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The HigherEdJobs Podcast is dedicated to helping higher education professionals find fulfillment in their careers and be the change agents that higher education needs in today's world. Join hosts Andrew Hibel and Kelly Cherwin, along with guest experts, as they examine job search strategies and break down the latest news and trends in higher education.
E39
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[00:00:00] Andrew Hibel: Welcome to the HigherEdJobs Podcast I’m Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.
[00:00:07] Kelly Cherwin: And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. Today, we are lucky to have Dr. Laura Crawshaw, and our topic is dealing with abrasive leaders. With more than 35 years experience as a psychotherapist, corporate officer, executive coach, researcher, and author, Dr. Laura Crawshaw founded the Boss Whispering Institute in 2008, which is dedicated to research and training in the field of coaching abrasive leaders. Through her pioneering work, Dr. Crawshaw has dispelled the myth that leaders who engage in bullying behaviors are incapable of changing their management styles, bringing insight to these individuals and hope to their employers. Thank you, Laura, for being here today.
[00:00:43] Laura Crawshaw: You're welcome. Thanks for the invitation.
[00:00:46] Kelly Cherwin: So let's get into this topic. You are known as the boss whisperer, committed to relieving suffering in the workplace caused by abrasive leaders. So how did you come into this work, Laura?
[00:00:55] Laura Crawshaw: Well, uh, it was many, many years ago when I was a [00:01:00] counselor for an employee assistance program up in Alaska.
An employee came in, and uh, it was an emergency appointment, and I asked him what could I help him with, EAPs help individuals with their personal issues, and he said, I'm very angry at my boss. And I said, well, how angry are you? Uh, why? First of all, I said, why? He recited a whole litany of bullying behaviors, you know, he publicly humiliates me, does this, he's controlling, et cetera, et cetera. And I said, well, how angry are you? And he said, I'm thinking of killing him. And I said, have you thought of how you do that? Because as a therapist, you're supposed to ask if they have a plan that indicates how serious they are. And he said, yes.
He said, my gun’s out in the truck. And that was shocking to me. I, uh, asked him if he'd hand over the gun, which he did. But that was not the first gun that we collected in our safe, uh, at that employee assistance program in Alaska. And that encounter, my first encounter with workplace bullying those [00:02:00] many years ago, created two questions.
One, why would a boss treat their employee badly? Why would they do that? And the second question is, he had actually reported this to HR, Human Resources, and to his boss's manager. They did nothing. So, the other question was, why don't organizations do anything about it? So that's been my professional journey, uh, researching and finding the answers to those two questions.
[00:02:24] Andrew Hibel: That's a pretty incredible way to set the table for this conversation. Yes. Before we go any further though, I think it's important to address, what do you mean specifically by quote unquote abrasive? When you use the term and the phrase abrasive leaders.
[00:02:38] Laura Crawshaw: Yes. First of all, there are a thousand different definitions of workplace bullying. There are legal definitions, et cetera, et cetera. And so basically, I settled on the term abrasive behavior, which encompasses all forms of unacceptable interpersonal conduct. Terms such as bullying, harassment, [00:03:00] sexual harassment, any behavior that causes sufficient distress to disrupt organizational functioning.
So, we're not talking about the annoying leader. We've all encountered people who are annoying. We're talking about the abrasive leader, and abrasive implies friction, and the friction is so intense as to leave wounds. Now, I'm often asked, why do you use that term? Why don't you use the term bullying?
Because, I and the people I've trained, we interact with organizations. And when you go to an organization, you can't go in and say, well, tell us about your bullies. Or, let's talk about this individual who's a bully. Because saying a person's a bully implies intent, first of all. So, if you talk with organizations and you say, do you have any bullies?
No, they're going to say no, because they don't want to acknowledge that. If you say, do you have any abrasive leaders? In other words, leaders who rub people the wrong way. They'll immediately respond with, oh, yes. oh, yes, [00:04:00] we do. And so I think it's a term that describes the impact as opposed to calling people bullies, even if they are bullying.
So that's, that's why I use that term.
[00:04:12] Andrew Hibel: On the other end of the spectrum, the word abusive might come into play. How would you differentiate an abrasive leader from an abusive leader?
[00:04:20] Laura Crawshaw: I don't. I don't make that differentiation, because many times people say, oh, abrasive's kind of mild, but then at the other end of the continuum we have abusive. I use abrasive to encompass. All behavior that is destructive toward other individuals. So, it's on the full continuum. So, that's just how I speak to organizations. So that we don't spend time going, well now is this abusive or is this abrasive? I just want people to understand that interpersonal conduct needs to be civil.
Conduct needs to be acceptable. And unacceptable conduct equals abrasive conduct. Abrasive behavior. So that's [00:05:00] just my, my approach to things.
[00:05:02] Andrew Hibel: One last question on this topic, going back to the employee assistance program. If somebody was to call into that program and say, listen, I'm having a horrible day.
I have an abrasive leader who is just absolutely pushing my buttons today. But I only have 90 seconds for you to tell me what are the three most important things I need to know about abrasive leaders?
[00:05:28] Laura Crawshaw: Well, I can't talk that fast, so I'll tell you the one thing that you need to know, which is you need to not take this personally. You need to understand that that leader is, shall we say, insecure, and that leader's greatest fear is being perceived to be incompetent, so anytime something happens that threatens their self-perception of competence as a leader, their anxiety level [00:06:00] goes way up and they start, shall we say, barking and biting.
And so in some way, shape, or form, they might perceive you as a threat. Perhaps because you're pushing back on an idea they have, or you're not producing as quickly as they think you should be able to. So, the greatest message is do not take this abrasive behavior personally. Many times, you know, I'll use the term abuse. In domestic abuse, the spouse thinks, oh, my spouse is abusing me because I'm not good enough, or I didn't clean the house well enough, or, you know, I'm not being nice. No, no. Your spouse is abusing you because your spouse is... insecure and resorts to abusive behavior. So, in the workplace, understand these abrasive leaders, they're afraid. They're afraid of being perceived to be incompetent, and as a result, they get aggressive.
[00:06:52] Kelly Cherwin: Thanks, Laura, for that clarification. Actually, that was, I was thinking before you went into that, what is the difference between bullying and abrasive?
[00:06:58] Laura Crawshaw: And I know no difference. No [00:07:00] difference. It's just I use abrasive because it's more palatable as you go into organizations to try and solve the problem.
And it's also more palatable. I think if I were to say, Kelly, you can be really abrasive. Well, but if I say, Kelly, you're a bully, that sets up all kinds of defensive responses. And by the way, we can all be abrasive at times. So, it's not some peculiar pathology that only certain people possess. It's just that most of the time, most of us are secure enough that we can manage our emotions and refrain from getting aggressive when somebody threatens a position we hold or something we're trying to achieve. But these individuals can't and don't.
[00:07:43] Kelly Cherwin: That's interesting how you can label it. I can see the difference between being labeled a bully versus being abrasive. So, as you know, we've done some pieces on HigherEdJobs on bullying, and I'm just going to throw out some stats from a few of our articles just to kind of see what your thoughts are.
So, Eileen Meyer did an article on higher [00:08:00] ed's bullying problem is bad for business and in there she interviewed Dr. Hollis and Dr. Hollis said 60 percent of higher ed employees have been impacted by bullying during their careers. And also, we have another article that Dan Griffith wrote that said 24 percent of employees that were bullied felt that it was swept under the rug and 31 percent felt it wasn't taken seriously. So, I personally think these stats are alarming. So what, what are your thoughts on these?
[00:08:26] Laura Crawshaw: They are alarming, and I think that unless, I'll use the term organization or institution, in which I refer to educational institutions, whether they're universities or community colleges or whatever higher ed organization, so the stats don't surprise me, and I think things are getting worse.
I think we've entered the age of the unruly. In which we see unruly passengers, we see unruly protesters, we see unruly politicians. And I think that unless institutions can [00:09:00] really come to understand that they need to manage abrasive behavior and not tolerate it and learn how to do that. Things will only get worse.
So last week I was giving a talk to the highest level of leadership in a university and their sentiments are the same, that they need to learn to manage abrasive conduct and do so calmly, confidently, and compassionately for all parties concerned, because if they don't, the organizational functioning will deteriorate. I think organizations, employers, are going to be the last bastions of civil behavior because it's destructive to the organization.
[00:09:39] Kelly Cherwin: So now that we've defined that there is definitely an issue, oh yes, we often tell our job seekers when you're in the interview, obviously ask the right questions, try to make sure that's a right fit.
So, say that the person accepts the job and then whatever, several months, a year or two down the road. They are in the situation where they realize they have an abrasive leader. Are there strategies to help [00:10:00] stop this, I know you've, you've used the word suffering before. Yes, suffering. What can this person do?
[00:10:04] Laura Crawshaw: All right. They can try a few strategies that are very risky. And I'll talk about those in just a moment. I don't believe, I'll call them, targets if I may, that's the research term for people who are subjected to abrasive behavior or workplace bullying. I don't believe that targets should be in the position of trying to change an abrasive leader's behavior.
I believe that that is the employer's responsibility. So, you know, we don't give children who are abused, strategies for dealing with their abusive parents, correct? And so, to say to targets, well, it's up to you to solve these abrasive behaviors. It's up to the employer to hold their leaders accountable for acceptable behavior.
Now, saying that, I've interviewed thousands of employees over the course of many years of coaching abrasive [00:11:00] leaders, and I discovered there are a few strategies that work sometimes, however, they can be very risky and I'll kind of go from the lowest level strategy to the most sort of dramatic. Oh, the other thing I need to say is surprisingly abrasive leaders if I may use the term, they're clueless what I discovered is they are not aware of the impact of their words or actions on others.
You know, there's a common belief that they wake up in the morning eagerly concocting ways to torment their coworkers. No, they carry their management styles into the organization. And most of them, when they get their feedback, they're absolutely shocked. That there are all these negative perceptions about their behavior.
So, they're blind or they're clueless, let me put it that way. So, the lowest level strategy might be to just calmly educate that individual. Understanding that they perceive you as a threat. So, you want to [00:12:00] reduce their perception of threat. It might be, uh, Gee Boss. You know, you, uh, you yelled at me about the, the reports not being done, but I want to let you know that I care very much about the reports being done.
The reason they're not, and you give the reason, the reason they're not done is we didn't get the information from the other division. I want you to know I'm there to support you, and the next time you have concerns about me or things getting done, I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't raise your voice with me.
So that's kind of the polite education, letting the person be aware of how they came across, and just reassuring them that you're, you're not a threat. In fact, you're there to support them. That's kind of the soothe the savage beast strategy. The next level up is that you yourself enact a mild threat, which is, I've heard employees would say, they'd say, he barks at everybody except Maria, and then I'd interview Maria, and she said, oh no.
The first time he did that, I [00:13:00] told him, my father used to yell at me, and I won't tolerate that as an adult. And he's never done it again. My boss has never done that again. Which again signifies that these leaders don't perceive that they are coming across negative. Now notice these are risky strategies as we elevate them because the boss could very well say, well, who are you to tell me how to behave?
Or I wasn't yelling. Oh boy. There we go. Um, and then, uh, the strategies, if your efforts to change the leader, uh, don't work, then the next thing is to present yourself to the organization, in which you go into the organization and try and escalate their anxiety, you go into HR, whoever it is, and you, you let them know that this individual is behaving in these ways and some people said that they would go in and they'd say well my boss is doing XYZ and doesn't that constitute harassment? [00:14:00] Or doesn't that constitute a hostile work environment? And by that they're escalating the anxiety of the employer. And then the most dramatic strategy is what I call the mass mutiny and it's the most effective.
And that's when multiple people, multiple targets go in to the higher levels and say, look, we need to talk to you. It's intolerable working there because Paul does XYZ. We know he's a valuable researcher. We know he's very dedicated, but this cannot continue. And we'd really like to suggest coaching for him.
Now, in that way, the mass is not going in as a lynch mob saying, you know, off with his head. They're going in calmly, reasonably, and offering a solution in the form of specialized coaching for abrasive leaders, which is the method I developed. So those are some strategies, but they're risky. There are no guarantees with those.
[00:14:59] Kelly Cherwin: [00:15:00] Looking for more conversations in higher ed? We invite you to join the HigherEdMilitary community as we discuss issues, best practices, news and general trends affecting our institutions and the HigherEdMilitary affiliated community. Inspired by the deep commitment to service that veterans and military connected faculty, staff, and leaders have towards the academic community, we at HigherEdJobs established HigherEdMilitary as a resource for both original and curated news and information, as well as job opportunities from colleges and universities actively recruiting military connected professionals.
Visit us at higheredmilitary.com on Facebook and LinkedIn.
So you've discussed strategies that employees can do and it seems like one strategy is that HR gets involved, leadership will maybe inform that this leader is having some abrasive tendencies. So that's where, you know, you come in and you are coaching them.
So, I know you mentioned that people don't wake up in the morning thinking I'm abrasive leader and I'm going to go out and ruin that person's day, right? So do you have any suggestions on how leaders can self-reflect and know if they are being abrasive?
[00:15:58] Laura Crawshaw: That's a great question. There are a couple ways to do that because we need feedback don't we and ways to do that would be to select trusted individuals that you work with and say, look, if I ever come across in a way that is abrasive, it's alienating people, would you let me know? So that's kind of your trusted feedback partner that you establish. Another way is to do regular climate surveys in which. You allow people anonymously to either evaluate your own management style or to understand, you know, we're interested in how things are going on in the research division.
Could you talk about your experience there? Do you feel you're treated with respect? If not, why not? And make that anonymous. Because as a leader, I would want to know if people perceived me to be rubbing them the wrong way. I don't want to be perceived negatively. And we can't always [00:17:00] know. So, I think asking for feedback continuously and making that safe for people to, and when they give you the feedback, just listen, don't get defensive.
Um, but also I think it's critically important for organizations to do regular, what they call climate surveys to see where things are not going well.
[00:17:20] Andrew Hibel: I think what's interesting particularly about the climate survey in today's labor market, however you want to look at the data that's out there, colleges and universities are having a tough time recruiting, they're having a tough time retaining, and everybody's interested in recruiting and retaining.
It's the first time in nearly 30 years of HigherEdJobs where you talk about recruitment, people are actually knowing you're talking about faculty and staff and not students. We've always been worried about student recruitment on campus and now faculty and staff recruitment, and more importantly, retention is there, and I think when you have an abrasive leader, you need to be proactive about it. Those climate surveys are your first line of defense to identify problems and [00:18:00] what needs to be done. Are you seeing with the clients that you work with that these climate surveys have become more popular over the past 12 to 24 months because retention is so hard. Getting a good employee is difficult. And the last thing you want to see is that the well is being poisoned. By the management folks in your organization.
[00:18:21] Laura Crawshaw: I think there's slow movement toward using climate surveys or another party in higher ed that's effective, not only coworkers, but also students. So, you know, student ratings and student complaints about how they're being treated, I think, are being closely attended to.
So, I think there's slow progress on that front, but the most of the referrals that come to me and other members of the Boss Whispering Institute come because formal complaints have been filed by individuals. And the problem is that when someone files a formal complaint, then an investigation is conducted, which takes a long time, fairly [00:19:00] costly, and investigations don't really solve the problem.
They don't solve the problem because either there's a positive finding of bullying or inappropriate conduct and the employer goes, well, now what do we do? We don't want to lose this person because of their technical expertise. What do we do? You know, we could terminate them, but termination is not the only option because we found about 82 percent of abrasive leaders can turn around their management style if they're just provided with specialized coaching.
And then if there's a finding of, oh no, this does not constitute or fulfill a legal definition of bullying, which we don't have in the United States, by the way, okay. You know, they're not convicted of a management crime, but still, what do you do? How do you help that individual turn around their style? So, they're not causing the intense distress.
So, investigations don't solve much. I think it's when employers understand that help is available, most people can turn around. They need to be held accountable for acceptable [00:20:00] conduct. You need to intervene and say, look, these complaints cannot go on. We can't have that here. We'd like to offer you help to turn that around, and we're going to continue to monitor.
[00:20:11] Andrew Hibel: And I think the real challenge is, no matter what, this isn't like a, a public court, it's a private court, the decision that's reached is a, is a private human resources decision with that individual. Yes. And obviously, you'll know if they're terminated, but if they stick around, it looks like there's absolutely no accountability for the behavior.
[00:20:29] Laura Crawshaw: Right, exactly. The leadership is perceived as weak, or even tacitly condoning the behaviors. But I'd like to look at that court mentality, because if we look at unacceptable performance, say we have an employee who's not performing technical performance up to level, you know, we have somebody's staff or faculty who's not producing the reports with enough statistical information.
That's a technical problem. We need to manage that performance. Well, we don't go into it with the mentality of I'm going to convict that [00:21:00] person of unacceptable performance and punish them. We go into it and say, look, this is not up to par. These are our expectations. We'd like to offer you help. We'd like to, you know, offer you Excel spreadsheet classes or whatever, so you can bring the quality of the reports up.
And great, go for it. If you want to do that, that's your choice. If you don't, but we will continue to manage your technical performance. And, uh, if it comes up to par, great. We all live happily ever after. That same approach needs to be taken with conduct. Look, there are continuing negative perceptions about your interactions with others.
We can't have that here. And when the individual says, well, you weren't there, you don't know what happened, you don't know the facts. We can say, well, no, I don't know the facts, but I don't know one thing for a fact, and it's that we have continuing complaints, people, they don't feel respected by you, et cetera.
And we'd like to suggest you turn that around and offer you help to do that. So, this whole mentality, we have to convict them of management [00:22:00] crimes, send them to, I don't know, where do you send them to some island or something, you know, let's change it.
[00:22:07] Andrew Hibel: And just to be clear I think it was more of when you have that sort of leader within a team.
Mm hmm, and it's pervasive I think it's the rest of the team. That's like well what was done? Was there something done to correct it unless you can see that behavior corrected? You're just going to kind of assume that they got away with this and that the organization is tacitly approving of their behavior.
[00:22:32] Laura Crawshaw: And that is destructive to the organization as well, because the assumptions are leadership doesn't care and also that behavior can become contagious. So, the team might start acting out, kind of taking their cue from the abrasive leader. And the way people know that things have changed in my experience is when they intervene with the abrasive leader. And can I mention the book I wrote on that? Please do. Oh, okay. So I just wrote the book, ‘Grow Your Spine and Manage [00:23:00] abrasive leadership behavior, a guide for those who manage bosses, who bully what would be the best place for folks to find Amazon sure, Amazon, just Google ‘Grow Your Spine.’
But anyway, so. The way management needs to handle that is they need to intervene, they need to sit down with the person and say not acceptable, and they can intervene based on these complaints. There's this whole, oh no, I don't have evidence, or I don't know the facts of the matter. Well, you need evidence and facts if you're taking people into court.
You don't need all of that if you're sitting down with them as an employer and saying, look, we can't have these complaints continue, we need to turn this around. So, what happens is when they do that and the individual gets coaching the coworkers, or as you say, the team member, they start seeing change almost immediately.
And they're shocked because what we do is we go back and re interview the coworkers about three quarters of the way through the coaching and they'll say [00:24:00] things like, it's amazing, Paul no longer does this, he's listened to us, you know, we talk to you, things are turning around, and it's so heartening to see that, so heartening to see the suffering of the targets, but also the anxiety of the abrasive leader.
The abrasive leader calms down, you know, horse whisperers calm down aggressive horses, and horses get aggressive because they're afraid, and boss whispers calm down abrasive leaders, aggressive leaders, who are doing that because they're afraid. So everybody calms down. It's great to see.
[00:24:35] Kelly Cherwin: I just wanted to go back to your statement on the 82 percent of abrasive leaders can be, what was the
[00:24:42] Laura Crawshaw: Turn around their management styles and bring it up to an adequate or what I would say acceptable leader. They may not become the Abraham Lincolns, you know, the great leaders, but they bring, they bring their interactions up to a level that it's acceptable, you know, and they'll say things like, well, he's not the [00:25:00] warmest guy. But. Now, you know, we can get the work done or he treats us with respect or she can be female as well.
[00:25:07] Kelly Cherwin: I think this is a great way to kind of end our conversation because it leaves our listeners with some hope because as I mentioned earlier, there's some startling statistics, but if 82 percent of these leaders are, as we know in management, there's the ability to have the ability and to be willing.
So obviously people in higher ed have that technical, they have the intelligence. But are they willing? And it sounds like 82 percent they are. So that's great news.
[00:25:34] Laura Crawshaw: What motivates them is that intervention from above. Because they'll say, I'm not a bracer, I don't know why, but I'll talk to the coach because I'm getting pressure, pressure from above.
And what I have found is that most employers When it comes to abrasive conduct or workplace bullying, they're afraid to intervene and they feel hopeless and helpless. They feel like the only option is to terminate the person. [00:26:00] And I remember I worked with one company and they said, well, we're kind of reluctant to terminate our no, that wasn't a company. It was a university. We're reluctant to terminate our Nobel Prize winner. Well, that's understandable, but don't you owe it to that person to sit down and talk with them and ask them to turn things around? Most employers don't know how to do that, or they're afraid to do it. So, yes, there is hope. Absolutely.
[00:26:26] Kelly Cherwin: Thanks, Laura. I really enjoyed this conversation today.
[00:26:28] Andrew Hibel: Thank you, Laura. This has been a pleasure and really, really informative.
[00:26:30] Laura Crawshaw: Thanks. Thanks again for the invitation. I really appreciate it.
[00:26:35] Andrew Hibel: And thanks to you for listening. If you have questions for Laura, please feel free to email us at podcast@HigherEdJobs.com and we'll be sure to pass those along or feel free to tweet us at HigherEdJobs. We'd love to hear your thoughts about this subject or any other question or piece of feedback you may have. Maybe we should do a climate survey for our listeners and see if we can find out a little bit more about how they're feeling about we're doing to make them feel [00:27:00] included in the podcast. Thanks for being with us here today, Laura, and to everybody, thanks for listening.