The harm bystanders cause with Jessica Hickman

Hi, everyone. Welcome to under the Rug at Work, where I shine light on problems that are normally swept under the rug. Today I'm chatting with Jessica Hickman about bystanders of bullying and harassment at work and the harm that they cause themselves and others. Jess is the founder of Bullyology and leads the upstander movement creating cultural change in workplaces and communities. Thanks for joining me, Jess.

Thanks for having me. I'm very excited about this topic.

Before we get stuck into it, what is a bystander? Is it someone who just stands by without taking action?

In a nutshell, yes, it is exactly that. And look, when I started to unpack and explore and develop my business Bullyology, I thought the common issue was bullies and perpetrators of injustice. And of course, they absolutely are. But I realized as I researched and work across workplaces and industries across Australia and beyond, that one of the biggest issues was people that stand by, tolerate bad behavior, don't challenge it, and ultimately create bystander cultures and mindsets. And I realized that good people stand by and cause harm to others by allowing toxic behaviors perpetrate organizations, cultures, and not just organizations, but schools, community groups, sporting group, and even in the media. We see a lot of comments on social media. And, you know, I've been a passive bystander to comments before, and it wasn't until I researched and unpacked why people become a bystander, I realized how prevalent and common it is and that we need a lot of work and education to help people understand something called the bystander effect of why we become bystanders, which ultimately then can create positive action and change to ultimately help save lives.

So the bystander effect, what's that about?

So I'm a victim, a former victim, or I prefer to use the word target of workplace bullying. And I remember looking around and going, how can my colleagues who are good people stand by and allow me to be publicly berated, have all this thrown at me, have my, you know, work and value undermined publicly? And I realized that they were what is known as suffering with the bystander effect or become passive bystanders. So when I started to research and understand this, ultimately, the bystander effect in a nutshell, assumes that as human beings, when things become difficult, challenging or hard, our natural instinct is to diffuse responsibility. And this is actually widely researched. And it originated when, you know, back in the 60s, there was an unfortunate attack of a young girl called Kitty Genovese in the US and what happened was when the police investigated this brutal attack, it was found that there was over 30 plus and still unknown witnesses that heard screams and witnessed something, turned up their radio, closed their windows, and ultimately defused responsibility. And, you know, the researchers couldn't understand why. And ultimately the bystander effect, again assumes that we diffuse responsibility out of fear, laziness, because we may have raised or blown the whistle previously and nothing ever got done. Or ultimately we could become the target or, you know, we would become under threat. And when we look at this in the workplace, it helped me understand why people would pretend not to hear comments or look the other way or avoid eye contact. And in more modern times, you know, we're driving down the highway and there's been a car accident on the side of the road. As human beings, we tend to slow down nose of what has happened, sometimes even really cause another crash. But the research says if there's one, two or more people attending to that scene, our natural instinct is to diffuse responsibility. Not my issue, not my problem. Someone else will deal with that. And it happens to infiltrate and perpetrate our workplace. And ultimately it creates this bystander culture where people look the other way and just tolerate bad behaviors because of the bystander effect. Yeah.

And it, it really does cause harm, doesn't it? And I think when we don't talk about this, because I really, until you, I've been following your work for a while. You do, you've been doing some great things, but you don't hear about it in the workplace. And I think the reason we sweep it under the rug is because we've all been guilty of it. I think if we talk about it, it means we've got to admit that we've failed. And people don't like to do that. But that's what this podcast is about, and that's what your work is about. And we don't talk about it. We can't make change and we can't fix it or find solutions. So we just have to admit, I think that we've all done it. We've all been there. And as your book says, not all bystanders are bad people.

No.

And you have shared some of the reasons why people don't speak up. And I think it's also good to note that witnesses can also be impacted by what they see. So they might be triggered, or it might trigger trauma for them. Or we could also go into that flight or freeze response and our bodies and our brains literally stop working properly and we sit there and we kick ourselves because I should have done something or I don't know what to do. But I think it's good to highlight that because then we can kind of give ourselves a bit of a break and learn about what we can do to then do something different next time if you see it happen again.

Yes, absolutely. And look, I in my book, I unpack the three clear zones where people fall into the bystander category. And I realize it isn't sometimes because we are conscious of what's happening. And the first step zone really is the unconscious zone. And through my research, I realized that sometimes people are oblivious or suffer blind spot syndrome to what is actually happening around them. Nappy could be because they are suffering themselves. You know, got mental health issues or concerns, overwhelmed, burnt out, fatigued, or sometimes the culture that they've been enrolled into, whether they started with the organization, I don't know, 10, 20 years ago, and this was the culture from the subset, they could be actually unconscious that this culture is actually very damaging and toxic. So they could use words, language, and even, you know, share beliefs that can actually be really outdated and toxic and damaging to people within the organization. So, you know, it is an awareness piece to help people move from unconscious to conscious. And ultimately I found then that people can often sit in the uncomfortable zone. And by uncomfortable I mean, mean there's high awareness, but actually sometimes low capability or training or confidence or skills to know what to do. And if I reflect on my workplace where I suffered bullying, this was definitely the case. People were aware the culture was toxic. They could feel it in their body. They tighten up, they'd walk away when the bully walked into the room. Or ultimately, you know, I always talk about the gut because usually you can feel in your body when a comment or behavior is toxic. We feel, oh, that made me feel uncomfortable. But often we don't know how to deal with that because we haven't had the adequate training or capability building or support from leadership on how to navigate that. And again, if that comment comes from the leader of the business or someone in a power position, again, how do we challenge that? And then the third zone, really I wanted to just discuss is what I call the avoidance zone, where people slip into the bystander category or mindset because it feels too hard. Challenging the status quo was hard. Raising an issue and lifting the rug to the elephant in the room is hard. So again, I often, unfortunately see quite a lot of leaders slip into the avoidance zone where the bullying, harassment or toxic behavior, discrimination, racism, sexism feels too hard to deal with. Someone once said to me, oh, I just ignore it. Because it's just too much paperwork and I just don't have capacity. So this avoidant mindset creates a bystander culture and you know, the standard you walk by is the standard you accept. So if you are in a power position and you tolerate this behavior, well, that's the culture, the set across your team or organization. So you know, people are either unconscious, uncomfortable or avoidant. And ultimately it comes with an awareness piece. And that's really my first step in encouraging people to shine the light within. And that often comes with looking at our own unconscious bias, words, actions and beliefs. And it is uncomfortable, like you mentioned, shining a light inwards because often we can find that, you know, if we aren't being proactive to be what I call an upstander, often we could be a harmful bystander, whether it's unconscious or conscious. But ultimately it needs awareness to help first establish where we're currently at. It does.

And it is hard because if it wasn't hard, it wouldn't be happening and you and I wouldn't be in business. Your story is quite horrific. Would you mind just expanding on it a little bit, just explaining what you have been through?

Yeah, absolutely. So look, as you can tell by my accent, I'm from born and bred in the UK in Wales. And I came to Australia on a three month career break in 2013. And look, I came with the hope of, you know, finding a job or just traveling and then going back to my comfortable leadership job in the uk. I was very fortunate enough to be offered an opportunity to stay in Australia, working in a human resource, people and culture position on a large oil and gas project in the top end Darwin. So it was a really amazing opportunity. I was able to help with the mental health crisis in the industry, rising rates of suicide, anxiety, depression, particularly in the fly in, fly out construction male dominated industry. And was lucky enough to become quite successful, winning awards for my work and nominated as exceptional Women in Resources, even nominated as Northern Territory Young Achiever of the year. So on paper things were beautiful. I was in this beautiful country, setting up this beautiful life. But unfortunately, six months into my role I had a new HR manager and he had a very different leadership style. To me he was very my way or the highway. Didn't believe in the soft and fluffy culture programs we'd won award for, developed and was saving lives. And ultimately this put an arrow on my back. So, you know, it started with subtle job threats or telling me to stop being involved in the culture program, which was very hard because as a Business we were winning awards, winning work because of our culture program. Yet behind the scenes I was being targeted for doing the very work that was actually creating a marvelous culture. So it was very hard for me to understand. And as a people pleaser at the time, a young girl trying to make her mark in the industry, trying to make a mark in Australia, I wanted to please. So ultimately, the more successful I become, the more I was bullied and harassed and the subtle job threats, the visa threats, the you must do what I say, otherwise you could be deported threats escalated to receiving late night calls, threatening me to give him confidential information, accusing me of having interpersonal relationships with the client and workforce. He couldn't understand how a young female could be this successful in an industry that was designed for men. And ultimately, you know, it escalated over a three and a half year period where he would publicly berate me, swear at me, and one time even threw a folder at me in an open plan office. All of this time I reported it 32 times, begging and asking for help to be able to come to work, do my job, look after the people and go home, you know, happy and fulfilled. But ultimately I collapsed at work in June 2017, where the years of sustained abuse and my body being in, you know, that fight, flight or even freeze on time, my nervous system was so impacted and damaged that I physically burned out and collapsed. And that was the pivotal moment when I realized that all of the false promises of we will have a word with him, we'll move him, we'll do this. And that ultimately I didn't understand the long term physical, emotional and psychological effects. And that burnout and collapse was, you know, confronting being in a hospital on the other side of the world from friends and family, but ultimately doing a fantastically well, good job was very confusing but really was the moment that sparked my mission to develop my business buliology and again go on that mission to highlight how toxic cultures can not only damage business success, but increase compensation, damage employee health and well being. And the one that gets most business leaders is damages reputations that are very hard to get rid of. And I hope you don't mind me sharing. I always say to my clients, you know, shit sticks. Yeah. So if you aren't going to play fair and look after your people, that reputation and legacy follows you around.

It does. And social media means you can't hide anymore. And, and everything is on the Internet forever now. So if you, I like to tell leaders as well, if you don't deal with it internally, you'll have to deal with it externally. So make sure that you do and you do your job. And what's really disappointing is it was the HR manager doing these things. The person responsible for the health and safety of the entire organization and should start with his team. And I think like hearing you say, you know, the fluffy people stuff, I think whenever you hear that these days, it's a huge red flag.

Red flag run. Yeah, here's a walking red flag. And it is unfortunate. And people always say to me, you know, why didn't you leave? Why didn't you do this and that? And the reason was why when I was on a visa, two, I was succeeding and doing a job I absolutely loved. And three, I had the weight of the organization on my shoulders because we did have surge in mental health and unfortunately suicide. And I built enough trust and rapport, the people were actually coming to me to ask for help. So. So leaving to me, you know, felt like something that I just couldn't do at the time. And I guess it was a little mis. Stubborn in me thinking why should I be pushed out of a company for doing a good job, let alone a country where I'm building my life and home. But ultimate, ultimately that was detrimental to my health and well being, but also, you know, a great opportunity for me to change the way my life was going. And I don't think I would be in this space focusing on this, you know, taboo topic if I hadn't experienced that. But it's also so unfortunate that people in this space have, you know, often had a terrible experience or treatment at work that leads them to do this work. And with almost half of Australians suffering bullying at least once in their working career, according to safe Work, you know, there's just so much work to be done.

Exactly. And your point is? Right. Why should you have to leave when you're not doing anything wrong? And I've read your book, it goes through your story, which is amazing and horrific. But the work and the change that you were making is phenomenal. They should have been asking how you're doing it throughout all of the mining organizations. Not trying to squash you down because he felt inadequate because you were shining it just.

Yeah, and I just think that is such a good point because often if you are a target of workplace bullying or discrimination or racism or you know, just any toxic abuse, ultimately you're made to feel like it's something about you, whether it's your appearance, the way you talk, your accent, the way you walk, the way you carry yourself because you're incompetent at doing something. And I realized, which was again, a savior, grace and helping me heal, that it was never about me. It was actually always about his incompetence, his inferior. And ultimately, you know, when I work with organizations now, often it is, and I'm sure you have the same. Often it is the high achievers that suffer bullying through jealousy or fear or, you know, someone gets promoted or has a new opportunity or wins an award and ultimately that, you know, the typical Aussie tall poppy syndrome creeps in and we want to chop each other down rather than raise each other up. And we've got so much work to do in that space because, you know, it is ruining lives and people's success. I've worked with a lot of people I've coached that are fearful of succeeding or climbing that, you know, ladder or smashing that glass ceiling because of the impacts of a previous workplace or trauma, or they see what happens to people at the top. And it's just so sad.

It is. And it should kind of be. Not only your book should be in Management 101, but managers should know that if they have great team members, it means that they're succeeding. That's what you're supposed to do.

Absolutely. You know, raise others up because it makes you look better. But ultimately, now some people are. Someone said to me last week, do you think it's. Some people are wired differently? And I'm like, I'm not sure whether it's nature or nurture, but yes, I definitely agree that some people, you know, cognition, you know, they, they are the walking red flags.

How did you feel when you were in meetings and you were being berated by this guy and no one said anything? How did that make you feel?

Yeah, invisible, small, embarrassed, inferior. But ultimately, you know, sometimes it was angered. And that came out in an array of emotions, from freezing to run into the toilet crying, to physically vomiting before work on some occasions, to ultimately being in a tense, you know, mind, body state where I'd sit at my desk just feeling humiliated. And yeah, it was just so disappointed and really confusing. I couldn't understand on paper why people would think it would be important to, you know, to speak up and create this culture. Support me to win awards yet. Tell me to toughen up princess. Take his comments with a pinch of salt. You seem confident and fine. You're high achieving. It can't really be impacting you that much. Or it's just his personality or leadership style. Ignore him. So, you know, all of these range of emotions. I just found that every Day I was kind of just on this wheel, just trying to keep up, trying to understand. And ultimately, that's what caused the burnout, because it was just a roller coaster of emotions. And my. My bully was really adept at looking like the nice guy when we had corporate visits or, you know, he would be funny or make jokes, and that was his way of bringing people into his inner circle. But if you were in his outer circle, you better watch out and you better want to not be alone with him, because, you know, he'll catch you with a glance, he'll nudge your chair, he'll sneak up behind you when you're working and put the fear up you. So ultimately, yeah, it was a very confronting, confusing time where I was. I documented the whole experience. I look back and go, wow, even the most resilient crumble. But well done coming out the other side of that, because that sustained abuse constantly, you know, beats a person down. And I just want to quickly touch on the fact of, you know, when we talk about workplace bullying, people often assume, get another job, Just leave the organization, move teams. I think it's important we compare it to domestic violence, because ultimately, when someone experiences domestic violence, we know that to call the police, call support services, and we know that there's a long road to recovery for the invisible scars caused by the impact of domestic violence. Yet with workplace bullying, we're just told to get on with it, have enough, leave, move teams. And, you know, we don't actually, as a society understand the weight of the invisible scars and the post traumatic stress disorder and, you know, the long road to recovery. We're just told to get on with it. And again, that's also really counterproductive, productive, and, you know, toxic positive for people succeeding at work.

And it doesn't fix the problem. You moving doesn't fix the problem. It just allows it to continue. They get worse because they get away with it. So that's not okay.

Again. Exactly right. And I did a post up on LinkedIn yesterday and had a really great comment. I was talking about the importance of being an upstander rather than bystander. And, you know, when I think about being an upstander, you know, they are the people that see something that is morally wrong and, you know, feel that social desire to do the right thing. They're often courageous. They challenge the status quo, and they speak up no matter how uncomfortable it is. And someone's, you know, challenged me on that and said, well, Jess, this is great, and I'm 100% behind being an upstander but what happens when you lose your job for being an upstander or you get fired or the bully then gets promoted? And, you know, I think this is important to talk about because, you know, I could sit here and go, we all must be upstanders, which I do believe. But in my book, I also talk about the impacts of what I call the upstander effect, which of course are positive, can change and save lives and create wonderful cultures. But also the dark side is the fact that you can then become a target, you can lose your job. And if I look at my experience, you know, I had to leave my workplace out of fear for medical reasons. They swept that under the rug and ultimately promoted the bully to now a national position. And does that infuriate me? Yes. But also, you know, it's important to understand that being in a position stand there, sometimes you don't get the outcome you want. And that comes with part of, you know, the challenge. Because ultimately, if every time someone spoke up or challenged a bully or a perpetrator or the status quo and we all got our own way, ultimately we wouldn't have the problem that we're facing across the world now with rising bullying and harassment. So I just wanted to touch on that because I think it is important to have a balanced, balanced opinion and give honest feedback.

Yes, definitely. And sometimes we feel so alone being, you know, the victim's ally or the upstander. And I think what is also really helpful for everyone involved is be the upstanders upstander or the allies ally. And if you're uncomfortable and you don't really feel that you can be the one to say something, but you've got someone who's brave enough to do that, but maybe isn't stepping up or speaking up because they're not sure if they're going to get supported and all of those negative consequences, which are unfortunately really true, if you were to switch the bystander effect, and let's say two, five or ten people who witnessed this behaviour, went to management or went to HR or actually spoke up in that meeting and said, look, I'm sorry, but that's not acceptable. And hey, work, health and safety, this is what has just occurred. We've seen it. We don't feel it's appropriate. Imagine the action that would happen then. They can't ignore that. They definitely can't ignore it. When there's power in numbers.

Yeah. And again, in my work, I talk about the step even before that, Nicole, because ultimately, everything we're talking about here is reactive. We're talking about intervening after something has occurred. What happens if we switch the pendulum and build up standards from the word go before our culture becomes toxic, before we have bullying, harassment, and all of the other, you know, racism, discrimination, sexism, you know, infiltrating our business. And that's really where I focus. A lot of my work now is working with proactive organizations and leaders to develop an upstander culture. So ultimately, you know, we're in a team meeting, Nicole, and you know, you say a comment to me or use a torn or, you know, call me a nickname that I'm a bit uncomfortable with and, you know, I can turn around and say, hey, Nicole, you know, the way you spoke to me in that meeting made me feel like this way, could we not do that again? And you're open, receptive, and we've got enough emotional intelligence to be able to go, that was not my intention at all. Jess, thank you for flagging this with me and I promise I won't do it again. Which, you know, is comes with set in a culture where we feel confident and there's enough psychological safety that we can actually challenge each other in a safe way. And that goes to, you know, constructively disagreeing in meetings and, you know, having, you know, two way, 360 feedback where we can actually give feedback to one another not only on our performance and, you know, productivity, but how we feel we're going as a team with regards to our team culture, the language we use. And as the world changes now, we should be able to, in a strong team, be able to say, hey, the way you refer to that person or gender, or, you know, that. That banter comment you made, I don't actually find it funny. And again, that sets a standard where it doesn't have to go to hr, it doesn't have to go to work health, safety, and it doesn't have to damage reputation and lives because we feel confident and supported to challenge it from the word go. But again, that comes with proactive leaders being courageous enough to develop upstanders and lead that change themselves. Because ultimately, you know, time is money and people sit on these topics until it becomes too late and then contact myself or you and go, you know, we've got a major issue. All of these things are happening. Help, help, help. Rather than going, okay, what do we need to do to create sustainable culture? And let's focus our attention that which ultimately makes the back end a lot easier. Definitely.

And that prevention is so much easier than cure, as you said, and as your book focuses on, which is why I think it needs to be in, hey, you're a new manager. Here's this book and here's this course.

And yeah.

And some people, they don't know where to start. And I feel that your Upstand academy is a great place to start. Can you share a little bit about that and some of the benefits that people will receive?

Yeah, absolutely. So just touching on the point, you said, you know, people often get promoted to a manager or leader position because they're ultimately extremely competent, whether it's within their trade or their expertise. And they're gone. Okay, you're, you're a really good electrician now. You, you need to lead a team of complex human beings or you're a really good, I don't know it specialist. Here we go. You're now a manager looking after humans within our business. And I realized through my research that there wasn't enough education on how to create a speak up culture and create change and ultimately how to build that upstander mindset we've spoke about. And I was also seeing good people become bad managers and leaders and sometimes becoming bullies by defaul because that was the leadership style they were enrolled into. Or they become, you know, the fill in in the sandwich where they actually are suffering with all of the pressures from below as well as the pressures from above and their coping mechanism is micromanagement, control, or toxicity. So when I run my workshops, whether it's face to face or my online academy, I help people really establish their own behaviors, look at their unconscious bias. And I realized, you know, globally there's a lot of people wanting to lead and learn change. So I just recently launched my Upstand Academy, which helps people really identify whether they are a bystander and how to become an upstander or if they're leading a team, identify whether they've got bystander culture and behaviors within their work team and ultimately give them a toolkit kit and a guide how to improve on their leadership practice. So it doesn't matter whether we are, you know, a leader by job title. I always say I'm not really care. I don't really care if you've got a fancy title. All of us have the power and the capability to lead cultural change. And that doesn't just go for the workplace. I had someone last week that leads a community group had someone the week before that leads that is a parent of teens and wants to develop the upscalt standard mindset at home. So again, I've created This course, so it's accessible to individuals, but also organizations if they want to onboard their team of staff. And ultimately, I speak in detail about what I talk about in my new book, the Upstander Leader, how to Develop a Speak up Culture. So hopefully people find it practical and tangible. And there's over 40 activities that people can implement into their, you know, their daily life that can help create this upstander culture and change. Yeah.

And it is a great book. I recommend it for anyone. Even if you're not a leader, as you said, you know, you're a leader in your own life. So it really does help you understand what an upstander is and how to be that. Before we sign off, though, today, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for sharing your experience because. And also how it made you feel. It is very difficult to go through that, and I think it's great to show what happens to that person who's getting picked on or getting bullied at work. So thank you for that. One final question. What would you have preferred people in that meeting or in your team to have done in those moments?

That's a great question. Ultimately, you know, I would have preferred the leader of the business to understand, you know, the impacts of bullying and actually take action. But I look back now, that person wasn't a bad person. They were new into the role themselves. And ultimately I realized there was a gap in their training and education and capability. But look, there was some beautiful moments throughout my bullying experience, so I'll focus on what people actually did. And one of them was when a colleague came to me and said, jess, I've seen what's happening. It's actually not okay. You're suffering bullying. I recommend you check out on the intranet the workplace bullying and harassment policy, because I believe there's multiple breaches. But more importantly, here's the number to the employee assistant program. I think you should give them a call because I'm really worried about you. That was a moment of feeling seen here and valued for the first time and someone just observing and acknowledging my pain. And, you know, we talk in Australia a lot about are you okay? Or, you know, days where we identify to ask the question. But I think that moment for me allowed me to actually give myself permission to get the help I need. So, you know, there was beautiful moments like that. And also there was also great other moments where colleagues pulled me aside afterwards and said, hey, Jess, that made me uncomfortable. How you going? And I appreciate every time that happened. It wasn't the leaders that could create change. But ultimately now just people saying, are you. How you going? Are you okay? And checking in. I really appreciated that. So I always say to people, you may not know how to deal with the bully or be in a position that you can actually hire or fire, but ultimately, if you don't feel comfortable to challenge the behaviour, publicly, pulling that person aside and just acknowledging what has happened could potentially save a life. And I reflect on when my colleague had that conversation with me and finally calling the EAP number, then getting referred to get mental health and psychology support. That was a fundamental shift and moment on my healing journey. And I wish that had happened, you know, two or three years prior. But that conversation, you know, allowed me to get the help I need. So I think that I would just like to end on that, that, you know, you may not know the answers or how to deal with it, but just guiding someone to get help and support. And Nicole, I know you've, you've probably tagged help and support into the. Into the north, but if anyone wants to also go to the buliology website, I've got a downloadable fact sheet with how to have conversations and where to sign post people for support.

Yeah, brilliant, I love that. Jess, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time. And for anyone out there that wants to learn more about Jess or the Academy, just visit www.Jess.com.

Thank you so much. Chat soon.