Emotional Intelligence and Bullying in Mental Health Workplace

This essay examines the experiences of a new intern in a mental health unit who faced workplace bullying and mobbing. It details the initial positive experiences followed by increasing negativity, including constant criticism, intimidation, and undermining behavior from senior staff. The essay assesses the situation using three models of Emotional Intelligence—Ability Model, Trait Model, and Mixed Model—to understand the psychological and social pressures faced by the victim. It discusses the impact of bullying on teamwork, patient safety, and quality improvement within the organization, highlighting how emotional intelligence can help manage and mitigate these negative effects. The essay also touches on the reasons why victims often do not report bullying, such as fear of repercussions, and emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills in addressing and preventing workplace bullying.

Running head: BULLYING AND MOBBING OF NEW STAFF 1
Bullying and Mobbing of New Staff
Name
Institution Name

BULLYING AND MOBBING OF NEW STAFF 2
Bullying and Mobbing of New Staff
Background Information
One of the essential requirement that is needed for my qualification as a professional
nurse is to have a set of skills that can be derived from the workplace during undergraduate
study. In my final year of college, I wanted to improve on my skills and therefore sought an
internship opportunity in a mental health unit near my hometown. I remember being excited
about this opportunity and when the time came, I reported for duty with all the expectations of
learning and being equipped with the necessary skills that I need for increasing my experience as
a healthcare provider. During my first week, everything went smoothly. I never experienced any
negativity from the work or the people that I was attached to work with. This continued for about
two weeks until I started realizing the change in the behavior of some of my colleagues as well
as attitude towards me. Some of them wanted me to do all their paperwork, something that was
not personally my duty and others had the audacity to send me coffee around the office which I
obliged at first but begun feeling uneasy.
However, these were not the only form of negativity I was experiencing at the mental
health facility, but I realized that some of the staff members might have been taking advantage of
me and doing this on purpose. As time progressed, I realized that what I was facing was actually
workplace bullying and mobbing from staff as there was a wide range of scenarios that could
indicate this. For instance, I experienced constant criticism. Whatever I did, was always met with
negative criticism from some employers stating that ‘the problem with you young generation
think that you know everything.' I found this statement demeaning as it did not only criticize any
endeavors I did, but it made me feel that regardless of what I do, my actions would not be
appreciated. Other ways that I felt I was being bullied was the fact that there was a lot of

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intimidation as well as undermining by the staff that had worked there for a long time. During
this time, they never allowed me to do anything practical by myself. They always insisted that I
have someone to still be on the lookout for anything so that I do not mess up and this hampered
my performance significantly as well as made my work quite difficult.
Assessment of the Situation and Implications
Many victims of workplace bullying tend to suffer severe psychological as well as social
pressure. This type of harassment could be more intense compared to the other kind of bullying
such as school bullying because the attitude of the people undertaking the mobbing and bullying
are usually doing this based on the established policies of the organization (Harper, 2013).
Working for the mental health faculty, I realized this was the case because under many occasions
when I was mistreated, there was always a form of justification form the individuals which were
owned as either a rule, part of the culture or standard code of conduct to ‘sharpen the new
employee.' According to research, a lot of workplace bullying goes unreported by the victims
themselves because they are afraid of the consequences that might result. For that reason, much
of this mobbing is often reported only by a senior person of the management who does not
tolerate the behavior rather than the victim. I remember that there were many instances that I
wanted to report these activities by the staff to the administration of the organization but I never
did it for the fear that whoever I might be reporting to, could have been in cahoots with the staff
members who could seriously affect my job and so I never reported.
The three models of Emotional Intelligence are essential in understanding what a person
is experiencing cyberbullying goes through and the reason they still continue with their work
without reporting or why they do in the end as well as establishing some of the remedies for this
problem. For the sake of explaining my experiences at the mental health facility, three models

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would be used. That is the ability model, the mixed model and Trait model. These models also
help in understanding the impact of the vice on teamwork, patient safety as well as continual
improvement of quality at the workplace.
i. Ability Model
Perceiving emotions entails understanding the nonverbal signs such as body language from
other individuals or facial expressions (Martin, 2018). During my working period at the facility, I
established that the body language of the workers towards anything a lot of the things that I did
was unwelcoming. For instance, at one point, my supervisors asked me to attend to a patient with
an assistant nurse. I remember doing everything, but when the supervisor required an update, he
faced the assisting nurse entirely ignorant that I might have been the one with the information
that he needed. In addition, you could maybe approach someone for assistance or consulting on a
particular matter, and they would not pay any attention or whisk you away pretending to be busy
even when visibly they are not. This was quite undermining for me. During this time, I was
reasoning with emotions. That is using emotions, for the most part, to generate cognitive activity
or promote thinking. I believed that they hated me for some reason and that was why most of
them were arrogant, rude and not quite the friendly type.
Understanding emotions entail the interpretations of the feelings of other individuals around
you as well as having the knowledge to know that people might be angry at the situation and not
necessarily at you (Henshaw, 2018). It was not until my third month of working at the mental
health facility that I was tasked with the responsibility of taking care of patients without the
assistance of other staff. This was a defining moment for me as I believed that I must have
improved in my prowess and skills over the months and that was why I was tasked with such
responsibilities to handle on my own. However, as you would expect, sometimes, a mistake

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could happen, and you could end up doing something that does not particularly resonate with
another individual. One time, there was a mix up in the records which was not my fault, and I
gave medication to a wrong patient. Of course, when I was under heat for this mistake, as much
as I suggested that I followed what the record suggested and it was not my mistake, no one
wanted to hear any of it. They all put the blame on me. However, through the ability model of
the emotional intelligent framework, it is easy to see that sometimes people could be angry at the
situation and not at you specifically.
Managing the emotions helps in regulating emotions so as to always respond appropriately at
all times. I realized that the bullying that was going on was affecting the manner in which I do
my work. For instance, if someone was to come to my station and intimidate me, I would be
furious and be in a bad mood the rest of the day. I might not be in a capacity to handle patients
well with the emotional burden and psychological trauma that I was going through. However, by
understanding how to manage the emotions, I could try and brush away these thoughts and focus
on doing what I wanted to accomplish. Workplace bullying could lead to many negative impacts
not only on an individual but also to the organization (Great-West Life Center for Mental Health
in the Workplace, 2018). For instance, when a healthcare provider experiences bullying, they
might be affected and disoriented, and this provides inferior services to patients who could have
a seriously devastating outcome for the organization if such information were to leak out. Since I
understood this, it was essential that I learn how to manage my emotions
ii. Trait Model
This emotional intelligence framework was developed by Konstantin Vasily Petrides
(Weebly, 2018). He defined this trait model as a constellation of emotional as well as self-
perceptions that are often located at the lowest levels of an individual's personality.

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For this reason, it suggests that a person must be in a position to understand their own
emotions as well as traits of emotional intelligence. While working in groups, it is easy to note
the different characteristics of different individuals over time. Some people are more irritable
than others. Various factors dictate the how a person is going to act and this is substantially
embedded in their characters which dictates how they express their opinion. Having a great team
could go a long way toward ensuring success especially in this type of working environment. As
a junior health care provider at the mental institution, I had to work with to form group works
from time to time to help solve some cases that could not be handled by a single individual.
I realized that the group endeavors were severely affected because some members had opted
to feel superior to others. This is the negative impact that bullying tends to create at the
workplace. The expected nature of a bully is for them to feel superior compared to the others and
not have to do things that can be done by the people they are bullying. For this reason, any time
we the junior members were grouped with the senior staff, some of them wanted to leave the
group and form their own without involving us as they suggested that working with us slowed
them down and that made them less effective. Many times we could agree with them and would
request that we are grouped differently, but that did not seem to work. It was necessary for us to
be grouped with the senior staff since the tasks were still a bit involves to be handled by the
juniors alone and also, we had to learn from the senior staff on how to behave and do work. With
the trait model, it could have been possible to understand your own emotions but then realizing
that of others would be challenging as everyone had their behaviors when it came to bullying and
thus the importance of being able to understand the emotion of other individuals as well.
iii. Mixed Model

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This model calls for self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, motivation and social skills
such as leadership and conflict management (Gutierrez-Cobo, Cabello & Fernandez-Berrocal,
2017). Self-awareness involves confidence as well as the recognition of feelings. This could be
personal feelings or that of others. The problem with workplace bullying such as the one I went
through is that some institution and work entities have had a long tradition of it, such that when
new employees are employed and undergo through the same, they tend to come to grow in the
organization with the belief that it is okay to do that and when they become senior staff
members, they are bound to do the same to the new recruits. Doing this could have a detrimental
effect on the continuous improvement of quality at an organization. For instance, when a new
care provider as myself comes into the facility and they are treated in this manner, many do not
have the persistence and patience to be there long after the mistreatments have occurred. A high
turnover number could mean that over time, there would be a large number of recruits to ensure
the uptake of improved quality of service since, for these improvements, a certain level of
experience and expertise is required in this field.
In some organization, as much as bullying and mobbing occur, there are some senior workers
or the management that practice empathy and always want to protect the juniors. However, the
pressure from the workforce could be too much especially when the bullying practice
encompasses the use of company rules and undertakings to justify their efforts. The members
that did not participate in the bullying often have empathy which involves understanding the
feelings of others and being diverse. While working at the mental health unit, I realized that even
though some people engaged in bullying, there are those that did not want to support them and
often many times, these people would advise us the junior employees to report the issue to them
or the management whenever we felt that we were being exploited but none of us ever came

BULLYING AND MOBBING OF NEW STAFF 8
forward for a long time. As it has already been pointed out, work place bullying could be quite
traumatizing to the people it affects and for that reason, no one could speak out yet it had a
significant effect on how we did our work.
This bullying also affected patient safety in a number of ways. For instance, when I gave the
wrong medication to a patient due to the confusion in records, it was established that a junior
staff was in charge of the scheduling that morning and due to the harassment she had gone
through from one of the senior staff at work, she was demotivated and confused so much so that
she ended up mixing the records for that morning by mistake as maybe she was disoriented and
could not perform her work well. It is therefore evident that a single act of work place bullying
could have such a detrimental effect like putting a patient’s life in danger. In addition to this,
teamwork could be significantly affected. For instance, you do not expect a team that is
composed of people bullying others to work together effectively to achieve a particular objective
(Faltas, 2017). This is not possible let alone plausible. It is for this reason that organizations must
come up with effective conflict resolutions strategies that would help solve the issue of bullying
at the work place.
Conflict Resolution Strategies
After working at this unit for a year and a half, the management was concerned about the
trend of work place bullying that seemed to increase over the years. It was clear that the practice
was causing a wide range of problems such as impairment of teamwork activities, reduced
patient safety as well a lack of continuous quality improvement. It is for this reason that the
administration had to come up with a number of strategies to help resolve the conflict. However,
the method that the organization came up was not sufficient as bullying still continued. What the

BULLYING AND MOBBING OF NEW STAFF 9
organization did was to print out memos and warning letters to staff members who became even
angrier and bullying increased rather than reducing.
For this reason, I suggest the following strategies to the facility to help them curb with the
menace that ails the organization
1) Develop Policies against bullying
- This calls for relevant legislation on workplace bullying, harassment, and mobbing.
Having some policies that are clear to the senior employers on the consequences of
bullying could go a long way in preventing the vice. The code of conduct through
which the employees act should be reinforced by these policies, and it should be
noted that the employees must never in any way violate any of the policies (Levin,
2018). In addition, the policies could define the real roles of every employee to
prevent the exploitation of any of the junior employees. This could go a long way on
restoring patient safety and improve quality of service as everyone will be at ease of
mind doing their work, and would be doing what they are supposed to do.
2) Encouraging the junior employees to Stand up for themselves and report any cases
- Encouraging employees to stand up for themselves helps in building their self-esteem,
personal power, and assertiveness (Wilkinson, 2017). When a person stands for
themselves, it gives them the confidence and the ability to feel in control thus
handling their work effectively in the end without feeling devalued, intimidated or
heavily criticized.
3) Development of meaningful, respectful and productive working relationships.
- This should be the goal of any organization as it helps all the employees to work
together in harmony with each other thus getting things done as they need to

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(Reference). Doing this could help solve the problem that exists with teamwork if
there is bullying.
4) Manage Workplace Stressors as well as Risks
- Conflicts in roles, as well as uncertainty, could be one of the causes of bullying at
work. Some workers might think that the new staff would shine above their abilities
and outdo them or take a position that they hold and since they do not want this to
happen, they end up bullying the juniors just to discourage them from working as
hard or worse, quitting the organization (Australian Public Service Commission,
2018). Managing such stressors and giving assurance to the senior staff would
significantly reduce the chance of bullying and improve the quality of service offered.
5) Identify as well as call bullying behaviors early
- Doing this is essential as it helps in showing other an example of what would happen
to them if they were bullying the juniors staff. All the employees have equal rights
and are knowledgeable enough to conduct their work. The junior team must be
encouraged to report any incidences immediately they happen to do away with the
vice.

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References
Australian Public Service Commission. (2018). Preventing Bullying at Work. Retrieved
September 19, 2018, from https://www.apsc.gov.au: https://www.apsc.gov.au/5-
preventing-bullying-work
Faltas, I. (2017, March 4). Three Models of Emotional Intelligence. Public Policy and
Administration, 1-3. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314213508_Three_Models_of_Emotional_Intel
ligence
Great-West Life Center for Mental Health in the Workplace. (2018). Harassment and Bullying
Prevention. Retrieved September 19, 2018, from Workplace Strategies for Mental
Health: https://www.workplacestrategiesformentalhealth.com/job-specific-strategies/
harassment-and-bullying-prevention
Gutiérrez-Cobo, M. J., Cabello, R., & Fernández-Berrocal, P. (2017). The Three Models of
Emotional Intelligence and Performance in a Hot and Cool go/no-go Task in
Undergraduate Students. NCBI, 1-50. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00033
Harper, J. (2013, March 28). Surviving Workplace Mobbing: Identify the Stages. Retrieved from
Psychology Today:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beyond-bullying/201303/surviving-
workplace-mobbing-identify-the-stages
Henshaw, S. (2018). Bullying at Work: Workplace Mobbing is on the Rise. Retrieved September
19, 2018, from PschCentral: https://psychcentral.com/blog/bullying-at-work-workplace-
mobbing-is-on-the-rise/

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Levin, H. (2018). Workplace Bullying Prevention & Resolution Strategies. Retrieved September
19, 2018, from Money Crashers: https://www.moneycrashers.com/workplace-bullying-
prevention-resolution-strategies/
Martin, G. (2018, January 19). How to Recognise this Extreme form of Workplace Bullying.
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workplace-bullying/
Weebly. (2018). Emotional Intelligence: The Three Models. Retrieved 2018, from
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http://theimportanceofemotionalintelligence.weebly.com/the-3-models.html
Wilkinson, E. (2017, March 30). Tips and Tactics for Resolving Workplace Bullying. Retrieved
from medium.com: https://medium.com/adviser/tips-and-tactics-for-resolving-workplace-
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