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Abstract

Workplace bullying is a rising legal, moral, and economic issue in the United States. Perpetrators of workplace bullying not only wreak havoc by inflicting physical and psychological pain on their targets, they trigger severe economic consequences to the organization through lost productivity, turnover, sick leave, workers compensation and disability claims, and litigation. Somewhat surprisingly, there are no current United States federal or state laws that provide protection to all workers specifically against workplace bullying. Whereas targets of workplace bullying who fall into protected status categories as defined under Title VII law may have legal recourse using a harassment or discrimination claim, non-status-based workplace bullying is in essence legal in the United States. In order to rectify this egregious omission in United States law, numerous activist organizations and anti-bullying advocates have taken up the cause to inform lawmakers of the magnitude and impending dangers of the issue. Until workplace bullying is formally addressed at the federal and/or state levels, the work presented here proposes a model policy that can be used by organizations to help eradicate workplace bullying at the micro level. Research across the world has shown that workplace bullying can be directly linked to organizational culture. Because organizational culture matters, this study uses a servant leadership perspective by which to frame and develop the model policy. Servant leadership is based on the concept of shared power, with intentional emphasis placed on equality, growth and development, safety, and well-being of all team members in the workplace. Organizational buy-in from all levels, especially ownership, is necessary for a workplace bullying policy to be successful. In order to cement the organizations commitment to the importance, equality, and protection of all team members, the model policy crafted here adopts a no-tolerance stance against workplace bullying, including the vow not to hire, promote, or retain employees who are found to be in breach of the workplace bullying policy. This model policy for workplace bullying based on a servant leadership perspective seeks to change organizational culture and eliminate workplace bullying through formal policy implementation, training, and fair and consistent enforcement.

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