How to Deal with the Office Bully

The Bully-Proof Workplace series | Part 1. This is the first in a series drawn from our book, The Bully-Proof Workplace, which we wrote to give leaders, targets, and bystanders the tools, scripts, and strategies they need to recognize and confront workplace bullying — and to build cultures where it cannot take root. In the posts that follow, we will go deeper on each of the four types of bullies and how to engage them directly.

Workplace bullying is not a fringe issue. It is pervasive, it is costly, and it is getting worse. The Workplace Bullying Institute has found that roughly one in three Americans has experienced bullying at work. Globally, the picture is no better — a Monster Global Poll of more than 16,000 workers worldwide found that 64 percent answered yes to the question: Have you ever been bullied at work?

Over more than three decades as executive coaches, we have sat across from countless leaders, managers, and individual contributors who have been targeted, witnessed, or — with considerably more discomfort — recognized themselves as the source of this behavior. What we have learned is this: dealing with a bully is a skill. It has to be deliberately learned and practiced. And while we may not always be able to change a bully, we can — and must — change our approach to dealing with one.

What Bullying Actually Is

Bullying is the repeated attempt to demean, diminish, defame, dominate, or coerce others until they surrender their point of view. Bullies lie. They obstruct the truth. They boast about accomplishments — real or fabricated — and act impulsively. They seldom feel guilt or remorse and are largely unaware of the damage they cause. And critically: bullying is not managing. It is not leading. It is offensive and organizationally destructive.

What makes bullying particularly corrosive is not just its direct effect on the target. It is what it does to everyone around the target. When a bully operates unchecked, it suppresses creativity, erodes morale, and instills a low-grade but persistent fear that quietly hollows out a team’s productivity and trust.

The Four Types of Workplace Bully

Through our coaching practice and our research, we have identified four distinct types of bullies. Each uses different tactics, and each requires a different response.

• The Belier spreads falsehoods, rumors, and damaging gossip behind a target’s back — quietly undermining credibility and eroding trust in ways that are difficult to detect or address directly.
• The Blocker imposes rigid, unspoken rules and demands robotic adherence to process, deliberately excluding others from contributing and stifling any flexibility or creative problem-solving.
• The Braggart is a self-adoring narcissist whose relentless focus on self-promotion overshadows colleagues, diminishes their contributions, and erodes their sense of self-worth and creative confidence.
• The Brute uses aggressive, antisocial tactics — including yelling and intimidation — to assert dominance and blatant disregard for the rights and safety of others.

What is consistent across all four types is the underlying dynamic: a desperate need for control rooted in deep-seated fear and insecurity. Recognizing this does not excuse the behavior. But it does help you stop taking it personally — and start responding strategically.

We Must Not Be Passive

The most dangerous response to a bully is inaction. It is tempting — even rational — to keep your head down and hope the situation resolves itself. It rarely does. Passivity signals to the bully that their behavior is working. It signals to bystanders that the behavior is acceptable. And over time, it costs the target far more in health, confidence, and career trajectory than the discomfort of confrontation ever would.

We must hold bullies accountable. As leaders and as organizations, it is our collective responsibility to build cultures of honesty, truth-telling, and promise-keeping — and to refuse to tolerate behavior that corrodes those foundations.

Two Practical Starting Points

Whether you are a target, a manager, or a bystander, these two steps form the foundation of any effective response to workplace bullying.

Document before you act. Before confronting a bully or escalating to HR, build your case. Using what we call Critical Incident Technique (CIT), record each incident with three components: the situation, the specific bullying behavior, and the consequence to you or your team. Collect up to ten incidents. This documentation does two things — it clarifies whether you are in fact being repeatedly targeted, and it gives you specific, concrete evidence that is far more compelling than a general complaint about someone’s behavior.

Confront directly, not punitively. For most types of bullying — the Belier, the Blocker, and the Braggart — we recommend setting up a private, prepared, scripted conversation with the bully. The goal is not retaliation. It is to establish clearly, in specific terms, what behavior you are observing and what change you expect. If your instinct is to go directly to HR, know that most HR functions will ask you to have this conversation first anyway. Coming in with documentation and a prior direct conversation puts you in a far stronger position.

Note: The Brute requires a different approach. Direct confrontation with an aggressive or potentially volatile bully can escalate the situation. We address the Brute specifically in a later post in this series.

Workplace bullying is solvable

Not easily, and not without courage — but with the right preparation, the right tools, and the willingness to act, targets and organizations alike can stop it, document it, confront it, and build structures that make it far harder for bullies to thrive.

In the posts that follow, we will walk through each of the four bully types in detail — with the scripts, strategies, and coaching frameworks we have refined over decades in practice.

Molly D. Shepard and Peter J. Dean are co-authors of The Bully-Proof Workplace: Essential Strategies, Tips and Scripts for Dealing with the Office Sociopath, published by McGraw-Hill. They are the founders of Leaders by Design, an executive coaching firm with more than three decades of experience developing senior leaders.