In his November 2009 State of the Nation Address, President Khama introduced ‘delivery’ to his roadmap that is guided by such other principles as democracy, development, dignity and discipline.
Whereas he called on every one of us to deliver in order to reach our goals, President Khama emphasized that he expected more from those holding public office. Soon thereafter Khama’s crew commenced nationwide tours to relay his message on delivery. There is absolutely nothing wrong with accounting officers challenging their juniors to deliver services to the people they serve.
In actual fact this should be part of their performance contracts. Accounting officers are procedurally mandated to manage their staff to deliver quality services at all times. Unfortunately, in the process of managing their staff, many bosses overstep their authority and have become discourteous serial bullies. While some bosses hide their bullying, others have no shame at all and make no effort to conceal or tone down their bullying. Of course most bosses are bullies because they lack knowledge about the duties of a supervisor.
To them supervision implies screaming and shouting at juniors and at times threatening them with lightening. They believe in management by terror. They will not hesitate to tell you that your parents made a big mistake by bringing you to this earth. Believe me there are a lot of such creatures who pass as supervisors, those who relish in throwing tantrums to signal their presence or who pound on desks or threaten to dismiss junior employees on the spot. The perpetrators of bullying often believe that in so doing they are making their juniors do the job and that it is impossible for junior employees to do their jobs without being kicked around and frightened with a sledge hammer. My experience however is that workplace bullying is common and widely accepted in the public service mostly because the line of authority is clearly defined and power differentials are worshipped.
Many heads of department want to be given status of saints and seem perfectly entitled to yell, swear and make offensive jokes about their juniors. The bosses delight in publicly reprimanding junior staff and giving orders however silly such may be. In fact when junior employees protest, they may as well be reminded that they are paid for the humiliation visited upon them. In some establishment such as at the University of Botswana, supervisors get the necessary recognition and due respect without having to clamor for attention from roof tops and even then there is a strong sense of collegiality.
This loose arrangement ensures that bosses do not get power drunk to the point where they can insult and humiliate colleagues. The loose arrangement also has room for creativity and promotes teamwork since junior officers are not subjected to intimidation. Many employees often fail to identify bullying and at times when they do recognize it, they simply let it pass as just some of the small challenges one has to face in the workplace.
Some victims of bullying believe that their bosses are entitled to bully them whether by making offensive jokes or poking fun at distant family members. Often when subjected to constant criticism or excessive supervision, junior employees believe it is their fault and therefore would not confront the bully boss.
Over time the bully bosses become master bullies. Yet bullying does not raise productivity in the workplace. In the contrary, it harms service delivery because it creates a hostile work environment.
After a while victims of bullying develop hatred towards their bully bosses and their dislike for the bosses eventually mutate into overall dislike for work. In the long run employees abscond from work or merely report to work without actually doing the work.
The main loser in the ugly contest is the public. In specific terms, workplace bullying, especially by the bosses often results in the resignation or early retirement of employees, especially skilled and experienced employees who know that their skills would be appreciated elsewhere.
A lot of people resign from the public service not for reasons of low salaries but because of a hostile work environment occasioned by suffering at the hands of some bosses who have institutionalized bullying in their departments. Bullying by bosses may also result in reduced efficiency. Many bosses have cultivated a culture of one-man show in their departments. Their absence from office signals the end of government business at time of the day.
Absolutely nothing can be done in their absence including mere circulation of regular internal mail. This causes junior officers to lose self-confidence and self-esteem.
It renders them unwanted and obsolete and leads to high incidences of absenteeism. Thus, we cannot reach our goal of improved service delivery if we still have bosses who are often over-excited to peep into their juniors’ email messages, because in trying to ensure that their bosses do not get hold of crucial personal information about their private lives, most juniors have resolved not to use the electronic mail service that is intended to speed up communication and improve service delivery.
Again the main loser in the stalemate is the general public. Certainly the public service is a wonderful environment to work in and acquire broad based knowledge and competencies. In this era of learning society, the public service is an ideal place for employees to learn and acquire the competence to deal with a variety of challenging situations.
But the problem is that it is infested with many a small Hitler who delight in finding petty faults with their juniors, evil bosses who perpetually reprimand their subordinates in the presence of their spouses and even threaten to takeover the spouse for personal use.
As a consequence of bullying, many junior employees are stressed and are always hyper anxious. To them, the sight of a boss is sickening and depressing and may cause severe nausea.
These conditions have harmful effects on work performance and output and in consequence, the talk of improved service delivery in the public service is laughable and mere rhetoric.
Government must act swiftly to restore order and ensure that junior employees are able to work in an environment free of bullying.
There is a dire need to enact anti-bullying legislation (like it was done with sexual harassment) if we are serious about public sector reforms. Unions must also become pro-active and sensitize their members about bullying as well as providing support and appropriate advice and where appropriate act on behalf of their members in respect of complaints of bullying at the workplace.
