Disclosing personal information

Workplace bullies love personal information.

Workplace bullies can be great gossips and "collect" personal information avidly. Leaking choice information about their victim(s)  undermines them generally.

For example, revealing that a victim put in for a job and didn't get it suggests inferiority and may also suggest lack of commitment to the current organisation or team, Or revealing that a victim had a personal relationship with an influential manager suggests that their career progression was not based on merit and that they have questionable ethical standards. All damaging insinuations which the victim is most unlikely to be aware are being circulated by the bully.

In fact it could be seen that gossiping generally, which is widespread in workplaces, is the first step on the ladder of workplace bullying for many of us. There are some unhealthy underlying motivations.

Where personal information about a victim is particularly useful to  bully is in providing a smokescreen for the abusive behaviour. If the victim is starting to shows signs that the abuse is getting to them, the bully can cleverly suggest that  this is the result of other factors in the victim's circumstances. The victim is "under pressure" because of some out-of-work circumstances

It may well be that the victim has a significant out-of-work issue - a personal relationship difficulty, cares for another family member with health problems, has had some previous health problem themselves,  is moving house, has some significant financial worries, has been bereaved, etc. Many people do have these things going on in their lives without it significantly affecting their behaviour at work.

It may be the victim has disclosed this information to the abuser in the past believing it to be part of a confidential or caring conversation, Bullies can be accomplished actors. It may be that the bully has access to HR and Health information about the victim and can browse this beyond the needs of the present work situation. It may be that the bully actively "researches" their victim in various ways including through the internet, social media and by talking to former work colleagues.

So the advice to any victim would be to be cautious about what you disclose to whom. You may think you are having a confidential and supportive discussion - it may be neither.

So how do you distinguish an abuser from a genuinely supportive colleague? Given abusers' acting skills this could be very difficult. But one simple rule of thumb would be that if that person has ever disclosed personal information about a third party unnecessarily to you, then there is every likelihood that they will do the reverse.