Employees Are Bullying Their Bosses—and Most Leaders Say It’s Getting Worse

A global survey of executives finds a little-discussed form of workplace abuse is rising—and many leaders say they get no help when it happens.

BY BRUCE CRUMLEY @BRUCEC_INC

Illustration: Getty Images

Much attention in recent years has justifiably been focused on the harm that toxic workplaces inflict on employees, especially when spiteful, manipulative, or abusive managers are responsible. But new study data indicates a far less acknowledged form of professional mistreatment is on the rise—one known as the “upward bullying” of people in leadership roles by their subordinates.

That flipping of roles in the typical toxic workplace scenario was quantified by Australian business consultancy Maureen Kyne, whose global survey questioned leaders in roles spanning from middle-managers to CEOs and board members. Responses contained alarming insights into the upward bullying trend, as well as first-hand accounts that were remarkably consistent despite differences in company size, sector, or nationality—including U.S. participants who made up nearly 20 percent of the total. Fully 71 percent of all respondents reported having personally experienced upward bullying, with nearly three-quarters saying the abuse is becoming more frequent.

“The presence of similar patterns across organizations of different sizes points to a systemic behavioral risk, not a localized cultural anomaly,” a report on the study said. “This challenges common assumptions that upward bullying is more likely in flat structures, extensive bureaucracies, or organizations that are changing. Scale does not protect organizations from upward bullying.”

Other findings suggested upward bullying may becoming increasingly common in workplaces, and not the rare conflicts between mutually hostile or mismatched bosses and subordinates they’re often cast as.

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For example, 80 percent of respondents reported they’d witnessed another executive targeted for payback or simply vindictive treatment by their own teams. Yet despite those cases of bottom-to-top cases antagonism having been observed, and even reported, they frequently generated no effective intervention from besieged managers’ colleagues or company directors.

One consequence of that lack of response was just 18 percent of participating executives said they thought they’d get support from top officials if they were targeted by their direct reports. That, in turn, led many targeted leader to say they’d started doubting their own authority, decision-making capabilities, and standing in management ranks.

Not surprisingly, 66 of respondents who reported witnessing or having themselves experienced upward bullying also said it had undermined the company’s wider performance. Fully 81 percent said that had come in lower trust and morale across the workplace, while 58 percent cited reduced productivity, and nearly 64 percent said it had sparked higher turnover in leadership roles.But given the clear hierarchical, decision-making, and general power advantage that leaders have in the workplace, how do employees manage to turn those tables?

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