When the Playground Gets Promoted

Ask yourself…, even with all the employee surveys and “culture” trainings…
Has leadership gotten better where you work?
Or has it, in many ways, gotten worse?

Executives chasing short-term numbers over long-term health.
Boards looking the other way.
Cultures left to carry the cost.

Some leadership failures are small and irritating. Others cost time and money.
And then there are the ones that erode trust, damage people, and poison culture.

The Paradox Nobody Warns You About

Most of us grow up believing bullying is a kids’ problem.
That once you leave the playground behind, it stays there.
That adults know better.

But bullying doesn’t disappear.
It evolves.
It grows sharper edges.
And in the workplace, it often gets rewarded.

As kids, we’re told how to deal with bullies:
Stand up for yourself.
Push back.
Fight back.

It’s good advice when you’re twelve.

But what happens when you’re thirty-five?
Or forty-five?

What happens when the bully is your manager?
What happens when the person controlling your projects, your pay, your future, decides you’re the target?

Standing up for yourself doesn’t always earn you respect in the workplace.
It often earns you a label.
“Difficult.”
“Not a team player.”
“Hard to manage.”

And those labels don’t just sting.
They follow you into performance reviews.
They follow you into promotion discussions.
They follow you into rooms where decisions about your career are made…without you there to defend yourself.

That’s the cruel irony:
The very thing we’re taught to do as children, fight back, becomes the very thing that can cost us our careers as adults.

The Real Damage

This isn’t about hurt feelings.
It’s about broken confidence, wrecked health, and careers cut short.

• Nearly a third of adults report being bullied at work.

• Three-quarters of employees have seen it or lived it.

• Almost two-thirds of those targeted eventually walk away.

And behind every number is a human story:

• The person who stops speaking up in meetings because they’ve been humiliated once too often.

• The employee who spends sleepless nights replaying conversations, wondering if they’re the problem.

• The professional who leaves a job they loved just to breathe again.

It doesn’t end when you leave the office.
It comes home with you.
It sits at the dinner table.
It seeps into your health, your family, your future.

And the organization loses too, though it rarely notices until it’s too late.
Lost ideas.
Lost trust.
Lost talent that will never come back.

Why It Thrives

Because results talk.
And bullies often deliver results.

That’s why they’re protected.
That’s why they’re promoted.
That’s why so many cultures send the same quiet message:
“As long as the numbers look good, we’ll look the other way.”

It’s the definition of short-term thinking.
And it’s ruining people and it slowly but surely ruins organizations.

What Has to Change

If you’re living it:

• Recognize it early…don’t explain it away.

• Document it…patterns matter.

• Build allies…don’t carry it alone.

• Protect your health…it’s not optional.

• And when it’s clear the system won’t change…leave. Choosing yourself is not losing.

If you’re leading:

• Stop excusing abuse because someone is “delivering.”

• Understand that every bully you tolerate poisons ten others.

• Policies are meaningless without consequences.

• Action is what builds culture.

A Hard Call-Out

To the people who thrive on intimidation and power trips…
You’re not leaders. You’re cowards hiding behind authority.

And to the executives who stay silent because “results are results”.
You’re not leaders either. You’re complicit.

The Possibility Ahead

The good news?
Cultures can change.
Workplaces can heal.
And leaders can lead with courage instead of fear.

But only if we stop pretending the playground ever really went away.

Because it didn’t.
It just got promoted.

And the cost of ignoring it is far too high.

👉 I’ll be taking this deeper on the next Totally Unacceptable podcast episode. If this hit home, you won’t want to miss it.

P.S. If this was about the cost of fear-driven leadership, my article, Keeping Virtue Amid Crowds and Kings is about the power of character-driven leadership.

With Absolute Sincerity,

Ed Clementi, Founder & CEO of Inspired Fire, LLC

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