Workplace bullying or just a difficult relationship? How to tell them apart and what you can do about each

“Maybe I really am oversensitive. Everyone says that’s just how he is.”

The woman who says this hasn’t slept well for months. In meetings her manager cuts her off mid-sentence and dismisses her suggestions with a laugh that the others cautiously echo. She is no longer invited to team lunches. Recently she found out that part of her project had been handed to a colleague without anyone telling her. Each incident on its own seems small. When you list them, you sound petty. But together they create something that makes her start shaking on Sunday evenings.

Is this workplace bullying? Or is it “just” a difficult relationship with a tiresome person, of the kind every workplace has a few of? The difference isn’t merely academic. It determines what makes sense to do — and whether you deserve to be believed by others.

A word we use too soon, or too late

The word “mobbing”, or workplace bullying, comes up more and more often in conversations about work. Sometimes people use it for every unpleasantness: a manager was curt, a colleague didn’t say hello, someone criticised a report. Then the word loses its weight, and it becomes harder for those who really are experiencing bullying to show that what is happening to them is something different.

More often, though, I notice the opposite: people who have been exposed to systematic humiliation for a long time don’t use the word for a long time. They deny it, make excuses, look for the fault in themselves. “It’s not that bad.” “Maybe I deserved it.” “Others have it worse.” And when they finally say it, they are often already exhausted, ill or on their way out.

That is why it is worth knowing what bullying is and what it isn’t. Not in order to accuse anyone quickly, but so that you can tell yourself and others what is going on.

What Leymann meant by mobbing

The term was introduced into research on work by the Swedish psychologist Heinz Leymann in the 1980s. He described mobbing as psychological terror in the workplace: hostile and unethical communication directed systematically by one or more people at one individual, who as a result is pushed into a helpless position from which it is hard to defend themselves.

Leymann set two criteria that are still used in research today: the behaviour must recur at least once a week and last at least six months. These numbers aren’t magic thresholds — his aim was to separate a single unpleasant incident from a pattern that gradually wears a person down. The key words are systematic and prolonged.

Leymann gathered 45 kinds of behaviour he observed in people exposed to mobbing and divided them into five groups:

• attacks on the ability to communicate — interrupting, ignoring, shouting, constant criticism;
• attacks on social relationships — nobody speaks to the person, they are excluded from shared activities, treated as if they weren’t there;
• attacks on reputation — gossip, spreading rumours, mockery, ridicule in front of others;
• attacks on the work situation — removing tasks, assigning meaningless or humiliating work, or so much work that failure is guaranteed;
• attacks on health — from assigning harmful work to threats and physical violence.

Later, the Norwegian researcher Ståle Einarsen and colleagues developed a questionnaire on negative acts that researchers around the world still use. Their definition, too, stresses three things: repetition, duration, and the fact that the person finds it hard to defend themselves.

The difference isn’t in how much it hurts

That last point is the key to telling the two apart. Einarsen and colleagues write explicitly that we don’t speak of bullying when it is a one-off incident or when the dispute is between two parties of roughly equal strength. Two colleagues who have argued for months over who is responsible for a project are in conflict — perhaps a very painful one, but a conflict. When one side loses the ability to defend itself, however — because it has been left alone, because the other side has more power, or because others have joined in — the conflict starts turning into something else.

It is important to understand that the difference isn’t in the intensity of the pain. A difficult relationship can hurt a great deal. Chronic conflict with a colleague can be just as draining as bullying; I wrote about this in A conflict with a co-worker that drags on for months: why it doesn’t resolve itself. The difference is in the structure: who has the power, whether there is a repeating pattern, and whether you can defend yourself.

What a difficult relationship looks like

Difficult relationships at work are almost unavoidable. People differ, we are short-tempered under pressure, some colleagues are demanding, some managers communicate badly. A difficult relationship usually has some of the following:

• the tension is connected to the work itself — a deadline, responsibility, differences in how people work;
• the unpleasantness comes from both sides, even if one side may suffer more;
• the other person is similarly unpleasant to others too, not only to you;
• there is room to talk, complain or find a mediator, and such a conversation changes at least something;
• when circumstances change — a project ends, the team changes — the tension eases too.

A difficult relationship isn’t something you simply have to put up with. But it is something where you often have more influence than it seems — through conversation, boundaries and clarity about tasks. That is exactly what is different with bullying.

When conflict grows into bullying

Bullying rarely falls out of the sky. Leymann observed that it often begins with an ordinary conflict that nobody resolves in time. Dieter Zapf and Claudia Gross later described bullying as a conflict that has escalated to the point where one side is no longer looking for a solution, but for the other’s defeat.

This is where a systemic view becomes important. A work team functions much like a family: when there is tension in it that nobody addresses — an unfair manager, overload, uncertainty because of a reorganisation — it tends to pour onto one person. In family therapy we call this the role of the scapegoat. Once someone is in that role, others start gathering around them. Not necessarily out of malice. Often because it is safer to be on the side of the stronger, or because it is easier to believe the problem lies in one person than in the system.

Leymann described something else that is especially painful for people experiencing bullying: when the matter reaches management, management often misreads the situation. A person who has been exposed to humiliation for months is by then exhausted, irritable, perhaps off work more often. From the outside they look like a “problem employee”. The consequence of bullying is thus mistaken for its cause.

Research also points to the particular role of the manager: bullying is more likely to spread where leadership is absent or where the manager doesn’t set limits on conflict. I wrote about how tension in the leadership team affects everyone below it in Corridor politics: how conflict in the leadership team affects your health.

What bullying does to the body and to mental health

In 2012, Morten Birkeland Nielsen and Ståle Einarsen summarised the extensive research on the consequences of bullying in a meta-analysis. Exposure was associated with more mental health problems — anxiety, depressive symptoms, symptoms of post-traumatic stress — with physical complaints, with burnout, with lower job satisfaction and with the intention to leave. Studies that followed people over time showed that bullying predicts a worsening of mental health, and also that people who are already struggling are more vulnerable to becoming targets. The circle can turn in both directions.

It often happens that the body speaks up before the mind does: insomnia, headaches, digestive problems, tension in the shoulders, frequent colds. This is the response of a nervous system that has been on alert for too long; you can find more in the knowledge base under chronic stress. I described how exhaustion shows up in the body in Physical signs of burnout that we blame on everything else.

Just as important is what bullying does to how you see yourself. A person begins to doubt their perceptions and abilities. Humiliations that take place in front of others bring shame — the feeling that something is wrong with me, not just with one thing I did. I wrote about this emotion in Shame: the emotion that whispers “There is something wrong with me”. Shame is often the very reason people stay silent for so long.

How it sounds in conversation

This is how part of a session might go with someone who doesn’t know what to call what is happening to them (a composite, not a real person):

“I don’t know if I have the right to complain. Nobody’s shouting.”
“What happens, if they aren’t shouting?”
“In meetings they skip me. When I say something there’s a silence, then they move on. I get instructions by email last, sometimes not at all.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Since spring. Since I pointed out a mistake in the accounts.”
“And what have you been telling yourself about it until now?”
“That I’m oversensitive. That I need to be nicer.”

In a conversation like this, it isn’t me who decides whether it is bullying. That isn’t my task, and it wouldn’t be fair. What I can do is help the person first gather the incidents, see them together, and stop dismissing each one as unimportant. That alone often brings the first relief: “So I didn’t make it up.”

Exercise: an incident log

Whether it is bullying or a difficult relationship, the first step is the same: write it down. Notes help you see a pattern you can’t see in everyday life, and they are valuable if you ever turn to HR, a trade union or a lawyer. You can start today.

1. For each incident, write down the date, time and place. Briefly but precisely. In a meeting, in the corridor, by email.
2. Write down who was involved and who witnessed it. Including people who said nothing.
3. Write down what happened, as facts. What was said or done, as close to word for word as you can. Keep emails and documents, but in line with your employer’s rules.
4. Write down how it affected you. Your work, your sleep, your body, your mood. If you saw a doctor because of it, note that too.
5. Once a week, read it all together. Ask yourself: does it repeat? Is it aimed at me? Can I defend myself? The answers will tell you more than any single incident.

Keep your notes off your work computer, somewhere only you have access to. And look after yourself: if, while writing, you notice your thoughts circling the same scenes at night, that is a sign of rumination. Then close the log at a set time and don’t let it become one more place where the incidents replay.

What you can do in a difficult relationship

If your notes show that it is a difficult relationship — two-sided, tied to work, with some room for conversation — you have more influence than it may seem.

• A one-to-one conversation. Not in a doorway, but arranged, with concrete examples and with what you need: “When you interrupt me in meetings, I can’t finish my proposal. Please let me get to the end.”
• Clarity about tasks. A lot of tension arises because it isn’t clear who is responsible for what. An agreement confirmed by email often calms things more than a long conversation.
• Boundaries. Assertiveness helps here — the ability to say what you need without attacking or withdrawing.
• A mediator. If the conversation doesn’t work, a manager, HR or an external mediator can help you hear each other.
• A look at yourself. In a difficult relationship both people have a part. It is worth asking what this person stirs up in you and whether there is anything you could do differently.

What you can do about bullying

With bullying it is different. Because there is an imbalance of power, simply talking to the person who is systematically pushing you out often doesn’t help and can even be risky, because it escalates the situation. Here it is right to turn outwards.

In general terms — and without this being legal advice: the Slovenian Employment Relationships Act prohibits harassment and bullying at work and requires employers to protect employees from it. What that means in your case can only be explained by someone who knows the law and your situation.

A few paths people most often take:

• The internal route. A written report to the manager of the person who is pushing you out, or to HR. Many employers set out in their internal rules who bullying should be reported to and how it is handled — it is worth checking.
• A trade union. If you are a member, or there is a union at your workplace, it is often the first outside port of call where they can help you understand your options.
• The labour inspectorate. In Slovenia, the Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia oversees compliance with employment law.
• Legal advice. A lawyer who works in employment law, or free legal aid, which in Slovenia is granted by the district court under certain conditions.
• Health. Your GP, whom you tell what is happening and who can assess sick leave or a referral. Psychotherapy helps you stay in touch with yourself when your environment doubts you.

If the distress overwhelms you to the point where thoughts arise that there is no point, or thoughts of harming yourself, don’t wait. In Slovenia you can call the crisis line Klic v duševni stiski on 01 520 99 00 (every day from 7 pm to 7 am) or the Samaritans helpline on 116 123 (24 hours a day), and in an emergency 112. No job is worth your life.

And one more thing: leaving a job isn’t a defeat. Sometimes the healthiest decision is to leave before the system wears you out completely. It doesn’t mean they were right. It means you chose yourself. If you feel anger about it, that is understandable — I described how you can use it as energy for change in Anger is not the problem: how it turns from helplessness into energy for change.

Where this distinction doesn’t help

I want to be honest about the limits of what I have written.

The criteria come from research, not law. Leymann’s thresholds of once a week and six months were set so that researchers could compare data. They aren’t a condition for deserving help. If someone has been humiliating you every day for three months, you don’t have to wait until month six to act. The legal definition of bullying is something different again, and it is assessed by someone who knows the field.

There is a grey zone. Many situations are neither pure bullying nor an ordinary conflict. A difficult relationship can slowly slide towards bullying as others join in. That is exactly why the log matters: it shows the direction things are moving in.

A name isn’t a cure. Some people, once they have the word “bullying”, hold on to the role of victim so tightly that they stay in it even when circumstances change. Others feel accused by the word, even though they were merely a clumsy manager. The word is useful when it helps you understand and act — not when it becomes an identity.

It isn’t always one side’s fault. In difficult relationships both people usually have a share. With bullying, responsibility lies clearly with those who carry it out and with the system that allows it. But even then it is worth looking in therapy at what was stirred up in you — not to blame yourself, but so that next time you recognise sooner when you need help. The difference between guilt and shame matters here; I wrote about it in Guilt and shame are not the same — and the difference matters.

If what weighs on you at work is less a single colleague and more a climate of fear created by your manager, read The boss who leads through fear: what happens to your nervous system every day as well.

What to remember

• Bullying is systematic, prolonged hostile behaviour aimed at one person who finds it hard to defend themselves.
• What separates it from a difficult relationship isn’t the intensity of the pain but the pattern and the balance of power.
• Bullying is linked to serious consequences for mental and physical health, so don’t dismiss it as oversensitivity.
• Write down incidents: the date, who, what, witnesses and the effect on you. It helps you see the pattern and seek help.
• In a difficult relationship, conversation and boundaries often help; with bullying it is right to turn outwards — to a trade union, the inspectorate, a lawyer and a doctor.