Leaders who bully

2025 is starting out as the Year of the Bully Leader. Trump, the United States’ Bully-in-Chief, is extorting concessions from his neighbours and threatening land grabs against others. Musk, the world’s richest sycophant, is arbitrarily laying off thousands and cancelling aid to the world’s helpless. It all feels like a reality show about mob bosses and their shakedowns. Except this is not a show.

Who's next?

Each of us has experienced bullying in our lives. It could have happened at work, in school, at the playground, or even at home with family members. Regardless of the circumstances, it feels lousy to be bullied.

We tend to think we know a bully when we see one. The dictionary definition appears straightforward:

Bully (noun)

• A person who uses their strength or power to frighten or hurt weaker people.

• Especially: One who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable.

(Sources: Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries and Merriam-Webster)

A bully therefore is someone who uses their superior power to act in a way that causes a negative impact on a weaker person. Importantly, bullying can be both obscenely obvious and surreptitiously subtle. Allow me to illustrate with four real life stories:

• Story 1 – X, a junior employee in a company, committed an error in a customer matter. Y, his CEO, punished X by making him stand at attention in the middle of the open concourse of their office building lobby. CEO Y watched from his office window upstairs as passing commuters puzzled at X’s odd presence. CEO Y likes to retell this story to others as office lore.

  
  

• Story 2 – In my first year as a litigation lawyer, I accompanied a client to an urgent meeting with his opponent. F, the opponent’s lawyer, was four to five years my senior. In the ensuing discussion, F waved wildly and jabbed at the papers in his hand as he directed his points at me. He was clearly trying to put on a show for his client, at my expense. I was overwhelmed. (Incidentally, F is now a Senior Counsel in the Singapore Bar.)

  
  

• Story 3 – A, the CEO of a company, habitually submits low-ball bids in open tenders that he has no intention to honour. Once in exclusive contract discussions, he would drag things out to increase his leverage. Over time, the counterparty would run out of alternatives and end up with a bad deal.

  
  

• Story 4 – S, a new leader in an MNC, was struggling in his job. He could not fit in with the company culture and was unsure how he could be more effective in his work. He invited C, a very influential leader in the company, to lunch, hoping to get C's help and advice. After listening to S, C simply said: “You are doing fine,” and did nothing afterwards.

"You are doing fine."

Story 1 is clear-cut. One would be hard-pressed to call what CEO Y did anything other than “bullying.” On the other hand, for Story 2 and Story 3, some may see them as merely reflecting the realities of commercial life. “The big will always eat the small,” as the saying goes. But must that be so?

Story 2 typifies the cut and thrust of the legal profession. Adversarial confrontation in disputes can make for good drama, but fraternity and mutual respect are the lesser-known traditions that make the profession noble. My opponent F could have advocated effectively for his client without resorting to theatrics and hyperbole. Instead, he chose to impress his client by misusing his seniority to intimidate me.

Story 3 presents a trickier scenario. CEO A’s making of a bid which he had no intention to honour was clearly unethical. That trickery increased his leverage later in the negotiation process, which he then used to push the counterparty into a bad deal. But is that bullying, or just smart bargaining? Is it relevant that the counterparty willingly accepted CEO A’s false bid, and is therefore partly responsible for its own later predicament? Even if relevant, does that make CEO A any less of a bully, if he was one to begin with?

Story 4 is a classic tale of office politics. The interesting detail here is that C did nothing, i.e., he merely sat on his hands and watched newbie S wallow. Was the more powerful C obliged to help? Was C being passive-aggressive and, if so, did that make him a bully?

Bullying comes in all shapes and sizes. If we had a Bully Scale that ran 1 through 10, Trump would hands-down be a Perfect 10. But one need not exhibit full Trumpian thuggery to be considered a bully.

Leadership is full of scenarios which test our respective moral compasses. May you never find yourself a bully. Always choose to be kind.

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As a leadership consultant and coach, I help organisations and individuals use good leadership practices to succeed. Email me to discuss how we can work together.