Photo by La Fabbrica Dei Sogni on Unsplash
In April, Amy Cuddy gave a talk at TED2026 titled "How bullying spreads, and how social bravery stops it." She described being the target of a coordinated campaign to discredit her. The campaign followed the success of her 2012 TED Talk on body language, which has been played more than 77 million times, and her 2015 book, Presence, which grew out of that talk.
She has described how the professional backlash from her peers led her to leave her tenure-track position at Harvard in 2017. It also caused her to question herself in frightening ways. Her new book, Bullied: The Culture of Cruelty and the Surprising Power of Social Bravery, comes out on February 23, 2027. It explores how ordinary people help sustain cultures of cruelty, often without intending to.
That idea moves the conversation away from a single bad actor and toward the people and cultures around them. In my 45+ years in the workplace, I have observed, and in some cases experienced, a few types of bullies. Each one depends on a culture that allows the behavior to continue.
The Authoritarian
The Authoritarian relies on positional authority to demand obedience. For the teams they lead, absolute obedience is mandatory. For people outside their span of control, they use indirect intimidation to direct behavior. They tend to be very careful about how they present themselves to people with more authority and influence. As a result, senior leaders often see a polished, capable manager, while the people below and beside them see something very different.
The Rainmaker
Rainmakers are successful, and they get great results. Over time, they come to believe their achievements, and by extension themselves, are untouchable. They make no effort to control their behavior. Leadership does not confront them because it does not want to lose what they bring in. When an organization protects a top producer who mistreats people, everyone learns what the culture truly values, regardless of what the values statement says.
The Imposter
Imposters doubt themselves. They mask their personal insecurity with bravado and authoritarian behavior. They also fail a basic test of leadership: they take credit for success and assign blame to others for failures and mistakes. This is the exact opposite of what great leaders do. Strong leaders share credit with their teams and accept responsibility when things go wrong, which builds the trust teams need to take smart risks.
The Competitor
Competitors view everything as a zero-sum game. They see other people's success as criticism of their own performance, and they are jealous of it. They often display Machiavellian behaviors, using rumors and innuendo to diminish others' reputations. Because this behavior usually happens out of sight, it can be hard to identify and even harder to prove. Cultures that rank people against each other, rather than rewarding shared results, give the Competitor plenty of room to operate.
The Malcontent
Malcontents are inherently toxic. They are bitter people who spread misery because they hate seeing others happy. Unlike the other types, they do not need authority, results, or a rival to cause harm. A single Malcontent can drain a team's energy, especially when leaders treat the behavior as a personality quirk rather than a problem to address.
What Can We Do To Combat Workplace Bullies?
Bullies often violate policies and regulations, and they threaten the people who observe the behavior. Over time, that pressure can force good people to become complicit. This is the dynamic Cuddy describes: ordinary people sustaining cultures of cruelty because speaking up feels too risky. We have more influence than we think, and there are several ways to use it.
Confront them. Do it diplomatically and privately. A calm, direct conversation gives the person a chance to change without losing face in public.
Report them. Use the process. Some of the behaviors that travel with bullying, such as sexual harassment, bribery, or falsifying records, carry legal obligations to report. When a bully pressures us to look the other way, our silence can make us part of the problem. This works best when the organization has formal ethics or ombudsman channels.
Do not be silent. When we see something, we should say or do something. We should not laugh at demeaning put-downs, because "it was just a joke" is not a defense. Often, simply asking a question, such as "What did you mean by that?", is enough to interrupt the behavior.
Each of these actions comes down to the same choice: being unwilling to accept toxic behavior. That choice comes with risk. Some companies are prepared to reward poor behavior because the numbers look good. We may not be able to succeed in those organizations, and some of us may need to make our own career pivot.
For leaders, the moment a culture begins to tolerate bullies is a turning point. Steady management will not reverse it, because the problem lives in what the organization rewards, protects, and permits. Changing those things takes deliberate transformation, and the earlier leaders recognize the moment, the more options they have.
Quiet strength protects. Those who seek to shrink your light will not break you down.
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