How Do You Deal With A Kiss-Up Kick-Down Bully At The Workplace?

We often refer to anxiety and stress in the workplace as both being emotional responses. Anxiety is an internal feeling from persistent and excessive worries and stress is caused by an external trigger that could be short-term like a fight or a disagreement with a colleague at the workplace. Long-term stress caused by persistent bully employees or middle managers can lead to physical and mental illness symptoms, fatigue, muscle pain, and sleep troubles.

One of the frequent types of bullying managers is the kiss-up kick-down manager. Yes, it is a frequent type even though many think it is not. Kiss-up kick-down managers behave in an abusive way, intimidating employees, sabotaging, and interfering in the process leading to preventing the work from getting done. They tend to flatter and charm their boss and bully their subordinates. This type of manager could be present in a young organization as well as in an organization that has been established for decades. What is strange about those managers is that they are often loved by their superiors, which makes the kiss-up method significantly effective. They are always looking to putting up a show where they seek to humiliate someone publicly and grow their audience as a result of the opportunity. They always justify their behavior as the right thing to do for the good of the organization.

No one can stand a bully in the workplace. You have two choices either leave the organization or stand up to him. Whatever your choice is never feel sorry or guilty for being bullied and the sooner you discover the bully the better for you to act and not let bullying become a habit. Not responding to a kick-down bully brings him to his desired results and puts you in a situation where you will be a target for more bullying. Your colleagues will sympathize with you but rarely get involved, therefore you need to handle things on your own.

You will notice something very common with this type of bully they often keep getting promoted. The obvious reason is that they manipulated the system so well that their bosses don’t realize what’s going on and the subordinates who know what’s going on don’t dare to speak up. Given that they know how to play politics you need to document every little piece of information and event with date and time including who was present. Never confront them in person, but speak up in public or in front of the boss and if you feel that this is not working and they are not getting promoted to another position soon, so you need to start looking for another position.