Upward
Bullying
Upward Bullying refers to workplace bullying in which a subordinate or group of subordinates directs sustained, targeted behaviour toward a manager or supervisor.
It includes undermining authority, withholding information, building coalitions against the manager, making vexatious complaints, and using formal grievance procedures as a tool of attack rather than a route to resolution.
Power vs Authority
The critical point is that power and authority are not the same thing.
A subordinate does not need formal authority to cause serious harm to a manager.
The capacity to lodge a grievance, invoke protected characteristics, control information flow, or simply refuse to cooperate gives subordinates real leverage, leverage that most organisational systems are not designed to recognise or contain.
Published Research
Research published in the MIT Sloan Management Review identified how subordinates may engage in sabotage through information withholding, social exclusion, and strategic complaints.
These dynamics closely mirror the academic literature on upward bullying in academia but have not been systematically incorporated into HR policy or practice.
Why is it under-reported?
Several reasons converge.
Managers often resist identifying as victims, particularly, where professional identity is built around competence and resilience.
Organisations are primed to protect the less powerful, and a manager raising a concern about a subordinate can easily be positioned, intentionally or not, as the aggressor.
And the formal complaint processes that exist were not designed with upward bullying in mind, meaning they can, and frequently do, compound the harm rather than address it.
Statistics
The Civil Service People Survey data indicate that around 5% of reported bullying cases were attributed to a subordinate.
Across 350,000 respondents, that represents a substantial number of managers who are not being adequately supported by existing systems.