Bullying and depression at work: prevention starts at the very top

Abstract

In a Feature on depression in the workplace, journalist Matthew Shaw sought ways to make his newsroom more open and mentally healthy.1Shaw M Depression in the workplace: a journalist's personal story.Lancet Psychiatry. 2016; 3: 1020-1021Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Google Scholar He was advised, “to remove the stigma of talking about depression, those at the very top of any organisation must speak out and create an environment where staff feel free to seek help”.1Shaw M Depression in the workplace: a journalist's personal story.Lancet Psychiatry. 2016; 3: 1020-1021Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Google Scholar Equally, those at the very top can increase the risks of depression in the workplace. Executive positions bestow great authority through the formal management structure and informal social influences, as workers are encouraged to follow the lead of the boss. Unscrupulous bosses can wield this power to bully their subordinates, and managers lower in the hierarchy tend to mirror the bullying behaviour.2Allison S Bastiampillai T Workplace bullying in Australia: recruiting ethical leaders is an important public health measure.Aust NZJ Psychiatry. 2016; 50: 1104-1105Crossref PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar, 3Christakis NA Fowler JH Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior.Statistics in Medicine. 2013; 32: 556-577Crossref PubMed Scopus (666) Google Scholar The risks are greater in large hierarchical organisations, including governments, public services, business corporations, health-care services, the media, churches, the law, the armed services, and the police force. Rates of depression are increased among past and current victims of workplace bullying.2Allison S Bastiampillai T Workplace bullying in Australia: recruiting ethical leaders is an important public health measure.Aust NZJ Psychiatry. 2016; 50: 1104-1105Crossref PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar NHS data provide an insight into the widespread nature of bullying by managers in a large hierarchical organisation. The NHS is under great stress because of funding shortfalls and the after-effects of the junior doctors' strike. Leadership and management failures are commonplace.4Allison S Goodall A Bastiampillai T Expert leadership: why psychiatrists should lead mental health services.Australas Psychiatry. 2016; 24: 225-227Crossref PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar The NHS Staff Surveys reveal some troubling results. In the 2015 survey, only 31% of the staff reported good communication with NHS executives (from a total of 299 000 respondents across the 297 NHS organisations in England, with a response rate of 41%).5NHSBriefing note: issues highlighted by the 2015 NHS staff survey.http://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/Caches/Files/20160322_NHS%20Staff%20Survey%202015%20National%20Briefing_V2.pdfGoogle Scholar Mental health trusts had relatively low staff engagement. In total, 25% of the NHS respondents had experienced workplace bullying within the past 12 months, but only 38% had disclosed the most recent incident to the NHS. These percentages had not improved over the previous 4 years, despite the organisation's avowed intentions. Most worryingly, “one in eight staff (13%) reported that they had experienced harassment or bullying from their manager one or more times”.5NHSBriefing note: issues highlighted by the 2015 NHS staff survey.http://www.nhsstaffsurveys.com/Caches/Files/20160322_NHS%20Staff%20Survey%202015%20National%20Briefing_V2.pdfGoogle Scholar If bullying becomes established as a management technique, anti-bullying programmes need the support of powerful people to succeed. As national leaders, politicians should begin the process.2Allison S Bastiampillai T Workplace bullying in Australia: recruiting ethical leaders is an important public health measure.Aust NZJ Psychiatry. 2016; 50: 1104-1105Crossref PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar They need to speak out against bullying in their own workplace, as exemplified by Malcolm Tucker in the BBC series, The Thick of It. Real change in the political culture would flow on to public services, where ministers and their powerful advisors set the tone for departmental executives. Across society, those at the very top are best placed to establish anti-bullying key performance indicators for business, the media, churches, health-care services, the law, the armed services, and the police force. However, bullies at all levels of the political and executive hierarchy tend to recruit like-minded people to management posts. To break this pernicious cycle, employers should have systems in place to identify and exclude management applicants who perpetrate or condone bullying, and instead recruit those with established track records of ethical leadership. Recruiting ethical managers is an important public health measure that can contribute to the mental health and productivity of employees in workplaces, as envisioned by Shaw. We declare no competing interests. Both authors contributed to concept development. SA wrote the first draft, and both authors were responsible for revising the article. Depression in the workplace—a journalist's personal storyIt was just 2 years ago, sitting at the BBC's news desk in London (UK), when I knew I couldn't carry on. I was so tired—that's the only way I can describe it. Tired, lost, and heartbroken by life. Full-Text PDF