Making Bullies Impotent.

How is it that bullies are able to have power over their victims?

In a word: fear.

Potential bullies may have some form of power advantage over their intended victims, but ultimately the only way in which an intended victim becomes an actual victim is if they fear the bully’s malevolence.

Fear is the real lever that a bully relies on, then, not their ostensible power advantage. Power is in the mind.

A Bully’s Impotence

I thought of the relationship between bully and victim yesterday when I watched Leeds United play Fulham in a high stakes match in the English Championship. The key battle that pundits had highlighted to watch out for before the game was between Fulham’s striker, Aleksandar Mitrovic, and Leeds defender Ben White. Mitrovic is currently the Championship’s top scorer with an unparalleled chance conversion rate, while White has been a standout performer in his first season in the league.

When the teams played earlier in the season, Fulham won 2-1. Mitrovic scored a penalty and at one point in the match had his hands around White’s throat! It was clear that his intention would again be to try to bully White in the following game. Mitrovic is a tall, burly and aggressive striker who has been around the block; White is the younger man at 22 years old and cut from different cloth altogether.

Sure enough, a minute and a half into yesterday’s game, Mitrovic hit White hard with an elbow to the jaw just after he made a clearance, sending him to the floor. This old school tactic is usually intended to leave a mark on an opponent and induce fear in them.

On one hand, Mitrovic was lucky – the officials failed to see his assault. If they had then he would almost certainly have been sent off. (He may yet face retrospective disciplinary action.)

On the other hand, however, Mitrovic was entirely impotent. His assault failed to scare or intimidate White in the slightest who calmly dominated their duels throughout the entire match, earning the Man of the Match award at the end of a 3-0 Leeds win.

White showed wisdom far beyond his years and what impressed me most about his conduct, besides his refusal to be bullied by Mitrovic, was his stoicism throughout. As his adversary incessantly complained to the referee, White was equanimous before and after being floored by the elbow. He was not seen waving his arms around in the referee’s face to get decisions in his favour. He also shook hands with Mitrovic at the end of the match, albeit while maintaining a stony expression.

This makes for a useful case study in how a potential bully’s power is limited to that which their intended victim gives them. Ben White was not Mitrovic’s victim. He refused to be. He retained his internal power, playing his best football and reaping the rewards for his efforts. With his mindset and ability he has a very bright future ahead of him. (I’m still hopeful that a decent part of that future will be at Leeds!)

Everyday Bullies

You may not face intimidating, violent strikers in the course of your daily activities, but you will almost certainly come across potential bullies at some point. They may come in the form of a bad boss, abusive partner, tough customer, domineering teacher or other authority figure, but there are certainly no shortage of them in the world!

Without getting into why that might be the case, instead think about what your response will be when you encounter a potential bully.

How will you respond?

Will you, like Ben White, continue to put your best foot forward and play your game to the best of your ability, or will you recoil and allow fear of the potential bully turn you into a victim?

Several years ago, I allowed a bullying boss to have far too much power over me, which inhibited my ability to play my best game. I laugh to myself about the experience now, because he was a far cry from Aleksandar Mitrovic! But he’d found a chink in my armour that he was able to exploit. That experience taught me a lot. Never again, I told myself.

If you reflect on potential bullies from your own life, I’m confident that you’ll recognise how little power they actually have. They’re highly reliant on the power that others give them through fear.

So, if you feel fearful of a potential bully, perhaps it’s a good idea to find something more worthy of your fear, such as the fear of failing to do what it is that you were put on this earth to do. If you’re going to fear anything, fear that. Not least because if you do allow yourself to be a bully’s victim then your ability to learn, grow and perform will be limited.

Simply refuse to allow potential bullies the opportunity to become actual bullies.

The impotence of the bully is, ultimately, in our hands.