4 Types of Workplace Bullies

How to tell what type they are and how you can handle them, that's what we're talking about today. How do you deal with them when You're at your job and you've found someone who's one of the types mentioned above. It's difficult to know what your rights are and how you can proceed. A lot of people are afraid to go to human resources or to ask their boss about it, because they don't want to get labeled as a tattletale or they don't want any other consequences to come upon them, because they have outed someone as a bully.

So we're going to discuss about all 4 types of workplace bullies how to behave and handle each one to come-out on top and they end-up getting what they need to get in order to correct their behavior, stick around guild coaching more successless stress in an ideal world. We would get along with all our co-workers and everyone would just come to work, do their jobs, get along and go home and live their lives.

But unfortunately, that's not the way it always happens in workplaces, there are bullies, it's just a fact sometimes people just don't act properly, so what can you do when a bully is with you. You've got to know what type of bully they are because for each type of bully there's a different way that you can respond to bend everything in your favor and let’s dive in.

1. Screamer 

The first type of workplace bully is the screamer, they are one of the easiest to spot because they make sure that everybody is listening them, screamers have a high temper, they aren't afraid to shout at you, around you, to you, about you or to anyone else in any sort of a situation. They fly-off if the things don't go their way, they're very difficult to get along with because even if the screamer is normal in most situations, everyone’s always sort of walking around on eggshells with this person because you never know what might set him off, screamers have horrible ego issues, they believe that they’re right and they believe that they have a right to be heard, everyone has a right to be heard but only if they're behaving in an appropriate way, the best way for you to handle a screamer is to not react usually.

People will flinch, their breath will shorten, and they will become very uncomfortable, they’ll back away from the screamer and the screamer only aggresses on them more. So if you just stand your ground and make sure that you regulate your breath, then you will be able to calmly let the person know that I’m not going to be present for this type of treatment, when you have calmed down we can have this conversation sometimes.

If the screamer is your boss, you might have to handle it differently but there are always avenues to go to make sure that you while standing your ground with confidence let the person know that you're interested in hearing the message that they want to give you, but you will only receive it in a respectful way.

2. Schemer

The second type of workplace bully is the schemer, these are people who will lie and manipulate, go around make up stories about gossip just to get what they want, because what they're trying to do is position things to their best interest well what it does is, it undermines trust and it makes a really uncomfortable situation for everyone else in the company. Schemers seem harmless on the surface because a lot of times they're just really very nice and pleasant to be around the problem, it’s when they're not around you, they do most of their damage, so what can you do if you're not even around to witness the behavior, there's a couple of things, first of all make sure that you don't ever take part in any of those behaviors, do not gossip water cooler chat as it's been called no, none of that don't ever say anything about anyone in your company that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of tomorrow's paper and attributed to yourself, that's a great rule to go by no gossip, no nothing dirty looks, rolled eyes nothing, those are all schemer behaviors and you can't adopt any of those behaviors ever and I say ever because if you do it once then that is going to instill some sort of doubt or suspicion from other people in you what you're doing and what your motivation is.

When you find out that one of your co-workers is a schemer, it's very  important to make sure that you are crossing your's and dotting your eyes, when you have meetings with this person make sure at the end of the meeting that you type-up minutes from the meeting, you type-up your understanding of what happened in the meeting, you send it to them maybe you copy your joint supervisor, your boss and his boss, you know whatever to make sure that you get down on in a digital record what happened in the meeting what the agreements were, what the communication was and you're not doing this saying you know this is what happened here, your court document you're doing it and saying hey thanks for the meeting to my understanding here's what we covered, if I was wrong about any of these points if there's anything that I’m not remembering the same way that you are please let me know, if there's anything that I missed please let me know, I really enjoyed it and thanks.

So you're always presenting yourself positively and what you're doing with the schemer is you remaking records of what actually happened so that if anything else is said or done to the contrary if they didn't disagree with it in that digital record of the email you’re free and clear and that gives you evidence of what they're doing.

3. Freezer

The third type of bully is called the freezer, these people have some sort of authority over something. Maybe it's the work schedule, maybe it's the supply closet, maybe it's the access to a certain piece of equipment and they hold the key to that piece of equipment or the supply closet or the ability to change or direct the schedule very tightly and they don't let it go and they play favorites with it.

So the people that they like, will get a good schedule or they'll get the supplies, they need the people they don't like will not that's the freezer because they try to freeze you out, so the way to handle the freezer is to always be very kind and professional, understand that people who act like this have very low emotional intelligence, so you're getting mad at them or talking about them or you know doing anything like that only fuels them to freeze you out farther, because the more energy you give to them or the more energy you devote about them the more power that person has, so remain emotionally detached and make all of your requests to this person in writing. You can do it verbally but just like with the schemer after you make the verbal request you're going to come back with some form of digital communication that can be quantified and kept in a record, and repeat/rewrite what the request was, and in that digital communication you can also repeat/rewrite what that person said, so for example if it's a supply that you need and that person said no I can't give you that, you can go back and send a note and say, dear person I have requested this thing and you said that I couldn't have it for this reason the reason that I need it is xyz would like to request that you reconsider and thank you, and you can also copy that person's boss, you can copy your manager, your coworker. You know whoever you need to copy to have some sort of action to be taken, because usually the freezer, the power comes from singular involvement, so if you can try to involve another person in the company then the freezer isn't going to be able to really come-up with justifiable excuses to keep you frozen out.

4. Belittler

The fourth type of workplace bully is the belittler this kind of person always says passive and  aggressive things about your work, it maybe little tiny comments, maybe whispered out of the side of your mouth, maybe it looks, maybe it gossiping about you behind your back just to make you feel smaller, to undermine your confidence or instill in you the feeling that you're not good enough or smart enough or capable enough to do your job. This is also a sign of very low emotional intelligence.

There is one very great way to handle it and it doesn't have anything to do with confronting the person or telling on them one question that I wish every single person in the universe would teach every single kid who's born to ask themselves anytime, anyone tells them something about themselves. Belittlers tell you things to get under your skin, they are feeling very weak and by making you feel weak, it helps them to feel stronger. The things that they say really don't matter and the opinions that they have really don’t matter either. Whenever a belittler gives you a statement consider it as a gift. When a belittler gives you this gift you can see that it's a gift wrapped in crap and you can say I am not touching that, so here's the question that I want you to ask yourself and to teach everyone, especially young people because if young people would do this starting if you would teach this to kid starting really little they'd have such an increase in emotional health and mental health as they grow up whenever anyone tells you anything about yourself or insinuates something about you enjoy a deep breath. and then just mentally ask yourself is that my truth, so that's you standing in your confidence and deciding whether you're going to allow that to live in your awareness or not.

Those are the four types of workplace bullies and how to handle each one in a good manner without losing your control on you and giving a strong message to the bullies that you are stronger than what they think about you.