75% of victims eventually left an organization because of bullying. Since over 80% of bullies were in management positions, they had some measure of power over their victim, which they exploited to their own sadistic ends. – Campaign Against Workplace Bullying (C.A.W.B)

C.A.W.B defines workplace bullying as; “the repeated, malicious verbal mistreatment of a victim (the recipient) by a harassing bully (the perpetrator) that is driven by the bully’s desire to control the victim.”

The objective of any workplace bully is control, power, domination and subjugation. The means by which that objective is attained varies from bully to bully but can include deception, corruption and collusion, negligence, dereliction of duty, conspiracy, or even criminal acts.

The Canada Safety Council states that bullies tend to be insecure people with poor or non-existent social skills with little empathy. Like other criminal types they look for system failings and fester in the insecure corporation finding satisfaction in their ability to attack and diminish the capable people around them. A workplace bully subjects the victim to unjustified criticism and even minor fault finding. In addition, the bully humiliates the victim, especially in front of others, and ignores, overrules, isolates and excludes the victim.

“Most cases of bullying involve a serial bully: one person to whom all the dysfunction can be traced. The serial bully has done this before, is doing it now and will do it again. The serial bully in the workplace is often found in a job which is a position of power, has a high administrative or procedural content but little or no creative requirement.” - Tim Field, a workplace bullying specialist based in the United Kingdom

According to Tim Field; The bully, is adept at escaping from accountability. This is largely because of their amazing ability to use deception and misperception to turn the tables on their accuser. Field notes that, when called to account, the bully instinctively denies everything and then mounts an aggressive counter-attack based on distortion or outright fabrication. The purpose is to avoid answering the question, thus avoiding the requirement of accepting responsibility for their behaviour. This tactic forces the victim into giving another long explanation to counter the bully’s allegations. Quite predictably, the bully’s original transgression is forgotten.