March 15, 2025

Bully University? The Cost of Workplace Bullying and Employee Disengagement in American Higher Education

 


Throughout the organizational strata of higher education, leadership was a common thread either as the actor or the enabler of bullying behavior on campus. When leadership allowed bullying to flourish, employees disengaged from the work tasks, spending hours regrouping from hostile interaction. 

A target looked to leadership for relief after facing a bully. Human resources followed leadership in response to a bully. Furthermore, the bully was often from the ranks of leadership with extensive organizational or expert power. Findings confirmed that leadership can set the tone in cultivating an environment that sustains or eradicates bullying behavior.

With budget cuts and challenges, higher education cannot afford to lose valuable productivity to staff turnover and employee disengagement. Theoretically speaking, turnover related to workplace bullying reflected the number of staff who may be distracted and disengaged while serving staff and students. Leadership can galvanize an organization, or lead it simply to mediocrity and stagnation.

To rise above mediocrity, transformation and innovation are critical elements for any organization, but neither can exist without a trustworthy leader with integrity. “Integrity is a fundamental consistency between one’s values, goals, and actions. At the simplest level, it means standing for something, having a significant commitment, and exemplifying this commitment in your behavior”…

The findings of this and previous studies reported that targets of workplace bullying and witnesses of bullying were motivated to seek relief from the aggression they experienced; in the absence of a supportive leader, employees withdrew and remained distracted. Consistent with other studies, this study corroborated previous findings that workplace bullying often comes from leadership and that human resources seldom advocated for the target, leaving the target toiling in isolation, disengaging from organizational objectives, or leaving the organization…

Consequently, targets and witnesses of workplace bullying disengaged from the job. They withheld their creativity and retreated from the established hostile environment…


Hollis, L. P. (2015). Bully university? The cost of workplace bullying and employee disengagement in American higher education. Sage Open5(2), 2158244015589997.

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