Coaching practices for How to Address Bullying in the Workplace as a Manager

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Address Bullying in the Workplace as a Manager, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’ve told my people a hundred times they can disagree with me, but they still don’t
• My boss keeps checking in and hovering over my work, and it makes me feel untrusted
• I keep dropping problems on my boss’s desk and waiting for them to tell me what to do, and I can feel it reads as me not owning my work
• Someone on my team is clearly going through something heavy and I’ve just been carrying on talking deliverables like nothing’s wrong
• I keep taking my boss’s frustrating decisions personally, like they’re just choosing to make my life harder

Practices that may help

1. Teach speak-up skills, not just encourage speaking up
   Give team members specific language for raising concerns, not just permission to raise them.
   Psychological Safety in Teams
2. Send proactive, brief status updates
   Update your manager on important work before they ask — in the format and frequency they actually want.
   Managing Up: Practical Skills for Working with Your Boss
3. Bring a proposed solution when you bring a problem
   Describe the problem and your recommended path before asking for a decision.
   Managing Up: Practical Skills for Working with Your Boss
4. Managing Up: Practical Skills for Working with Your Boss
   Managing up means proactively understanding your manager’s priorities, communication style, and constraints — then adapting how you work and communicate to make the partnership effective. Done well it is collaborative rather than manipulative: it reduces friction, builds trust, and creates space for greater autonomy. The evidence base is primarily organizational behavior research on leader-member exchange and practitioner consensus.
5. Show up for the person, not just the deliverable
   Acknowledge what is happening in someone’s life when it is clearly affecting them — before addressing the work.
   Caring Personally: The Foundation of Radical Candor
6. Understand the constraints your manager operates under
   Ask about the pressures and constraints your manager faces — then factor them into your expectations and requests.
   Managing Up: Practical Skills for Working with Your Boss
7. Use labeling across power asymmetries — with care
   Labeling your senior’s frustration is more delicate than labeling a peer’s — name the stakes, not just the feeling.
   Labeling Emotions in Negotiation, Made Practical
8. Disagree with your manager constructively
   State your disagreement clearly, give your reasoning, and then commit to the decision — without sacrificing either honesty or loyalty.
   Managing Up: Practical Skills for Working with Your Boss
9. Adapt to your manager’s communication style
   Match your manager’s preferred level of detail, pace, and channel — not theirs to yours.
   Managing Up: Practical Skills for Working with Your Boss
10. Respond immediately and visibly to safety violations
    When safety is violated — a person is mocked, shut down, or punished for dissent — address it in the moment.
    The Four Stages of Psychological Safety

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