When most people think of workplace bullying, they picture individual conflict: a difficult personality, an aggressive boss, or a colleague with poor communication skills. But the evidence tells us something different.
Professor Michelle Tuckey, from the University of South Australia’s Centre for Workplace Excellence, has shown that bullying is rarely just an “individual problem” it is a symptom of stress embedded in the organisational system
Workplace bullying tends to thrive in environments where:
- Job demands are too high: Excessive workloads, tight deadlines, constant pressure.
- Role stress is common: Unclear expectations, conflicting instructions, or too many hats to wear.
- Control and resources are low: Little autonomy, poor support, and limited access to tools to do the job well.
- Culture tolerates it: Behaviours go unchecked, or worse, are reinforced by leaders.
In other words: bullying is not just a “people problem”, it’s a workplace design and culture problem.
The Hidden Cost of Bullying
The consequences of bullying are significant. Research links workplace bullying to:
- Anxiety, depression, PTSD, and burnout.
- Physical health problems and higher rates of absenteeism.
- Lower job satisfaction and organisational commitment.
For employers, the ripple effects include lost productivity, presenteeism, rising workers’ compensation claims, and reputational damage.
Focusing on Root Causes, Not Just Behaviour
As Professor Tuckey points out, too often organisations focus on treating the symptom (the bullying behaviour) instead of the root cause (the stressful and poorly designed work environment)
Traditional anti-bullying policies, awareness campaigns, and disciplinary actions remain important. But without addressing job demands, role clarity, leadership behaviour, and workplace culture, these interventions only scratch the surface, they deal with the “tip of the iceberg.”
The real opportunity lies in designing out bullying through psychosocial risk management.
What Leaders Need to Know
SafeWork South Australia’s analysis of workers’ compensation claims shows that bullying often arises during at-risk interactions such as:
- Managing workloads and performance.
- Rostering, scheduling, and working hours.
- Appraisals, promotions, or underperformance conversations.
- Shaping team relationships and workplace culture
This means that effective leader training on bullying prevention must go beyond general awareness. Leaders need practical skills to:
- Manage these high-risk interactions fairly and consistently.
- Build psychologically safe teams where people feel able to speak up.
- Balance performance expectations with empathy and support.
How MHM Tackles Workplace Bullying
At the Mental Health Movement (MHM), we integrate Professor Tuckey’s evidence base into our Psychosocial Risk Management Program. Under the guidance of our Psychological Health & Safety Specialist, Dr. Alisha McGregor, we help organisations:
- Identify the psychosocial hazards that create conditions for bullying.
- Assess the risks through surveys, focus groups, and data analysis.
- Control those risks by redesigning work systems, upskilling leaders, and embedding support structures.
- Sustain the improvements with monitoring, evaluation, and ongoing capability development.
Our approach doesn’t just respond to bullying it prevents it by tackling the system-wide drivers of harm.
The Way Forward
Workplace bullying can be designed out. By applying psychosocial risk management, building leader capability, and creating a culture where poor behaviours are not tolerated, organisations can shift from a reactive stance to a proactive, prevention-focused model.
As Dr. Alisha McGregor explains:
“Bullying is not just bad individuals. What we’re finding is that bullying often occurs in environments that are extremely stressful…”
For MHM, this is more than compliance, it’s about building mentally healthy organisations where workers feel safe, valued, and supported and where bullying has no place to grow.
See the full conversation with Dr. Alisha McGregor here: Click To Watch now
