My workplace bully met me today.

Today I encountered a woman who had bullied me at work. I did something I would not have imagined a few years ago. I said hello to her.

The first thing I noticed was that my heart didn't race and I didn't feel like I was having a panic attack. I would experience these things whenever I had to deal with her at work, so this was significant. I was feeling secure and successful and I was looking fabulous. (I'd had a free afternoon after finishing work with a client, so I'd walked into a hair salon and had my hair blow waved.)

It felt wonderful to stand in front of her and deliver the message that I had survived and thrived, in spite of her best efforts to pull me to pieces. 

When talking about my best and worst leaders in leadership development, this woman is the person who springs to mind as the example of my worst leader. I led a team in the area she oversaw. The team was geographically dispersed and she regularly convened telephone conferences, preceded by an overload of detailed email requests. 

I specifically remember one incident when my team was confused by an email request she had sent. They asked me for guidance. I didn't know what it meant either, so agreed to raise it during the telephone conference. 

She discussed all the items on her agenda and then asked if anyone had anything else to discuss. I posed the question about what her email meant on behalf of the team. She responded by asking me if I had read the email and then stated that she assumed that I could in fact read. 

I have never felt so small. I couldn't speak. I felt as though I was being attacked. My team gaped at me. None of us spoke up. I think we were paralysed with fear. The telephone conference ended, none of us knew what she was asking of us and I spent my time avoiding my boss as much as possible. 

Not only did this woman give me my "worst leader" example, but she also gave me a character to develop. Over the last two days, I've been playing a senior doctor who is a bully and who spends her time belittling and humiliating her registrar. I often pose the question about reading capability when I'm playing this role.

During today's encounter, I noticed that this woman did not use my name once, yet I greeted her by using both her first name and surname. She asked me what I was doing now and I was very happy to speak about my success. She didn't congratulate me. She terminated the conversation very quickly. I wonder if she felt nervous meeting me again. Perhaps she has reflected on her behaviour and treatment of me and now regrets it. Whether she regrets it or not, I'm so pleased I took the chance to display my survival and success. Today, I took her power away.

Have you ever met your bully again? How did you feel? What did the bully do?

Playing the bully - scary and thrilling.

Today my job was to be a bully.  I had to hector, harass and abuse a person in a subordinate role.  This person was going to seek advice from me as a the experienced person who had been identified as their mentor.  In the situation, it was the right thing for them to approach me with questions, but after the encounter, they would have been left disillusioned at least and perhaps traumatised at the most.

On one hand, it is thrilling to play roles where extreme behaviours or emotions need to be portrayed.  It allows me to explore the edges and the depths of what is in me.  It's always an interesting experience as an actor to confront the shadow self and discover the nature of your own darkness.  I also have some experience of bullies and call them up to borrow their behaviours and turn of phrase.

After playing this role repeatedly over the course of the day, I found myself snarling at other people involved in the simulation.  I had to consciously pull myself back.  As I walked down the street, people moved out of my way.  I knew the power of a look - I'd caused people to leave the room I as in just by looking at them.  This is an extremely compelling power to discover.

On the way home I had some errands to do.  I noticed a staff member arguing with a customer in much the same tones I had been using all day.  Again, I had to pull myself back and remember that I was no longer in role.

The reactions of people exposed to the character I am playing interests me.  If I heard someone behaving like my character I would either walk out or ask them to go away.  I would most likely ask them for their name and find a way to draw their behaviour to the attention of someone in authority.

Then I would wonder who their leader is and what messages they have sent that has created this kind of behaviour.

The saddest thing about this character and the scenario within which I am playing it is that she is based on real life experience.  It's exhausting being this person and I noticed that my face looks different - harder, tenser, angrier - when I arrived home this evening.  I immediately washed the character away in the shower.  I know that I have to step into her skin tomorrow.  I'm glad that I can step out again at the end of the day.

Campaigning and bullying are NOT the same thing.

I wasn't going to, but there's something else that occurs to me about this whole Alan Jones thing.  It's prompted by statements labelling the social media campaign protesting against Jones' comments "cyber bullying".

While listening to Jon Faine on ABC 774 yesterday morning, a woman called to object to this label.  She broke down as she spoke about losing a child recently to cyber bullying.  She didn't want what had happened to her child to be diminished by Alan Jones and 2GB co-opting the term.

I don't think that an organised social media campaign can legitimately be characterised as cyber bullying.  Firstly, I don't think that a social media campaign is that much different from a traditional campaign where people write letters, call talk-back radio, gather signatures on paper petitions, organise town hall meetings, go doorknocking etc.  The key difference is that social media tools allow people to speak and be heard by a very large audience.  In fact there is potential to connect on a global level without leaving the home.

Secondly, cyber bullying is bullying, it's just the tools that are different. That's not what is going on here.

I'm happy to disclose that I signed the online petition calling for Jones' removal following his comments.  I will also tell you that I encouraged friends to also sign the petition using Twitter and facebook.  I did more than sign, I've engaged in face to face conversation with people and this is the second piece I've written on this blog.  (You can read the first piece here.)  In days gone by, gathering signatures for a petition required pounding the pavement, setting up a stall on the street, talking to customers coming into your business about signing, passing the petition around at work.  Now it requires some drafting, an online account, the press of a button and a social media network.  Same outcome - names in support of a proposition; different tools and timeframe.

Applying glib labels to dismiss social media campaigns is really an expression of grief and fear at the loss of power.

Before social media, the power to be heard instantly sat firmly in the hands of people like Alan Jones - people who are paid to broadcast their opinions, stir up controversy and incite outrage.  The microphone was their tool and they had the power to speak uninterrupted.  People could engage in the discussion by calling talk-back, but the power still resided with the broadcaster with the power to flick the "kill" switch on any caller without warning.  From my own experience of calling the ABC, my call is first screened by a producer to assess what I want to talk about.  (I'm not in 2GB's broadcast area, and if I was I wouldn't listen and would be unlikely to call.  I have never called Alan Jones and can't vouch for their process.)

Now social media takes out these filters and time lags and gives anyone with access to a computer or smart phone the ability to broadcast or publish without interruption.  Broadcasters and other traditional media, no longer sit in the all-powerful position.  The power has been dispersed and they are just another voice in the population and they will receive feedback immediately and en masse about what they say.

In my opinion, this power shift is exciting.  It's also challenging.  Whenever power is challenged in a society it's significant.

So Alan Jones and 2GB need to suck it up, as they say in the classics.  They need to wear the consequences of their words and actions.  They need to come to terms with this power shift.  If their values genuinely align to their rhetoric about democracy, they should be dancing in the streets!

Bullying of any kind should not be tolerated.

If you'd like to read and sign the petition, follow this link.