What is the motivation for bullying?

allnurses Guide · Jul 21, 2015

Sounds like a charming psychopath. :sneaky:

LaneyB · Jul 21, 2015

Where I work the bully is charming. You don't normally think of bullies as charismatic, but ours is. That's why it's hard to see her behavior as bullying. People like her. She doesn't beat her victims up, she singles them out and isolates them. Then begins to make sure everybody else does too.
I could go into great detail about how she targets, and why she targets. Even how she gets everybody else to follow her lead. But it's nothing new. She's mean to the bone, but most people just don't get it.

I think this was part of our issue. We did not recognize the bullying initially, especially because it didn't seem too bad until these two particular personalities hooked up. And I am sure we enabled it in multiple ways. Our last 3 new nurses are wonderful, and I know they have considered really pushing it with our administration. It makes the rest of us feel so ashamed when new people start and are mistreated. It is stressful enough to start a new job without that kind of behavior. Our bullies have gotten way more bold with time.

llg, PhD, RN · Jul 21, 2015

I am sorry you were bullied, KatieMI. I've been bullied in the past, too, and know that it really can hurt. Hopefully, you can heal a bit with time and feel better.

OCNRN63, RN · Jul 21, 2015

I was bullied at one of my jobs, so much so that I had to take a leave of absence. Then after things simmered down, I found a job somewhere else, and the lead bully was upset that I didn't tell her where I got the job. Crazy.

Horseshoe, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2015

I think some people just have an inner meanness and basic unhappiness, and bullying gives them a GREAT deal of satisfaction. I think a lot of these people don't have much personal power in their private lives, and this is their way of easing some of their insecurities.

They are probably the same people who give waiters/waitresses a hard time, or anyone else who doesn't have the power to tell them off.

icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN · Jul 21, 2015

I have seen this over and over, an experienced nurse harassed and chased away from a dysfunctional unit that does not follow standards of care.

The motivation is that the highly competent new employee is seen as a threat to their perceived status or even their jobs.

Then there is the brutal hazing of the inexperienced nurse just to make him or her look foolish and the motivation is to make themselves look indispensable.

I firmly believe that subpar nurses are mainly the ones who engage in this immature low class behavior and that the weakest links are the biggest bullies.

QuarterLife88, MSN, RN, NP · Jul 21, 2015

You can psychoanalyze people all you want, and some people do have legit issues that can be worked out. But I truly believe that a lot of times there is no rhyme or reason for bullying. Some people are just jerks and plain evil. They were born jerks, their personality is set for jerk, and they will die an evil jerk. End of. Truly nice people deep down with good hearts do not bully because they would never get pleasure out of it.

In the end though, the "why" doesn't matter. What matters is how you respond and deal with it.

NOADLS · Jul 21, 2015

Has anyone considered that these "bullies" are doing society good?

Bullying builds character.

Think about new nurses crying "NETY." Are they really being eaten? No. Another nurse is helping them develop professional character.

Think about impressionable adolescent girls. Are they really being bullied when their appearance is critiqued? No. Society is helping them improve their appearance so that they can become attractive.

More often than not, I am seeing constructive criticism being misinterpreted as bullying. People need to toughen up and overcome obstacles in life. Sugarcoating a mistake and allowing a mistake to continue is far worse than someone stepping in and setting things right.

allnurses Guide · Jul 21, 2015

You can psychoanalyze people all you want, and some people do have legit issues that can be worked out. But I truly believe that a lot of times there is no rhyme or reason for bullying. Some people are just jerks and plain evil. They were born jerks, their personality is set for jerk, and they will die an evil jerk. End of. Truly nice people deep down with good hearts do not bully because they would never get pleasure out of it.
In the end though, the "why" doesn't matter. What matters is how you respond and deal with it.

Thank you! :up:

allnurses Guide · Jul 21, 2015

More often than not, I am seeing constructive criticism being misinterpreted as bullying. People need to toughen up and overcome obstacles in life. Sugarcoating a mistake and allowing a mistake to continue is far worse than someone stepping in and setting things right.

This is a good point. And the reason I mentioned the Zero Tolerance movement.

Now, everything is bullying and the true bullies are kind of ignored.

amzyRN · Jul 21, 2015

I suspect a stressful and hostile work environment encourages the worst in people. The last place I worked had a lot of hostile nurses and some very bitter nasty physicians. One in particular should have been fired; she was deliberately abusive to those she worked with; those who had less status than her were frequent targets for abuse. And she was also very peculiar, would wear the same clothes for a week at a time and was caught sleeping in one of the rooms in the ICU. People said she actually lived out of her car. It was odd. But this place was a pit.

Working in a stressful dingy hospital can bring out the worse in everyone; so I think part of it is environmental. I think some people take out their frustrations on other people and that's how they cope. It's really frustrating when this kind of thing is allowed to persist.

Editorial Team / Admin · Jul 21, 2015

More often than not, I am seeing constructive criticism being misinterpreted as bullying. People need to toughen up and overcome obstacles in life. Sugarcoating a mistake and allowing a mistake to continue is far worse than someone stepping in and setting things right.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. The meaning of the word bullying has, in quite a few cases, come to mean "I don't like how that person spoke to me/treated me" when the reality is that some people need blunt honesty. Not saying that true bullying doesn't exist, but now almost anything can be considered bullying when it isn't.