smashing into suicidees was milder and less extensive than the trauma experienced by targets of long term mobbing (Leymann & Gustaffsson, 1996;Mayhew et al, 2004).…”