Form of contra power harassment flies under radar in most workplaces, experts say
Harassment and bullying is often an issue that runs from the top down, but a new study is putting a spotlight on harassment that runs from the bottom up — which tends to get overlooked.
In academia, that dynamic is showing up at the professor level, where harassment and bullying is coming not just from colleagues or bosses, but from students. Grade-related bullying among faculty — including frivolous complaints, emotional pressure for grade changes and even intimidation — is a notable and recurring experience, according to the “Bullying in Higher Education: Leadership and Culture as Pathways to Resilience "study.
Jason Walker, professor of industrial and organizational psychology and program director at Adler University in Vancouver and the lead behind the study says it is a problem that is widely understudied.
"I’ve had students — I had one years ago,. I think they sent me like 30 messages on Teams. They were coming to me over a grade. , "he says.
Walker, who was one of the leads on the study, says this switch in power dynamic is often referred to as contra power — when someone who is the subordinate, the person with less power, flips the dynamic.
“What we see with students is that students do have power,” he says.
Leveraging that power
Students may leverage threats of appeals and low social ratings on professors to have the academics rethink grades, leaving professors to feel powerless. That especially affects academics in different ranks, such as adjunct and sessional.
“You’re not ranked. And some universities really look at the student feedback, which is, sometimes problematic, in and of itself,” he says.
The study finds that rank overall correlated positively with workplace bullying. While lower-ranked faculty members were more vulnerable to bullying overall in the workplace — or perhaps afraid to report — higher-ranked faculty members reported experiencing more bullying by students over grades.
Other key findings
Other main forms of harassment professors experienced included unmanageable workloads, unreasonable timelines and targets.
Gender and ethnicity also played a role in bullying, with female professors and professors of colour more susceptible to all forms.
The study was done by collecting 189 responses from professors at different institutions across Canada, the U.S, and U.K. Fifty-six per cent of the participants were women and 43 per cent were men.
The overtness that goes unseen
While contra power harassment has been studied in the academic space, it can be hard for organizations to understand or to research because the actions can be overt without being outright bullying and harassment, says Ajayi Festus, professor in the faculty of business and administration at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.
“It’s very subtle. So, say for instance, if someone does not respect a schedule with you, you're probably like, ‘Ooh, so what, ‘they didn’t show up?’ And they come and give maybe excuses and say, ‘Oh, the reason I was unable to make this schedule was because of [this].’ As a leader, most of the time you tend to think, ‘Okay, maybe that is plausible, maybe that’s the reason’. But a subordinate might intentionally be doing that because they want to undermine their boss,” he says.
Festus published a thesis study last year focusing on contra power in the context of incivility, which he explains as “low-intensity deviant behaviour in the workplace”. In his study, he examined the behaviour of contra power incivility among 25 participants in different organizations and industries across Canada who were either subordinates who participated in the behaviour or organizational managers who experienced it.
Giving the cold shoulder
The subtle, contra power, uncivil behaviours can take on many different forms, Festus says. They can include employees speaking harshly to bosses or managers, giving them the cold shoulder, or even interrupting them in the presence of others.
“[It’s about] when you hold back information that would be helpful to your boss in terms of achieving the things they’re supposed to achieve as the person in a managerial position,” he says.
The more the behaviour goes unchecked, the more it can lead to bullying and harassment, Festus says.
“It may start to their face, right? So, then you can then move on to bullying. And then from bullying, you can move on to maybe something like full-blown harassment,” he says.
While these types of overt behaviour may not seem like a problem now, it can have long-term effects on actual leaders and their organizations.
“Leaders impact several workplace outcomes. Leaders help to make organizations effective. They contribute to the profitability of organizations. So, it is always good that the well-being of leaders are protected in that sense,” he says.
“And then when they experience all these behaviours, even though they are very subtle, put together over time, it starts to chip away either at the civil fabric of the workplace and also on the authority of the leader — which may then diminish their effectiveness.”
Creating change through culture and not just policy
To create change around this behaviour, Festus says it must come from changing the overall workplace culture — especially when it comes to subtler behaviour.
He points to his research finding that one of the factors allowing contra power incivility to fester was employees’ perception that those behaviours were acceptable within the workplace culture.
“We refer to that as the perception of incivility climate,” he says.
Organizations need to address whether that climate of incivility exists and develop policy and training around it.
“[It’s about] developing policy regarding it, providing training to everyone within the workplace, admitting that it is actually possible for this to happen,” he says. “There should be policy regarding uncivil behaviour, the same way we have policy regarding harassment of any sort within the workplace — sexual harassment, racial mistreatment, and all those types of things.”
Walker agrees with Festus, adding that no matter how many workplace health policies are embedded, change won’t come until culture and systemic changes are made.
“We need leaders to step up. And we need to be able to also take time — we teach our students, teach our faculty how to have respectful conversations. And we expect the same from those people above us,” he says.
On the issue of bullying and harassment in academia, Walker says no amount of psychological safety meetings or policies will help if it’s not taken seriously at an institutional level.
Walker says institutions are often more concerned with protecting themselves than the people who experience bullying — and their policies reflect that.
“Even with our policies, it needs to be people over process. Because we get so fixated on who filled what form. And it’s like, but ‘What’s happening with that person?’ — whether it’s a student — and 'What are we doing about it?’" he says.
