Grow Your Spine & Manage Abrasive Leadership Behavior: A Guide for Those Who Manage Bosses Who Bully

Laura Crawshaw

Written by IAWBH member Laura Crawshaw, this book shows managers how to fearlessly manage bosses who behave badly, ensuring a psychologically safe workplace. Abrasive leaders rub their coworkers the wrong way, with behaviors ranging from mild offense to open attack. Their bullying behaviors cause interpersonal friction that grates on subordinates, peers, and often superiors, eroding motivation and disrupting the smooth flow of work. They can inflict deep wounds and intense suffering on employees, who find themselves unwillingly relegated to the ranks of the working wounded. Managing abrasive leadership behavior is no easy task, and doing it ineptly or failing to do it altogether can have disastrous consequences for organizations. What does it take to manage abrasive leadership behavior successfully? It takes courageous intervention paired with psychological insight, otherwise known as Management Backbone. This concise, highly practical guide shows managers how to grow their Management Backbone, presenting the concepts (vertebrae) and step-by-step guidance on how to stop the suffering caused by abrasive leadership behavior. The book addresses these questions, among others:

•       How do I determine if a leader’s interpersonal conduct is unacceptable?
•       What if I haven’t personally observed the bad behavior people are complaining
          about?
•       What's the best way to tell a bullying boss that the abrasive behavior has to stop?
•      What if they deny their leadership style is abrasive and become aggressive with
          me?
•       How do I motivate an abrasive leader to change, and is change even possible?

Dr. Crawshaw challenges the commonly held belief that managers fail to manage the unacceptable conduct of their abrasive leaders because they’re heartless and care nothing about suffering employees. The reality? Most managers of abrasive leaders aren’t heartless: they’re spineless and afraid to intervene. Afraid of being harmed by, or doing harm to, their technically competent but interpersonally incompetent leaders, their managers sink into paralysis, feeling helpless and hopeless.  An internationally-renowned expert on bosses who bully, Crawshaw’s definitive guide describes the psychological forces that make conduct intervention so challenging, provides clear criteria for determining unacceptable conduct, and shows how to calmly and confidently motivate abrasive leaders to abandon their destructive styles permanently. This book is for managers at all levels, human resource professionals, boards of directors, professional licensing boards, and workplace bullying and psychological safety activists. Targets of bullying may wish to anonymously provide the book to their abrasive boss’s manager to suggest intervention.

More details are available at https://www.amazon.com/Spine-Manage-Abrasive-Leadership-Behavior/dp/B0BSWQX98C

Preventing Workplace Bullying and Harassment

Hayden Olsen

Managers and supervisors are key people in organisations when it comes to the prevention of bullying and harassment.

This handbook has been written to give them practical guidance and to answer some of the most common questions they ask:

• How do I identify what is bullying/harassment and what isn’t? Where’s the line?
• How do I stop bullying/harassment if I know it’s happening?
• What is the difference between informal and formal interventions? What’s my part in this?
• What should I do when someone tells me they are being bullied or harassed?
• How should I respond if I am accused of bullying when I am trying to manage someone?
• How can I help create a work environment that prevents bullying and harassment from happening?

Hadyn Olsen is a leading consultant specialising in the prevention of bullying and harassment. He is the author of Workplace Bullying and Harassment: A Toolbox for Managers and Supervisors (CCH, 2005, 2010).

His twenty years of experience working with numerous organisations in this field form the basis of this timely and practical guide. Read more. 

The Bullied Brain - Heal Your Scars and Restore your Health

Jennifer Fraser

In The Bullied Brain learn about the evidence doctors, psychiatrists, neuropsychologists and neuroscientists have gathered, that shows the harm done by bullying and abuse to your brain, and how you can be empowered to protect yourself and all others. Not only is it critically important to discover how much your mental health is contingent on what has sculpted and shaped the world inside your head, it is also the first step in learning ways to recover.

While your brain is vulnerable to bullying and abuse, it is at the same time remarkably adept at repairing all kinds of traumas and injuries. The first part of The Bullied Brainoutlines what the research shows bullying and abuse do to your brain. The second part of the book, "The Stronger Brain" provides case studies of adults and children who have undergone focused training to heal their neurological scars and restore their health. These accessible and practical lessons can be integrated into your life. Strengthening your brain acts as an effective antidote to the bullying and abuse that are rampant in society.

Foreword by Dr. Michael Merzenich, 'the father of neuroplasticity' who also contributes his knowledge, insights, and research in The Bullied Brain to help demonstrate how to empower your brain to fulfill its power and potential. Dr. Merzenich says The Bullied Brain is "THE most completely scientifically thorough treatment of the subject on planet earth."

More information

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 Trauma-Informed Law: A Primer for Lawyer Resilience and Healing

Edited by Helgi Maki, Marjorie Florestal, Myrna McCallum and J Kim Wright. Published by the American Bar Association.

Trauma-Informed Law discusses the many intersections of trauma and law where it is often denied, ignored, covered up, or avoided. The book is intended for lawyers, law students, legal educators, and judges, as well as decision-makers, administrators, staff, and anyone impacted by the court. It is a collection of cases and situations with practice implications for other cases impacted by trauma, whether those cases and situations involve race, class, gender, different physical or mental abilities (or disability), sexual orientation or other diverse factors including the impact of developmental health issues, addiction, substance abuse, poverty, access to opportunities, community safety or belonging and more. Each scenario holds useful implications for both practice issues within the same area of law and even in other areas of law or the legal system.

1. Introduction to Trauma-Informed Lawyering
2. Why it Matters: The Context for Trauma-Informed Lawyering
3. Lawyers’ Perspectives on Trauma: What is Trauma in the Law & Lawyering
4. Legal Practice and Trauma
5. Tools for Lawyers and Practice Areas: Underlying Principles of Trauma-Informed Tools
6. Trauma & Healing in Legal Systems: Courts and Judges
7. Legal Education and Trauma
8. Systems Change and Trauma: The Legal System and Systematic or Collective Trauma
9. Conclusion

More information.

Workplace Bullying, 2nd Edition

Sam Catanzariti and Keryl Egan

With the addition of bullying provisions in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), workplace bullying was finally acknowledged by the law. The Fair Work Commission was conferred a wide range of powers to deal with complaints about workplace bullying. Naturally, many employers took an interest in the legal ramifications of this burgeoning area of law. Aside from the legal risks, workplace bullying has the capacity to inflict great psychological harm upon its victims.

The second edition of Workplace Bullying explores, in greater depth, the psychological aspect of such bullying and its damaging effects. Workplace Bullying offers advice on how a toxic workplace environment can be prevented from forming. It provides a practical guide to victims of workplace bullying regarding how they can recover and build resilience, and an overview of new legal developments in this evolving area of law. This book is an invaluable tool for all lawyers, HR professionals, counsellors, social workers and psychologists working in the area. More information. 

Joe Catanzariti is the Vice President of the Fair Work Commission. Prior to his appointment in 2013, he was the lead Partner for the National Clayton Utz Workplace Relations, Employment and Safety Practice Group as well as the National HR partner for the firm.

Keryl Egan is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, coach and educator. She is a fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and member of the Australian Clinical Psychologists Association, and she teaches psychotherapy within the NSW Health Department. Keryl has a special interest in workplace bullying, psychological injury and relational trauma. She has worked with the Australian Graduate School of Management and large organisations to develop bullying awareness and improve cultures. Keryl was the co-author with Joseph Catanzariti for the first edition of Workplace Bullying.