Give someone a title and a bit of power, and it doesn't take long to see what they'll do with it. Some use it well. Others throw their weight around and then can't work out why their best people keep leaving.
When we hear about bullying at work, we expect it to come from above. Lately, though, I'm seeing a growing trend of upward bullying. Leaders being targeted by one of their own team members.
Yes, it's real
Upward bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour by one or more employees that undermines, intimidates or targets their manager or a senior leader. It's sometimes called reverse or subordinate bullying.
The Workplace Bullying Institute in the US estimates that around 14% of workplace bullying is directed upward at managers. Researchers have been studying it for years, including a 2025 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, which found many employees and managers are well aware of upward abuse happening in their organisations. What does seem to be changing is how often leaders are now reporting it.
How it usually unfolds
Upward bullying rarely arrives as one dramatic moment. It builds quietly, and every bit of it can be explained away.
A leader steps into a role or makes an unpopular call. One or two people decide they'll outlast them. Information that used to flow freely starts disappearing. Decisions made in the meeting get picked apart again in the meeting after the meeting, held in the car park, with better attendance than yours. Then complaints about the leader start landing with HR or the leader's own manager, one after another. Taken one at a time, each sounds perfectly reasonable.
The leader begins rehearsing emails before sending them. They soften decisions they know are right. They lie awake replaying conversations. When they finally raise it with their own manager, they're told to "build some rapport" or "pick your battles".
Eventually the leader leaves. The exit gets recorded as not quite the right fit.
Where it usually comes from
In my experience, upward bullying tends to come from one of two places.
The first is the long-timer. They've been in the team for years and have watched managers come and go. They're often the most technically capable person in the room, and everyone relies on them. Somewhere along the way they were overlooked for leadership because their people skills never matched their technical ones, and that stings. Each new manager is a reminder of what they didn't get. Their knowledge of how everything works gives them plenty of ways to make that manager's life hard.
The second is the person who missed out on the promotion. They were well liked, the team expected them to get the job, and they'd probably assumed it was theirs. Then someone else got it. The disappointment is real and understandable. The trouble starts when it turns into a campaign, and the team, out of loyalty, goes along with it.
Neither of them is a villain. Both are carrying something that was never dealt with properly, which is part of what makes it so hard to call out.
Power without the title
We tend to assume power sits with whoever has the bigger job title. In practice, power has several sources. Information is power. Relationships are power. Knowing how the grievance process works, better than the person you're complaining about, is power.
A leader with authority on paper and no access to information can be weaker than the team member who knows where everything is buried. Seen that way, a team bullying its boss is a lot less surprising, and a lot more predictable.
71% of leaders
A recent international study led by workplace culture specialist Maureen Kyne surveyed CEOs, executives, senior managers and board members across Australia, the UK, North America and other regions, covering public, private and not-for-profit organisations.
The numbers are confronting:
71% reported personal experience of upward bullying, and nearly 80% had seen it happen to another leader.
More than half had delayed or avoided decisions out of fear of backlash.
Nearly three in four had watched competent leaders pushed out of their organisation because of it.
Only 18% were confident their organisation would support them if they were targeted.
The study describes the tactics as mostly indirect: coordinated complaints, withheld information, organised resistance to decisions, and grievance processes used strategically to discredit the leader. Each tactic looks procedurally reasonable in isolation, which is exactly why it's so hard to call out.
Bear in mind this is leaders reporting on their own experience, so treat the figures as a strong signal rather than a census. Even so, more than 94% said earlier intervention could have reduced or prevented the behaviour. That's the encouraging part. It can be stopped, provided someone is willing to see it.
Bullying or feedback?
I'll be compassionately confrontational with leaders here too. Before you reach for the word "bullying", be honest with yourself. Some of what feels like being undermined is your team telling you something you don't want to hear. Pushback is not persecution.
A simple test helps separate the two:
Legitimate challenge targets the decision. Upward bullying targets you and your authority.
Legitimate challenge happens in the open, to your face. Upward bullying happens in corridors, group chats and car parks.
Legitimate challenge accepts an answer, even an unwelcome one. Upward bullying keeps moving the goalposts.
If what you're experiencing sits in the realm of a legitimate challenge, listen harder. If it appears to be specifically targeted at you and your authority, it's time to act.
Five ways to stand your ground
1. Write it down. Date, what happened, who was involved and the impact. A single incident is easy to dismiss. A documented pattern is much harder to wave away, and patterns are what this behaviour hides inside.
2. Name it early, privately and specifically. Waiting rarely makes it go away. Have the direct conversation, focused on behaviour rather than character. Something like: "When decisions we've agreed get reopened with the team after the meeting, it stops us moving forward. If you disagree with me, I need you to raise it with me directly." Calm, clear and on the record.
3. Brief your manager before the complaints do. Whoever tells the story first tends to frame it. Take your notes to your manager and present the pattern, not a grievance. You're asking for support with a risk, not asking them to pick a side.
4. Use the system that exists for you as well. Bullying is a recognised psychosocial hazard, and in Victoria it's one of the hazards that requires a written prevention plan under the psychological health regulations that came into effect in December 2025. Those protections cover managers too. Asking for support is part of handling it properly.
5. Keep leading in the open. The quickest way to hand over control is to stop making decisions. Keep making them. Explain your reasoning, put it in writing and follow through. Consistency is your best defence against a narrative being built about you.
Support has to run both ways
Over the past decade, organisations have built stronger protections for employees against bad bosses. That work remains unfinished and ongoing.
The trouble is, the processes built to protect staff can also be used against a leader. If every complaint about a leader is taken at face value, a determined team member can use the process to push out any manager they don't like. If every complaint is brushed aside, genuinely bad bosses get away with it. Neither is good enough. The organisations that get this right look at the pattern over time, rather than judging each complaint on its own.
Senior leaders play a big part here. When a middle manager raises a concern and hears "just manage your team", they learn to stay quiet. That's how you end up with a leadership pipeline full of capable people who've decided the job isn't worth it.
Keep telling leaders to just cop it, and we'll run out of people willing to lead.
