Direct, Distract, Delegate, Delay, Document: 5 Ways to Intervene When You Witness Bullying & Harassment

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The nature of bullying is to isolate the target, making them more vulnerable. The minute an upstander intervenes, showing solidarity, the bullying behavior has failed in its goal.

Rather than being isolated, the target of the bullying has an ally, one who has demonstrated that bullying won’t work and isn’t acceptable.

Why then do we so often ignore bullying, thus allowing it to stand? Sometimes it may be a fear of the person doing the bullying that makes us hesitate to intervene; other times it is not fear but uncertainty about what might be the most effective response.

It can be difficult to know what to do when you see injustices happening. Right To Be, a nonprofit that develops training for upstanders, offers five different ways to intervene when you observe bullying: direct, distract, delegate, delay, document.

Direct

Challenge the person doing the bullying in the moment. Try a “you” statement. Here are some examples:

• “What’s going on for you here?”

• “Do you realize how you sound?”

• “Do you know how what you said sounds?”

• “You’re being inappropriate (disrespectful, etc.).”

• “Yo, not okay.”

• “You need to leave them alone now.”

• “What you’re saying is biased (prejudiced, offensive, etc.).”

Remember: If you’re a leader, you need to take the direct approach. The rest of the Ds are for upstanders who are not leaders and for whom the direct approach may feel too risky.

Distract

While it may be more satisfying to confront bullying directly, sometimes the direct approach makes things worse for the person being bullied, might escalate the situation, or might put the upstander in harm’s way. In these cases, the best thing to do might be to create a distraction.

Delegate

By delegate, I don’t mean ask someone “below” you in a hierarchy to do the work; I mean get help from another person who is in a better position to intervene, or build solidarity with others. You can delegate up, down, or sideways.

Delay

Sometimes uncertainty about the risk of retribution may make you reluctant to intervene on the spot. But you can still check in with the person who got bullied later to offer support and ask how you can help.

Document

Your ability to document bad behavior can be an invaluable service to people harmed by bullying—whether because they want to report an episode (and third-party evidence helps) or simply because it is comforting to get a reality check that what happened to them was wrong.

An upstander can take notes or even video what is happening during an incident in a way that the person harmed can’t. If you document, remember, the document belongs to the person harmed, not to you.

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Radical Respect is a weekly newsletter I am publishing on LinkedIn to highlight some of the things that get in the way of creating a collaborative, respectful working environment. A healthy organization is not merely an absence of unpleasant symptoms. Creating a just working environment is about eliminating bad behavior and reinforcing collaborative, respectful behavior. Each week I'll offer tips on how to do that so you can create a workplace where everyone feels supported and respected. Learn more in my new book Radical Respect, available wherever books are sold! You can also follow Radical Candor® and the Radical Candor Podcast more tips about building better relationships at work.