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Strong results can make employers reluctant to confront harmful behavior. Catherine Mattice argues that tackling workplace bullying starts with leaders setting clear expectations and following through when those expectations are ignored.
Drawing on her own experience in HR and her work coaching abrasive leaders, Mattice explores why complaints can go unresolved when HR lacks senior leadership support. She explains how confidential employee feedback can help people understand their impact, and why coaching needs clear expectations and consequences to succeed.
Mattice joins the HR Grapevine Podcast to discuss supporting employees who report bullying, turning company values into measurable expectations, and holding high performers accountable for how they achieve results. She also explores what hiring teams can learn from the way candidates describe their colleagues and approach collaboration.
Host: Hello and welcome to another episode of the HR Grapevine Podcast. I'm your host, Benedict Evans, community engagement Manager at HR Grapevine. This is my first time in the host chair, so do bear with me. Today I'm joined by Catherine Mattice. She's founder and CEO of Civility Partners, a consultancy that she launched in two thousand and eight after living through a toxic workplace herself and deciding it was a problem that she could solve. Nearly two decades on, she and her team have worked with more than two hundred and fifty organizations, from Chevron and NASA through to Stanford University and the American Red cross. She's authored Navigating a Toxic Workplace for dummies, built over sixty courses on LinkedIn learning, and delivered a TEDx talk on moving from Bystander to Upstander. And today, we're going to be discussing abrasive leaders, the accountability gap in workplace bullying, and what HR can do about it before it's too late. A very warm welcome, Catherine.
Guest: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Host: Thank you for coming on. I'll launch straight into it really is. You know, as we've covered before, you were, I believe, previously an HR director when a bullying major workplace very toxic. And I believe in the past you've said that you felt powerless because whilst the behaviour was legal, it wasn't and wasn't against corporate policy. I mean it was bullying. So what I'd like to ask you first is what did that teach you about the gap between, you know, what HR is authorised to do and what people expect HR to do in those situations.
Guest: Yeah, so, so many things to say here. HR gets a real bad rap when it comes to bullying. And I do think there is a big misunderstanding of what HR is able to do. HR is only able to do the things that they're given permission to do, given resources to deal with, and given the time And having been through that and all these years of kind of being on sales calls, you know, with HR and, and their CEOs or their boss around trying to solve a culture problem or a workplace bullying problem or get somebody coaching. I just find that, you know, HR really would love to solve it. They don't want to deal with that either. But the CEO is the reason they're not able to solve it. So we got to stop being so mean to HR around this. So it, it taught me what HR goes through, right? So I was dealing with the repercussions personally of that. You know, I would hire people and then they would leave, and then I'd have to hire more people and they would leave. And, you know, I was the HR person who couldn't solve it. I spoke to the president quite a bit about the one individual's behavior, and he would just say, well, that's just how he is. Don't let it bother you. Be the bigger person. And I'm like, why don't you be the bigger person and have a conversation? So yeah, so I just, I suffered through that. And so I feel for HR and I'm a bit on a mission to help clear his name when it comes to bullying.
Host: The one, one thing I do want to ask you on that is in the process of trying to fix it with what limited tools may be available. Does sometimes HR make bullying in the workplace worse in a sense? Like where does a well intentioned response go wrong? Or and, you know, conversely, what does a good response look like?
Guest: Yeah, so I the research, according to the academic research from around the world, HR is horribly awful when it comes to workplace bullying. The research really claims that HR makes it worse. Period. The end. And then, you know, you go into a Facebook group around kind of like a workplace bullying support group. And people also express that. But that's not been my experience. Right? My experience from where I sit is that they are trying to solve it and aren't able to. So here, here's what I think. I think there's a lot of HR people who get so focused on compliance that when they're being told or HR, someone's reporting workplace bullying to them, their mind goes straight to, is this harassment or not? And that's a mistake. That is the biggest mistake I see bullying and harassment too, are not compliance problems. They're people problems. They're relationship problems. They're culture problems. It's that first and then compliance second. And so HR that's one thing HR does wrong. They get really focused on the compliance component. I think HR gets accused of just ignoring it. And I think that's a function of whether or not their boss is allowing them to address it. Because people who bully are very high performers. You know, they bully because they're lacking self-esteem and they're overcompensating by bringing in all of the sales or, you know, being really successful in their career. So that's why CEOs have a problem with, you know, or why there isn't just, yeah, go solve it. You know, it's don't touch that person. They bring in all of our revenue. So I think what, what HR really could do a good response to bullying would be to have a lot of empathy. Let the person know that I can help you if you can help me make a business case. So I need you to help with some documentation. Help me paint a picture for my boss to be able to step in and solve this. And I think HR needs to partner more with employees anyway, not even just around the bullying. You know, I see that a lot in all my webinars that I do. I was in the chat, HR says things like, you know, everybody comes to me to solve their problems or every HR person knows managers come to them. You got to fire Bob, you know. Well, what did he do? And did you document? No. You know, I just want to fire him. It's like, well, you need to have coached this person and have all the documentation. And so I think HR does not spend just in general. HR does not spend enough time partnering with employees. And so they've developed this kind of persona that you only go to them when you have a really big complaint and that they're supposed to be able to solve it. But HR should be coaching employees and managers how to solve their people problems.
Host: I'm interested in in your line of work, is the coaching at both levels you're sort of consulting with with HR specific, but also, let's say you have like an abrasive bully type leader. Are you is that your dual focus and how do you approach that? Like how do you tell if someone's coachable? How do you tell if someone is essentially just going to continue being a problem regardless of input?
Guest: Yeah. So I actually don't coach HR. I do coach there boss. So, um, when so typically the narrative is HR finally gotten permission because somebody finally did something stupid enough that the CEO finally understands the risk, right? And so then I quote, I start off by coaching usually the CEO, how to set the client up for success. And that conversation is essentially you have to make change. Here's what that change has to look like. I'm drawing a line in the sand and putting a consequence in place. I expect not to have to use the consequence because I know that you're a high performer and you'll make change, and I know that you'll make change because I've already picked out a coach for you who specializes in people with your types of complaints that I get. So that's the first coaching session with the CEO. And then I'm introduced to the client. And yeah, generally they feel forced into it. They are. They've been told there's a consequence if you don't change. Once they figure out I'm not there to villainize them and I'm actually there to support them. And I know they're usually really good people, they start to relax. I also interview people who work with them, and I present that data in a way that no one else ever has. So until I get there, it's kind of hearsay, right? Benedict people feel like you're too abrasive and, you know, your tone of voice can be condescending. And it's so easy to justify or deny that. But if I come in and I say, Benedict, I've interviewed fifteen people, a theme was that your voice is condescending. And here are the words of the people that you work with. You cannot run away from that anymore. And often when I give that feedback, they're quite appalled. And so they they know people don't like working with them, but they don't know the impact that they're having until I share that feedback. And then I, so I continue to coach the client and the CEO gets two more coaching sessions. So, you know, bullies get blamed for being horribly toxic psychopaths. But hey, you know what? They act that way because the boss has been allowing it, so let's not villainize them.
Host: Are there any. ahm hesitate to call them cases, but like, you know, client jobs. Are there any that particularly stick in your mind? You know, NDAs withstanding, of course, in any sense, but are there any that particularly stick in your mind in terms of a horror story or a success story or somewhere in between?
Guest: Yeah, I can, I'll give you both. So here's a horror story. Kind of going back to your question, how do you know if someone's coachable? It's how they respond to that feedback. So I have had a handful of people who have basically said, I don't care that people perceive me this way. And then I have to say, okay, well then I can't coach you. So here's a horror story. This one guy I coached, and he was legitimately like the real life Ebenezer Scrooge. Like he looked like a character that would be in Disney's rendition of like, he had the note just everything. Curmudgeonly old man. And he just looked right in the Zoom camera and he goes, I don't care. I'm here to get work done. And I go, okay, well, I'll let your boss know. Wait. Coaching's over. And so hopefully that employer put the consequence in place, whatever it was, and acted on it, but I don't know. Contrast that with really great coaching clients. I've had. I've had a woman that I coached that's one of my star students. She really just did a one eighty. And it was like once she realized that going like, you know, smacking her hand on her other hand while she was talking and going, we can't do this anymore, that people didn't like that very much. And it was scary for them, you know, things like that. She understood that that was not having a good impact. And then, you know, we re-interview people on the other side of coaching and she really did a one eighty. Her feedback was completely different. And that's, you know, the people who are bullies are actually really good people. They care very much about the success of not only themselves, but the team and the organization. And they just have lost their way in how to manage. And part of the reason is they've been rewarded and promoted and given alkaloids and they feel untouchable. So they just like a child, you know, you don't put consequences and boundaries and guardrails in place. Your kids going to go all over the place and that's what they do. So yeah, I've got some really great stories and only a handful of people I've had to say, I can't coach you.
Host: Talking of untouchable, I came across a survey from 2024. It's WBI. They found that the targets of bullying lose their jobs at a clip of about sixty two percent, versus the bullies of the perpetrators lose their jobs at a clip of twenty seven percent. That seems like a major accountability gap within companies, you know, plural. What can be done in terms of closing that gap, if anything?
Guest: Well, it's you know, it goes back to the CEO having to care and recognizing that it's not just results, it's how you get results. So that what happens is the person who's bullying is high performer, they're bringing in more sales than anybody else, or they have more knowledge about something than anybody else. Let me use an example. His this guy, his name was Joe, which I. I can say because it's a very generic name. Joe was the smartest person in the room and everybody knew it. And he, this was IT. And when his team members would come to him with an idea, he could calculate in his head within minutes, like all of the things that needed to be done to get to that idea. And he could very easily say, that's not going to work. And because he was so competent and this is very common. He's so competent that everybody else is either competent or incompetent. He sort of diagnoses people with that. And as soon as they're feeling like, oh, you're incompetent because you made a mistake or you didn't follow my advice, then they've decided you're incompetent and they start sharing that with the boss. So then if the CEO or HR comes to Joe and says, you know, you need to be nicer, Joe says, oh, well, you know, Bob's incompetent. That's why, you know, I'm just I'm dealing with an incompetent employee, you know, and it's easy for the CEO to go, oh, okay. Well, you're clearly very competent, so I, I believe you. And so it's not I mean, again, a lot of the research will say that people like Joe are manipulative. I don't believe that having interacted and coached these people, I think Joe has just decided in his world of competence or incompetence, someone's not competent and they're dismissed. And we all kind of do that, right? It's just that an emotionally intelligent boss is going to take a step back. Is it me? Do I need to give them more training? Do they need more coaching? Are they willing and able to learn, or is it just that they're not a good fit? Right. And that's what people who bully don't do that. And so that's why I'm not really answering your question, but that's why so many people get laid off or get fired is because the case has been made for their incompetence. They're the squeaky wheel. And you know, Joe's the top performer, so why would he be let go? I'll also add, you know, I'll share my own experience where after a while of being the buffer as HR in between the, you know, trying to get the president to address this, dealing with this one toxic person, dealing with people coming to me. It was exhausting. And I'm very emotionally intelligent. I have a lot of empathy for other people. And I also was on his list. I was bullied too, and I started to decide that. And this was a very kind of conscious conversation with myself. I started really thinking, if the president doesn't care about the way that we're all treated, then I don't care about the company. And obviously that impacted my work. And he came to me one day and I'll never forget, he came in my office, he sits down and he just goes, Catherine, what's happening? You are used to be like the best performer I don't like. You're not you. What's going on? And I burst into tears and I said, I hate working here. I hate what you let this guy do to the office. And I'm like, I, you know what? I'm going to put in my thirty days now that you've called me out. I can't talk my way back into being here. I don't want I don't want to be here. And he goes, well, if you're that unhappy, I don't need your thirty days. You can leave now. So he basically fired me. Yeah. And he was nice. You know, he's like, you can still use me as a reference. You worked here for five years. I know there's a very high performer in you, but so I, I fit in that bill of people who got fired, even though, you know, I was kind of in the midst of putting in my resignation that I did not expect to do. But that's what happened. And I was depressed, you know.
Host: I mean, I saw a lot of people, a lot of well, especially nowadays with everything that's going on in the world, uh, here in the UK. But I know in the US too, in terms of the job market, it's um, some, you call it a nightmare scenario. One thing that you brought up a couple times is needing the leadership, top leadership, the CEO, CEO or whoever sort of, you know, whoever's running the show really to care. How is it part of your remit to sort of like, transform that? How do you make someone care? Or is it more about finding out whether they care at all?
Guest: Yeah. I mean, the, the CEO has to care. And unfortunately, you know, often HR has been trying to get them to care and they have not because of their high performance. And usually something smacks the CEO in the face and makes them realize, okay, I do have to care. So unfortunately, it's a business proposition for them. Um, and that's, that sucks. I, I hate that, you know, I, I hate that I even have civility partners. If leaders just cared more about people, then I would not need to be doing everything I do. It's not that the, you know, I think I'm not saying CEOs are psychopaths either and that they don't care. I think, you know, it's just you gotta have a healthy business. And when you're looking at a profit and loss statement and HR is saying, I think we need to really have a conversation with Benedict about his behavior. And the CEO says, well, I look at my five salespeople and Benedict brings in, you know, fifty percent of our revenue. It's like, there's no, I don't comprehend what you're saying. What do you mean? And the other piece of it is CEOs are deathly afraid of pointing this person's behavior out to them. It's kind of fascinating how leaders really avoid. I'll give you an example. So we took on a coaching client recently. We require this very specific conversation to be had before we do the coaching. And so then the CEO emails, great little email. Here's what we talked about. And then I had my first coaching meeting with the client and I go, you know, so here's sounds like you had a really clear conversation about how your behavior needs to change. And my coaching client goes, no, we didn't really have that conversation like. And so I'm like, there's a big gap here in what the two of you are saying. I suspect the conversation had been had, but it probably wasn't as firm as I had suggested. So now I'm going to meet with both of them, because I'm going to make sure that the CEO says to this coaching client exactly what I need to have, like be said, in order to be successful. So it's like CEOs are even lying to me about what's been said because they're so afraid. It's very interesting. So it's not that they don't care, it's just that they're focused on the health of the business. And in our world, that means a good P and L.
Host: I'm going to switch tack here and ask you a little bit about the sort of the regulatory landscape a little bit in the US, how that relates. I came across that. So the Healthy Workplace bill was introduced in two thousand and three, and it's never been passed as far as I'm aware. Although in January 2026 it was voted two to one oh to rescind it. Sorry. It says it's the 2024 enforcement guidance on harassment in the workplace. So essentially, it borrowed down to brass tacks. There's no legal duty coming, and there's no. And the federal guidance has been withdrawn. So in your expert opinion, what should anger, anger, anti-bullying work to instead.
Guest: Anchor it to harassment. So here's the thing. Federal law in the United States, harassment is, you know, behavior that's based on a protected characteristic. And the two pieces are it feels like a condition of employment or it's so severe pervasive, a reasonable person would consider it intimidating, hostile or abusive. And those two things that make harassment unlawful describe bullying. You know, we're just talking about how people are allowed to get away with it, right? So certainly if you're in an organization where there's a bully, you feel like it's a condition of employment, you have to put up with it to work there. And obviously it's so severe and pervasive that people are intimidated and all the things. So that's what I tell HR. It's technically not unlawful, but it doesn't mean you don't have to have a policy around it. So I would say add workplace bullying to your harassment policy. Beyond that, policies aren't what keep people from behaving in certain ways. Right? So that's another mistake. Kind of going back to our conversation earlier. HR is so focused on policies. I'll give you an example. I was a subject matter expert on a court case for it was a class action for sexual harassment. And the organization's response to all of these complaints they were getting over the years was to shove harassment prevention training down everybody's throats. And when I looked at the training materials, it's all like, here's what harassment is. Technically, it's against our policy. Don't do it. Well, people don't not harass because it's the policy. They not they don't harass or they harass because the culture permits it. So the second part of my answer to your question is people can be accountable to good behavior whether or not you have a policy. Another suggestion is turning your core values into core competencies. And I guarantee no matter where you work, there's no room for bullying in your core values. So if you were to hold people accountable and measure them against the core values, slash core competencies that come out of those, you could hold people accountable for not bullying. I don't think we need a policy. I want to give just because it's HR and I know we're getting close to time here. One big piece of advice I have, HR does get so focused on compliance that when somebody says, I'm being bullied, HR kind of functions in this world of compliance, even though it's not against the law. Right. And they're like, let me do an investigation. Oh, technically it's not a hostile work environment. So I don't know what to tell you. There were no findings. Right. Here's the thing. When you're talking to somebody who's bullying, instead of trying to prove to them that they're being unreasonable with their behavior by giving them facts. And, you know, if I say Benedict, people think that you're abrasive. You're going to say, who said that? I can't fix it if you don't give me a specific scenario. Right? And I said, well, I can't tell you that. They told me in confidence, and then you get annoyed and the conversation's over. Instead, I should say, Benedict, people perceive that your behavior is abrasive. And you say, well, who said that? No it's not. And I say, well, look, Benedict, I don't know. I'm in HR, I don't actually work with you. I'm not in all of your meetings. But I can tell you that several people perceive your behavior as too abrasive. And I'm hearing that's because of your tone of voice. You can sounds like you can yell kind of sometimes and whatever, whatever. So the perception has to change. And that's what you focus on. That's the key to getting around. It's not you're violating the policy. It's the perception of you has to change, and you have to figure out how to change the perception of you.
Host: One thing I would actually like to ask is you've mentioned that a lot. Oftentimes workplace bullying is actually, you know, they're quite high performers. They're relatively senior. What kind of troubles do you run into in getting people to actually talk to you in the first place?
Guest: You mean like when we're interviewing people?
Host: Yeah, right. Just in regards to them, if they're, you know, if you're asking them about this, you know, this perpetrator, this bully is like, if they're a senior person, a lot of the people that they are bullying are, I would assume below them in rank or seniority, you know? So like, how does that work? How do you, how do you sort of coach out some people?
Guest: Yeah. So when we meet with people we're interviewing, we let them know we're interviewing fifteen people total. The person who's being coached has chosen eight to ten of the names. The HR representative has chosen three to five names. So that helps with confidentiality. We do twenty minute interviews and then we take all of those interview notes and we move them all into themes. And every theme has just several one liner bullets. So we'll take your whole twenty minutes and it will be stretched across all of the other notes that we have from everybody else. And so when somebody tries to say, you know, I know who said that, you know, Benedict, that's Benedict's in my meeting that you're referring to, then I can say, well, you don't know everybody I interviewed. And so that's one piece is just really assuring them that it does remain confidential. Secondly, they're happy to help. They want it to be better. And so they'll say things like, you know, I, I, and they'll even say things like, I feel bad talking badly about this person. And so it's interesting sometimes we have to really coax them, not because they're afraid to be found out, but they just feel bad about talking about this person who's treated them so badly. Um, then we have to say, you know, the more bad stuff you tell us, the more able we can help. So they're relieved, they're relieved and happy to share.
Host: Like having met and coached hundreds of, uh, perpetrators will say workplace bullies. How can HR specifically, you know, across talent acquisition, recruitment, or just generally, how do you screen for those behaviors at hiring rather than training them out of someone? What, what are you looking for?
Guest: Yeah, I think you listen for egotistical kinds of answers. Are they saying, I did this, I did that, or are they talking about the team? I think you could ask questions around what did you do with have you worked with someone you found to be incompetent, and how did you handle that? I think you could ask, you know, how if I were to call your team members, what would they say about you? So I think, you know, just thinking of all of the kind of bullying behaviors there are and asking questions about how people react. And of course, you know, of course, those behavior based questions, I don't I can't prove this, but I suspect there's a disc profile that goes along with bullying as well. So for example, height being a high D might mean you're more inclined to be more aggressive or seen that way because you're short and to the point. And you, you know, you're focused on just getting things done. Again, that's not a scientific statement. It's my thoughts. So if anybody listening is doing any sort of personality test, you know, talk to the vendor that you're using about what's in there that would help me understand bullying. So that's the answer really digging into whether or not they're collaborative or find themselves to be superior.
Host: Well, Catherine, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Thank you.
Guest:Thanks for having me. Of course, I'd love to talk about something I'm very passionate about.
Host: Well, I can tell you're very passionate about it. And it's, um, I mean, look, it's an issue that really in some way, shape or form will affect pretty much everybody who works in a job at some point. So yeah, thank you very much for joining me. And thank you to our audience for tuning in.
