Few people go through a career without at some point experiencing work-place bullying. It probably happens to most people, even if only as a single episode. The effect is still wounding. Two groups in society might hope to avoid this particular experience of pain. One is the group of workers who work for themselves. These include the self-employed tradespeople and others who have their own businesses. Also, there is another group who can withdraw from stressful interactions with others which may involve bullying. These are the bosses, those who reach the top of a hierarchy. They still have to negotiate stress, but the stress involved in making decisions and being in charge is apparently less damaging to well-being than being at the sometimes arbitrary beck and call of a work boss.
New insights about the way that everyday workplace stress affects the health and longevity of individual lives were uncovered by two UK government sponsored studies of the civil service starting in the 1960s. These were conducted by Sir Michael Marmot, a distinguished epidemiologist. His task was to examine the health of civil servants and to find out if the place of an individual within the well-defined hierarchy of the civil service could be correlated with levels of health and mortality. The findings excluded things like pre-existing conditions etc., but what was uncovered was still striking. In summary, quality of health and life expectancy went up as the individual rose in the ranks. The bosses at the top enjoyed significantly better quality of health than those working at the bottom of the pyramid. The issue was not economic, nor class related, as everyone in the service was adequately remunerated. The only factor that could be identified was the greater levels of stress experienced by those who were paid to obey the orders of others above them. Something about being under the control of others creates a stress response that is observed to take a toll on people. This particular type of stress is not faced by those who have control over their working lives.
Marmot was not looking for examples of bullying and I have no reason to suggest that UK civil service is a hotbed of such behaviour. Clearly it will exist there, as everywhere else, but we would hope it would be mitigated by effective complaints processes. But whenever it does exist, we may see it as adding to the levels of stress experienced in the workplace. The ‘normal’ type of stress is simply being in a place where everyday control and supervision of workers is in operation. This is part of the culture of most workplaces. There is then, sometimes, a second level, the intensification of stress which comes as the result of experiencing bullying at the place of work. If, as Marmot would claim, the first ‘ordinary’ work experience is stressful with life-changing physical consequences, then we can postulate that a bullying culture may well tip many people into experiencing acute distress, sometimes manifesting itself as physical or mental illness. Bullying in the workplace is thus a serious threat to the health and well-being of many working people.
Last week I described my own experiences of dealing with the stress of being a curate. Others in the comment section have added their own stories. Fortunately, the behaviour I experienced as bullying was time limited. I did have the option to escape from the arbitrary whims of a very volatile boss. I was then able to recover my psychological stamina so as to be able to continue as a member of the clergy. Not all achieve this, and, anecdotally, many clergy leave ministry altogether after a number of years. Negative experiences of bullying from their fellow clergy (and sometimes parishioners) may be among the causes. By always keeping a low profile in my parish, I never had to endure stressful encounters with bishops and archdeacons. There were also some good experiences of teamwork. My ministry required me at various times to work in a part time team context. These particular teams were the support groups I gathered to assist me in the various diocesan roles I have, at different times, undertaken. As far as the main parish role was concerned, I have only worked as a sole incumbent, though normally supported by retired colleagues and supportive church councils.
Returning to the theme of workplace bullying which we suspect is extremely common in UK society, we find that the textbooks are reluctant to offer a definition to cover every case of its incidence. As a suggested starter I would see bullying at work to be taking place when the power that one individual has over another is deliberately weaponised to cause distress. In the absence of widely agreed definitions, most discussions bring up the word aggression to cover what they mean when talking about bullying. The discussions also indicate that bullying behaviour is often linked back to poor nurturing as a child. That discussion has to be left to one side. One distinction I discovered early on in the literature about bullying is that there is a distinction to be made between affective aggression and instrumental aggression. The first is bullying behaviour which involves emotion arousing or some kind of gratification for the bully. These emotions might also involve anger, jealousy or revenge. Instrumental bullying is when power is exerted over another to extract some desired end from the victim. Bullying of this kind might have as its end sexual favours being demanded, or possibly the handing over of money.
In the last blog post I mentioned that the presence of an individual with narcissistic tendencies would likely cause havoc to the smooth functioning of a clergy team. Something similar would happen if a priest with bullying tendencies was either a member of or, worse still, put in charge of a parish, a cathedral or even a diocese. One of the problems of raising this topic of bullying in the church is that all we have to guide us as to its frequency is anecdotal evidence. It is likely that bishops know about many cases of bullying which come to their attention, just as they hear about abuse cases. For obvious reasons this information is sensitive and unlikely to be shared beyond a diocesan boundary or even within bishops’ staff meetings. We simply do not have this kind of statistical information. The absence of reliable data should not mean that we should not bring up the topic. The Church at large is still catching up, after it claimed in 2009 only to know about 13 cases of sexual abuse in its records. This was a massive case of institutional blindness. The fallout from that self-deluding nonsense is still being worked through. At the time it became the received narrative and no one was able to challenge these absurd figures for at least another six years. The incidence of bullying at every level of the Church may be its next hidden shame. Should we not start talking about it rather pretending it does not happen? Do we wish to suffer from chronic institutional blindness a second time?
The problem of clergy (and sometimes lay people) who bully other clergy and parishioners is an issue which has never been far away. Speaking from the evidence of my own observations, I can say that I have watched while clergy I know, forced to work with bullies, have had breakdowns. Some of these, like abuse survivors, have gone on to experience serious illnesses and even suffered premature death through being exposed to a highly bullying culture. The link between high stress and illness can never be proven and thus it is impossible to produce statistics of this problem. I do not need to dwell further on my own early experiences as a priest, but I noted that nearly half those who were ordained deacon with me had disappeared from Crockford twenty years later. Those who speak of teams and consistent good working relationships between the clergy as being the norm, are not describing the Church as I have found it in some places. Of course excellence in this area exists, but so do tragic examples of bullying and power abuse.
Looking back, particularly over the past thirty years, we have been regaled by a variety of accounts in the Church involving bullying and power abuse. The stories in the public domain include the dysfunctions involving Lincoln Cathedral in the 90s. Even the mediation skills of Desmond Tutu could not sort out that particular problem. Some other cathedrals have been described to me in the past as hotbeds of tensions and stress because of poor relationships. The current tensions in Winchester and among Scottish Episcopalians in Aberdeen can only be imagined, since much of the the detail is only hinted at in the public domain material. Both bishops have, no doubt, been able to justify their behaviour as a valid exercise of episcopal authority. In each case, it would seem that problems have been known about for some time. Nevertheless, the people in a position to do something were unable or unwilling to step in to stop the situation getting out of hand. We see a Church that is unwilling to grasp nettles in time to stop problems causing lasting damage
Every time I hear of a case of bullying, I think of the victims. Actual bullying in the workplace is far more serious than the stress of not having control over your working life. The latter was the major factor leading to stress identified by Marmot in his study. When we add bullying into the mix, we are talking about a major contributor to poor physical health and shortened lives. In other words what has been going on in churches and cathedrals, as in Oxford, Winchester and Aberdeen, has the potential to damage lives in a real physical sense. Incidents and allegations of bullying need always to be taken extremely seriously. The environment that is created is so foul that it brings shame on the church for the damage it is known to be doing. Many of us are part of that church. We each share some responsibility for that shame. The way forward for us as individuals is to dedicate ourselves to working hard, in whatever way is open to us, to fight to remove this scourge of bullying from our churches.
This system doesn’t work!
Well it didn’t before !!
Some bullies hurt victims as a result of their actions rather than by intent as they are protecting themselves , whether power or face. However the result is the same and magnified when the word of the bully is accepted.
Many clergy bullies are like that and I can give examples!
I Thought that was the subject of this blog!
I think many bullies in the church don’t think they are bullies and that they are acting on principle, yet lack love and care for others and are prepared to tread on others to protect themselves
Some of it is a belief that “strong leadership” involves imposing your own will. If course , it’s arguable that within a church, strong leadership isn’t a good model anyway.
This is where many go wrong. It is rather brittle leadership and soon turns malign
You are right Athena. It is the subject of the blog but I want everyone else to join in. I don’t see many people joining in discussing the topic yet. They avoid it in the way they used to avoid the topic of sexual abuse. Leaving bullying in the shadows, as most people want to do, is a way of spreading it. Talking about more makes it harder to hide.
I honestly can say that in a church life of well over 65 years in a range of very different denominations and church settings from my family background in the Gospel Hall to my present role as part of a ministry team in a liberal catholic parish, I have never experienced this. I feel very sorry for those who have and would call it out wherever it occurs, but not in my experience. We once had a curate who was difficult and quite forthright in her opinions, but to me that was a quirk of personality which we dealt with – and she left!!
I don’t know how common bullying is in other denominations, but it’s absolutely rife in the C of E.
The classic form of bullying is brazenly direct; the blunderbuss approach. That does happen in the Church – I’ve witnessed it myself, an dit was evident in the Lincoln Cathedral episode Stephen alludes to – but bullying also takes more subtle forms.
There’s passive-aggressive bullying, where the bully appears mild-mannered and reasonable but finds less obvious means of punishing, undermining, and therefore controlling people. And there’s devious bullying, where deceit, lies, and political manoeuvring are used to undercut, discredit, and disempower people. We are seeing this at Christ Church, Oxford.
A lot of people don’t recognise these subtler methods as bullying. In fact, I think a lot of senior church people regard these as perfectly valid ways of exercising leadership. So clergy characterised by this approach are valued and promoted, while genuinely collaborative clergy are often overlooked.
Our Church is sick.
I have come across many stories of bullying in churches over the last few years and I think one of the worst things about it is that most people do not think anything can be done about it. They say things like “I try to keep out of their way” or (if they are not the victim) “Well they are so good at preaching/visiting the bereaved/working with the school” and “It’s best just to let things be.” Even if they do take it further up the hierarchy, the rural dean or archdeacon may be supportive but limited in what they can do. This means that the bully can continue to bully and will go on to bully other people.
Of course senior clergy can do something about it but usually chicken out. In the case of bullying parishioners they appoint another sheep to the slaughter. On bullying clergy they rarely do anything as often their parishes are more “successful”. If you stand up to it you’ll get a black mark
I don’t think archdeacons or bishops are that limited in what they can do. If it is parishioners they can refuse to appoint. Any action may result in arch or bish not be liked in a parish but that is their job. Much is caused by sheer weakness and unwillingness to take things on
‘ Much is caused by sheer weakness and unwillingness to take things on’
Michael Roberts is on the money with this observation.
Bullies are sometimes utilised by weak leaders as enforcers, to do their dirty work for them. The hatchet man/woman picks on the chosen target and forces them “out” saving the leader from being initially connected with the bad actions, whatever these may be. Looking back afterwards, if you manage to survive the brutality, and with time to reflect, it becomes clear that the bully was only the instrument for the organisation’s actions. The boss didn’t have the guts to challenge you himself, but could have intervened to save you, but chose not to.
Archdeacons and bishops are not on the spot and so are unlikely to know many of the people involved apart from the priest. This also makes them slow to respond – in a work situation where something might be dealt with in days, in the church it takes months, during which time the bully can continue to bully. The archdeacon may monitor the situation but any change requires the bully to acknowledge that their behaviour is wrong and be prepared to do something about it. There are few sanctions (if any). CDM appears to many of the laity as a long and stressful process reserved only for very serious cases, whereas bullying is often the accumulation of much smaller events. It’s hard to see what can be done to change any of this.
They can be the offenders
This rings a bell with me! My first training incumbent bullied me. He was emotionally and spiritually abusive and used to gaslighting to dismiss anything i raised. My counsellor suggested it sounded like narcissistic abuse.
I made a formal complaint but the individuals handling it seem clueless about bullying and abuse and managed to explain it all away! I requested the response to my complaint and it was full of fabrication, gross exaggeration and many attacks on me. Yet they still sided with him.
Similar to what you observe, this individual has been on the senior leadership fast track scheme and seems to be loved by diocesan senior leadership.
Very damaging experience!
People in authority who do not understand bullying and abuse are very common I fear. Also there is the other equally damaging phenomenon of narcissists being chosen for top jobs in the church as a way of getting rid of them. Long live integrity of character. It seems to be getting rarer by the day. Excuse my cynicism but running this blog for eight years means that I get a bit jaded sometimes about human nature. There are good people around but they find it harder to feel at home within the institution.
People dutifully do the training on past abuse should be treated like current, sign for it, and don’t do it, especially if it’s bullying. I had someone explaining it to me yesterday, how it’s different! That’s not what it says on the training you signed! Very exasperating. Not quite what you were talking about! Telling lies about you? Yup, standard practice I’m afraid.
I had a similar experience. My vicar ended up as an archdeacon (and chaired the report on CDM)
Bullying rarely occurs in a vacuum, as Sarah Douglas points out. Others are around and their response is critical in facilitating the bullying to continue usually, or rarely to speak out against it.
Unless you’ve experienced it directly it’s difficult to comprehend just how crippling bullying can be. Many assume the recipient somehow deserves it, or may have brought it on themselves. Groupthink is such, that a scapegoat is sometimes chosen rather than responsibility for the shortcomings of all or the failures in the group’s work. Christ himself epitomised this in his life on earth. He was even bullied for not saving himself on the cross. His friends all deserted him too. Yes, that’s what it’s like.
Remember Jesus’ story about taking the plank out of your own eye? Some of the comments made on this blog over recent years about living people have caused me sadness and anger on their behalf. Christian leaders may have made mistakes, fallen seriously into sin or whatever, like Moses, David and Paul in the Bible. This blog is at its best when it analyses what has gone wrong so that lessons can be learned, and less good when comments are made about individuals which would be hurtful for them to read, especially when these are made by people with anonymous user names and no photograph so that taking recourse is denied to those being accused.
Hi David.
I can’t see that anyone has been named or accused either in this blog or in the comments?
I agree that naming and blaming individuals can be destructive, and when the blamer is anonymous it seems particularly unfair. However, it’s also true that there are many cases where silence on the part of many good people in churches has enabled wicked people to go on abusing, and made it almost impossible for their victims to obtain justice and redress.
Jesus himself said, ‘What you do in secret shall be shouted from the housetops,’ and, ‘There shall be nothing hidden.’ And he wasn’t afraid to accuse people, especially leaders, in public. Paul did too, when he publicly accused Peter of hypocrisy and gave details.
We are told to respect our leaders, and the two accusation should stand without two or three witnesses – difficult in abuse cases, of course, unless there is more than one victim. But we are never told to cover up our leaders’ failings.
It is indeed right to check our own eyes for “planks” David, but recall Jesus was highly critical of the religious leaders of his time, calling out their duplicitous behaviour and hypocrisy.
Misinterpretation of the beam and mote heuristic, has been used frequently to cover up wrongdoing by church leaders.
As the first General Secretary of the Clergy Trades Union MSF 30 years ago (now Faithworkers UNITE) we took bullying and harassment very seriously as a policy issue, recognising that it was endemic in the Church of England. The fact that clergy are understandably predisposed to trust their employers – in particular archdeacons, suffragan, area and diocesan bishops – assuming that their father/mother in God will treat with respect and fairness – means that the psychological disconnect when this does not happen is the more devastating. To find yourself more in the hands of a wolf than a shepherd has all kinds of collateral attached to it. As mentioned in last week’s thread narcissists make charming abusers and bullying can take on the mask of perfectly reasonable ‘reorganisation’ which may well crush or destroy the ministry of those who are deemed to be easy targets.
David, I was bullied by the church for twenty years. I remain very fearful of what some people with powerful friends would do to me if I weren’t anonymous. Remember, my anonymity protects the people I accuse, too. I have, over the years, dipped my toe in the waters of disclosure. And I have ample evidence that it could harm me a great deal. The church is perfectly capable of hammering you into the ground if you annoy it. Just look at some of the stories on here.
I am sorry your situation is so dire. David, I once sincerely believed that you should not make anonymous accusations in the good old days before my Diocese targeted me horrifically for uncovering failures. Many contributors and regular readers will understand our need to defend ourselves and to protect others. Allowing serious wrongdoing to continue without speaking out if you are able seems to me to be a belief at odds with our Christian heritage and one which is not shared by the rest of the world. There is not an outcry against the facebook employee who has recently whistle blown.I have not heard voices saying she should have kept quiet and done nothing. The recent post office office scandal is precisely that because when the leadership knew they were wrong, they did not speak out and change tack. Now that Dioceses themselves have a whistle blowing policy, seemingly to encourage such behaviour, my personal suggestion is that calling out very serious misconduct such as bullying and abuse probably would not be deemed as unchristian by many. We are our brothers and sisters keepers. If we are so frightened by the church we blog anonymously that is a matter for serious reflection. The inquiry for child sexual abuse found widespread Diocesan failures and the routine reabuse of complainants. Adults have not had a similar inquiry where their evidence can be given in safety and scrutinised independently. Until this happens, we ask you to bear with us.
Thanks Janet and English Athena. Good points. Appreciated.
English Athena, I totally get it, having seen a friend go through the mill these past two years.
Janet. I am talking about an occasional feeling I have had over the last six years of the blog, not just this post. The enduring mental image I have in my mind is of a medieval castle with slit windows, where some of the unseen occupants fire arrows down into the market place below at people shopping at the market stalls. Grim. Certainly not consistent with loving our enemies.
But if the people in the market place are lobbing burning barrels of oil over the ramparts….. It doesn’t stop.
Agreed!
Thanks, David. But when you wrote, ‘Christian leaders may have made mistakes, fallen seriously into sin or whatever, like Moses, David and Paul in the Bible,’ it did sound as if you were criticising people who had named and criticised contemporary Christian leaders who had seriously sinned against others. In those circumstances the Egyptian who accused Moses, the prophet Nathan who accused David, and Jesus who accused various people, did not worry about being ‘hurtful’. The truth was important and needed to come out; healing and forgiveness could follow on from repentance.
Although in the case of Moses and David, they still needed to bear the penalty for their wrongdoing.
At times it seems that only zip issues matter, either adultery or child abuse , and destructive behaviour to others particularly subordinates is overlooked or glossed over. Yes, this is anonymous but could actually name and date examples
Michael, your name has actually appeared. Unless it’s a pseudonym of course.