Bill, age sixty-four, was a married retired executive who sought help with anger management at the urging of his wife Ann.

After 24 years, Ann could no longer tolerate his bullying behavior towards her, her children and their friends. She often recounted herself in an insulting manner, “getting in your face” using a loud, intimidating voice that scared her.

She often felt like a little girl who was growing cold. She gave her orders without thinking about her feelings or how others reacted to her behavior. If he didn’t get her way, she would often pout or deny him the necessary finances.

Adult Bully Tactics

As this case illustrates, emotional bullying occurs when someone tries to gain control by making others feel angry or scared. It is often characterized by yelling, name calling, sarcasm, teasing, belittling, belittling, embarrassment, or intimidation. Ann said that they had no friends because of Bill’s behavior. His company forced him into early retirement due to senior management alienation.

Bullies often have a personality disorder

Like many bullies, Bill had a deep sense of insecurity about himself. He completely lacked empathy or the ability to perceive how he was negatively affecting others.

He honestly didn’t see himself as the problem and was constantly dismayed when others around him were devastated or offended by his behavior. Bill had what is known as a “narcissistic” personality disorder. He was only capable of interpreting events from his perspective. Preoccupied with himself, he had little consideration or understanding of the feelings of others.

Can bullies change?

While research shows that most bullies are unable to make profound changes to their personality, they can sometimes modify their behavior to the extent that they are more tolerable. Typically, the motivation to change is inspired by outside influences, such as employers, spouses, or children. Bill, for example, desperately wanted his wife back from her, since he truly loved her to the extent that she could experience love. Other bullies we’ve seen in anger management classes decided to change at the threat of losing their job. Jim, a line supervisor at a chemical plant, fell into this category.

Jim’s case

An “old school” manager, Jim would often yell and threaten employees to motivate them to produce more, thinking his behavior would be seen as positive by company executives.

Unfortunately, too many employees complained, resulting in being referred to HR for action. It turns out that Jim didn’t want to be seen as a bully, he didn’t know that others saw him that way, and he certainly didn’t want to lose his job of over 25 years.

Therefore, I was highly motivated to acquire more effective employee engagement skills while maintaining a high production rate.

He did well in anger management as he learned our anger management tools, particularly the “empathy” tool, which includes increased social awareness (seeing how you are showing up to others) as well as increased sensitivity to the feelings of others.

Unfortunately, not all bullies are as receptive to intervention as Jim was. Many bullies remain bullies because they don’t see themselves as the problem. In this case, you may need to learn to deal with their behavior, if you find yourself in an unfortunate situation where he needs to continue to be with them but survive.

four ways to cope

* Focus on the bully’s positive attributes and try to ignore the negative parts. For example, there was a very sweet and generous side to Bill when he wasn’t a bully, a side that Ann could learn to focus on to survive the unpleasant times.

* Be confident and look your attacker in the eye. Speak in a calm, clear voice while asserting yourself by naming the behavior you don’t like and saying what is expected instead.

* Create a distraction or change the subject. Try using humor or a well-chosen word to disarm the bully.

* Give the bully’s ego what it needs. For example, Ann learned to praise Bill more and give him more credit and recognition for things she did well. While this tactic is a bit manipulative, it worked well in decreasing the number of times Bill bullied her. And she allowed Ann to survive a difficult situation.

2005 © Dr. Tony Fiore All rights reserved.