What To Do if You're Being Bullied at Work

This is the transcript of The Refreshing Leadership Podcast episode: What To Do if You're Being Bullied at Work, published on 27th July 2026.

Today I am sharing a video from inside my programme. I wanted to share this one because it is coming up too frequently in my coaching conversations, and I feel it is something that needs to be more widely discussed.

I want to caveat that I am not an HR professional. What I'm sharing here are some practical steps if you think you might be the victim of workplace bullying - the low-hanging fruit, the things you can do to start to protect yourself that can make a huge difference. They might seem like obvious things, and yet I have seen that they are not always happening. Because one of the saddest parts about workplace bullying is that it's not often picked up by the system.

I actually think this is one of those things that we should all know about ahead of time, rather than when the bullying is actually taking place, so that we can pick things up early. One of the sad things about bullying is that it's often allowed to get really awful, really bad. It's already started to impact the individual's confidence on a very severe level, and it can cause all kinds of health issues as well. I have worked with many clients through this, and that is why I want to share this.

If there's somebody you know who is experiencing any of this at work, please share this with them. With the caveat that I'm not an HR professional, these are things that have worked with my clients.

I do recommend watching this on YouTube or Spotify, which shows the video version with slides, as this is part of my curriculum. Feel free to leave a comment there as well if it resonates or feels practical.

The interaction versus the situation

The first thing to understand is that the bullying interaction itself is not something that is within your control as the victim to fix.

You cannot reason with a bully. There is a saying that healthy people can have healthy relationships with other healthy people, but healthy people cannot have healthy relationships with unhealthy people. So if you find yourself repeatedly having poor quality interactions with one person - despite otherwise having good relationships with most other people - take a look at that individual and think about whether their behaviours are coming from a healthy place, or whether there is something there that is not working and that they're not willing to fix.

The interaction itself is not within our control. If you are at the mercy of a bully, by definition you cannot change the way that they're interacting, and therefore you cannot predict or control that interaction. I really want to emphasise that.

What we can impact is the situation itself. There are things we can do to address what's happening, and unfortunately I have not seen this being handled very efficiently or effectively by organisations, which is why we do need to take this proactively - especially if we are at the mercy of abusive behaviour or bullying.

Remember, this is a real spectrum. It could be outright bullying, or at the other end it could be lots of micro abusive behaviours accumulating over time that lead us to doubt ourselves and question ourselves, without being completely sure. This is why one of the most important steps, if you're starting to notice these things creeping up, is keeping a log.

I often see the interaction and the situation being conflated, and I want to be clear about the difference. Unfortunately I have individuals sent to me for coaching because they're being bullied - the framing being that this is something the individual can change their behaviours to fix. It is not.

Do not underestimate the impact that bullying and abusive behaviour has on our confidence. We could be otherwise very confident, self-assured people, and it will make us question ourselves, triple-guess every communication we make towards that individual, waste our time, make us want to hide away and play small. All of these are things my clients have told me they feel. The coaching has helped them to regroup and realise that they need to step forward, keep moving, and not let the bully stop them from developing their own career.

In terms of contexts where I've seen this, I do see it happening a lot in the public sector and not getting resolved quickly - but I've also seen it with private sector clients. This is not limited to one specific type of organisation.

Practical steps that have worked

Refuse to be alone in meetings with that individual - without supervision or HR present. One of my clients did this after a coaching session with me, and HR strangely started taking a lot of speedy action. One of the implications was that having HR present at every meeting between the bully and the victim was going to take a lot of their resource, and so instead they started taking more proactive action. It can actually wake up the system a little bit. And beyond that, you shouldn't have to be thrown into the lion's den - this stuff will impact your mental health.

Often the bully will be known to HR, because you won't be the only person to have experienced these behaviours. By raising it, you're probably reinforcing something that has been a repeated pattern. It's unlikely you'll be the first person to have raised this.

The tricky part though is that despite this potentially having been raised before, what I often see is that at the top level, it is not known. The bully will be very expert at managing upwards in such a way that it is very unclear to those at the very top what is going on - because they won't see any indication of it in their own interactions. In fact, they'll see quite the opposite.

When I raised my own situation with my boss's boss, she was completely oblivious and quite shocked. She was otherwise a great leader, but she had been completely duped by the bully boss. So don't underestimate this. It's very easy when you're the recipient to think, "I've mentioned it to this person, I've mentioned it to that person," and to assume that everyone must know about it. But bullies are often very aware of power dynamics, and it's amazing what they will have done to hide their behaviour from those who are influential in their careers. Do not assume that those at the top will know - or even believe it immediately when they first hear it. They'll probably need a little bit more evidence.

Don't engage in email exchanges without others copied in. This is about protecting you from having to interact with this individual in a way that's going to be anxiety-provoking, unproductive, and a waste of your time and energy. You shouldn't have to engage in those anymore.

Start documenting everything. What they're saying, the little things, how they said it, the impact it's had on you, your feelings, and the impact it's had on your work. Just keep this document going.

When you're in meetings with them and they say something, take the time during the meeting to actually carefully write it down. Slow down time and do that writing. Rather than responding immediately, just pause and say, "Just need to capture that." That will also destabilise them a little bit once they know you're documenting everything.

It creates a buffer between you and the bully, because you are now recording everything - you're becoming an observer rather than the victim. This is something I was told when I was being bullied, and it worked absolutely beautifully. Because when you're the recipient of bullying, you can become so emotionally distraught that it becomes hard to convey everything in a structured way. That can reduce your credibility when you need to make a clear case for what's going on.

It's so much better to have a documented file so that you can say, "Look, this is really hard for me to talk about. I've got it all here - dates, times, everything." Whilst I think it's important to be able to show emotion at work, having that file gives a professional and credible edge to whatever you need to say. It adds weight, and gives you a more neutral record that will help you communicate things more effectively.

Minimise your interaction with the bully. This is not you being a coward. This is not you not standing up to them. This is recognising that this is an individual who does not want to change their behaviours.

You will have tried. You will have tried to have normal interactions with them, like you have with other healthy people, and it won't have changed. You will have had some slightly tricky conversations with them to try and resolve things. None of this will have made any difference. This is when we know that these behaviours are not going to change - they are not within our control to affect.

One of the big regrets I've heard from clients after we've done the coaching is that early on they tried too hard to reason with the bully, treating it like other interactions where you thrash an issue out and move forward constructively. What they didn't realise - because the bully presents really well, really credibly, really professionally - was that they weren't to be reasoned with. They are driven by other drivers, like a big toddler with a very large ego. Inside their head there may be all kinds of things going on - feeling under threat, needing to cling to being right, being on a power trip, whatever those things are. Once those things are in play, it's basically impossible to reason with them.

But because other people might not fully understand what's going on, you might be encouraged to try all sorts of different approaches, and a lot of that can be wasted time and energy. Once you have the knowledge in place and you've tried the basic approaches, minimising your interactions really does preserve your energy.

Take this to the highest level in your organisation as a business issue. Because bullying is a business issue. It's not an HR issue alone. It has a business impact - on performance, on wellbeing, on the ability to do the job effectively.

When you frame it as a business issue and take it to someone close to the top of the organisation, you're playing to their interests. Think about what a CEO cares about. Even in an NHS organisation, they're going to care about performance. So when you take it in those terms, you might say something like: "I'm conscious that at your level you might not be aware this is going on. I've got a file full of the gritty detail, but I wanted to make sure you had a full awareness of the impact before it's too late. These are the things being derailed by these behaviours - the way we are able to execute and deliver projects, and potentially some retention issues too."

You can still show emotion. You can say, "I might get a bit emotional around this because it has obviously had a big impact on me, but I want you to have the full awareness that this is going on, because my suspicion is that it is being hidden from the top level of the organisation." When you do it that way, you make it about them and their interests, and it becomes much more effective.

I've found this approach to work a lot better for my clients, and I've also found it effective for myself personally.

A final word

If this is something you're going through right now, my heart absolutely goes out to you. Don't underestimate the impact this will have on you and your wellbeing.

Hopefully from this you can see that there are steps you can take. And once you've taken all of the steps - if there is a categoric refusal to deal with the issue at a systemic level - that will tell you a lot about the organisation, and at some point you'll be able to make a smart decision about whether that is the organisation for you. But let's make sure we have a full understanding first and that we've done this basic hygiene, because typically when I start working with clients who are experiencing some sort of bullying, they haven't necessarily taken these steps yet.

Thank you for watching or listening to this episode. If you found it helpful and you realise you need more of this, I have an entire curriculum that takes you through all of this in a really systematic way - one that you could take into any organisation and that would give you a strong foundation for navigating all kinds of different cultures and environments. If that's of interest, the link will be in the show notes.

Please share this with at least one person you think could benefit. There might just be one tip in here that makes all the difference for somebody who is struggling at work.

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About Maya

Maya Gudka is an executive coach specialising in C-suite career progression and leadership development. She works with senior leaders in major organisations on strategic career planning, executive presence, and building sustainable influence. Maya hosts The Refreshing Leadership Podcast, which ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally and has nearly 300 episodes exploring the challenges faced by ambitious professionals.