Managers who use anything other than positive management practices run the risk of employees pointing out their shortcomings as managers. Many managers welcome suggestions about what can be done better, and use the employees' suggestions to improve themselves in their work. No manager is perfect with complete knowledge of good management practices, and it is therefore normal to receive occasional suggestions about behavior or incidents that could have been done better. A manager's negative management style is then not leading to a negative workplace culture nor degrading working conditions for employees, but is part of constructive working conditions where all employees are encouraged to promote and support each other, across all job titles.
Similarly, there are also managers who do not take well to even the slightest suggestions about their negative management practices, thus driving working conditions into a demotivating atmosphere, and a negative workplace culture. In order to prevent any mention of negative management practices, these managers use various silencing techniques both in the workplace and outside of it against employees, and former employees. Note that a distinction is made here between silencing techniques for employees (persons in employment) and individuals (persons dismissed from employment).
Silencing techniques used against employees
Silencing techniques are inherently abusive behavior. Silencing techniques vary depending on the situation and the individual, both the victim and the abuser, and therefore there is a wide variety of possible silencing techniques that are used on employees who are still working. Examples of situations where a manager is using a silencing technique on employees is e.g.:
- Discussing events that show the manager in a negative light is forbidden, employees perceive it as such that if they do try and discuss the event, they will face repercussions.
- If employees try to discuss events that portray the manager in a negative light, employees are gaslighted and either their experience of the event belittled, or the manager simply claims that the event never happened.
- Employees are repeatedly slandered by the manager, negative stories about their work are spread, and employees' professional reputation is muddied. This is done with the purpose of undermining the credibility of the employees if one of them starts discussing the manager's negative behavior.
- In order to spread negative stories about employees, the manager surrounds themselves with sycophants and codependent individuals who are kept in a semi-echo chamber; the sycophants and codependents are isolated from other employees and only get to discuss and share negative stories. This cements the negative imagery perpetuated by the manager, and the sycophants and the codependent individuals start spreading the same negative stories fully believing them without having any further data to back them up.
- These are individuals who can be expected to start exhibiting the same negative behavior as the manager. It should be noted that these individuals themselves are not immune to the manager's silencing techniques.
- The manager uses negative management practices to force middle managers to do various negative tasks. Middle managers are thusly set up as scapegoats, which further silences the employees as there seems to be no one left to turn to regarding the situation.
- If a middle manager refuses to follow the manager's negative management practices, the middle manager is themselves threatened with dismissal for "not doing their job properly" or "not complying with their employment contract".
- Other employees are also used to silence each other. Gossip regarding one employee is drummed up and other employees forced to forced, or talked into, making complaints regarding said employee. These are complaints that, in general, are considered to be issues that employees work through among themselves, or with the help of the HR department, but are driven out of control with the sole purpose of silencing a single employee.
- If the person being complained about gets a meeting with the manager to try and solve any issues, the manager will sound sympathetic and try and buy the person's favor with niceties, but the manager will refuse to listen to the person's reasons or pleads for help and hide behind a facade of "the issue has gone too far to remedy".
- If employees discuss the manager's negative management practices, employees are often dealt with using various methods:
- The manager takes assignments from the employee without further explanation.
- The manager places an excessive number of assignments on the employee, without additional help or support.
- The manager denies the employee the necessary equipment and tools to do their jobs.
- The manager forbids the employee to talk to other employees, thereby both isolating the employee as well as preventing the employee from being able to do their job properly.
- The manager isolates the employee by placing the person's workplace away from others, and denying the employee the opportunity to meet other employees.
- The manager talks to other employees and tells them they can't talk to certain employees, thus isolating those employees.
- The manager reprimands the employee for any details they can think of, where the employee does not get a chance to defend themselves or point out the wrongness of the manager's actions.
- The manager scolds, or yells at, employees who try to point out any mistreatment.
- If an employee falls ill, or complains about the situation, the manager encourages the employee to quit as the employee "is not fit for work anyway".
Silencing techniques are designed to beat employees down into total obedience to the manager. Already degraded employees are not immune to the management's silencing techniques, are often continue to maintain the degradation. The more employees who the silencing techniques work on, the bolder the manager becomes in their abusive behavior. Therefore, the manager does not just keep the situation unchanged, but the situation gradually worsens the longer it is allowed to remain unchanged.
Silencing techniques against individuals
Silencing techniques are not only to maintain negative management practices within a company, but are also used to ridding the manager of personnel deemed "dangerous" to the manager and the hold they have on other employees. These are the individuals who do not hesitate to point out what is going wrong, or "rock the boat" in some way.
Individuals who dare to point out what is going on in the workplace are dealt with and gradually broken down. While the individual is still in employment, the individual is repeatedly told that it is best for the individual to quit, as the individual is unable to do their job due to interference from the manager. Individuals in this situation are gradually driven out so that the they quit on their own, or end up in long-term sickleave due to pressure, which can later be used as an excuse to terminate the individual.
Individuals who rock the boat too much are dealt with specifically. Not only are the previously mentioned silencing measures used repeatedly against those individuals, but their professional reputation is threatened, and their work is downplayed among other employees to reduce the individual's credibility. Is this done in order to break the individual down as quickly as possible, the idea being that it is only necessary to threaten further measures against the individual's professional honor and reputation in order to dismiss the individual without error. If the individual threatens to take the matter to their union, the individual is offered the choice of a severance agreement or complete submission to the manager's demands in order to keep their job. The individual is hence given the choice of keeping their job, knowing that they face nothing but further abuse, or to sign a severance agreement that at least frees the individual from further abusive behavior.
Even if the individual somehow manages to escape further threats of termination, there is always risk of the manager using various methods to further weigh on the individual's professional honor and reputation. In some cases, the situation is so bad that the manager continues personal attacks against the individual despite the fact that the individual has already quit their job, and even after termination.
In conclusion
An establishment that has a manager who repeatedly uses silencing techniques against employees is never a healthy workplace. Employees often express great discomfort at the workplace, there is a lot of sickness and absence from the workplace due to anxiety or physical symptoms that seem to be tied to the workplace.
Employees' discomfort is not limited to the establishment or this particular manager, and employees often find it difficult to seek for a new job after such a situation due to fear of the situation repeating itself. Employees therefore run the risk of burnout and withdrawal from the labor market, due to abusive behavior of one manager towards them.
It is therefore important that employees stand together in difficult situations. In situations where individuals are easily challenged and subjugated, groups can stand strong against the overpowering of a manager.
It is important for all of us to remember that no one is neutral when it comes to abusive behavior. If employees choose to ignore a manager's abusive behavior against other employees, they are accepting the behavior, behavior that will be increase when it is accepted and therefore be directed to a greater extent against those who tried to be neutral.
Abuse thrives in silence, and to eradicate abusive behavior from the labor market it is necessary to bring the behavior to the surface and demand a change of circumstances.
We deserve it.
We all deserve it.
Article first appeared in Smartland 23.03.2023 [link].