Itis not just pupils who get bullied in school. A survey of 3000 teachers foundtwo thirds had been bullied or witnessed a colleague being bullied in the last12 months. The bulling was by managers or those with a leadership role in theschool. One in five said this had led to extended sick leave or changingschools. Theteaching union NASUWT has accused schools of operating a "macho"management culture this comes on top of claims that management bullying is a growing problem in Social Services and endemicin the NHS.Is the performance driven, target obsessed andfinance led Government policy to blame or is it a lack of peoplemanagement skills amongst our managers?Is this a climate whichbreeds the wrong type of management behaviour in which arrogance, secrecy andbullying flourishes? Or are such claims the response of professionals unused tobeing held accountable and finding it uncomfortable having their performancecompared and failures highlighted. A performance managementculture which treats head teachers and chief executives like football managers,where success is measured by position in the league and failure results in thesack may well led managers to make unreasonable demands on staff, to imposerather than negotiate and to view questions and concerns as dissent and evendisloyalty. It takes real leadership skills to with stand this pressure, toresist the temptation to force through changes for quick results and to keep everyoneon board whilst moving forward. Not all managers have these leadership skills. Asa result leadership programs have been established in the NHS, Schools, SocialServices and across the public sector. But whilst the need to developleadership skills has been recognised do these programmes pay sufficientattention to people management skills or is that considered to basic for seniormanagers?Managementbehaviour tends to be modelled from the top. If all staff feel valued andrespected, if they feel they are treated fairly, then the organisation they workfor is unlikely to be characterised by bullying, harassment and discrimination.This requires managers to become more sensitive to peoples’ needs and toimprove their leadership skills by gaining insight into how their behavioraffects the people they manage. Senior managers don’t tend to get directfeedback from staff as they are surrounded by people who want to insulate themfrom the bad news and the true strength of feeling on the shop floor. Theirdistance from the front line can result in a failure to appreciate how the message is beingheard further down the organisation.Aneffective leadership program needs to help participants gain an insight intohow their behavior affects those they manage and those at the on the front line,it needs to equip leaders with techniques and skills for creating anenvironment where staff feel safe to say what they really think, where peopleknow how to challenge managers and accept challenges from managers. Such programs often start with a 360 degreefeedback from staff and colleagues. What makes this type of leadershipdevelopment different is the emphases on one to one executive coaching. Theindividual is observer in a number of work setting by the coach who thenprovides detailed feedback, this feedback is then used to set personalobjectives which can be progressed with the coach or picked up by a mentor.BlairMcPherson is author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published byRussell House which contains a detailed case study of the type of leadershipdevelopment program referred to in this article..
