Subclinical Bullying And Grace

In medicine there is the concept of a disease being “subclinical”, and I think the concept can apply to bullying in the workplace.

Every workplace has a threshold for bad behaviour, and subclinical bullying is bad behaviour which doesn’t cross the threshold. Much like how a doctor often won’t treat a subclinical disease, your manager often won’t address subclinical bullying. There are lots of reasons why this might be the case, for better or for worse. One of those reasons might be that your manager is showing grace, which can feel unfair, but is also important for a healthy team dynamic.

Doctors

A subclinical disease — in non-scientific, normal person terms — is a disease where you might have some early or mild symptoms, and maybe even some blood work or other test results, that would indicate you could have a certain disease, but the evidence isn’t conclusive enough to warrant the usual treatment for that disease. The doctor may agree that something is not quite right but will refuse to offer treatment.

Why would a doctor refuse to offer treatment while also agreeing something could be wrong? There are a bunch of good (and not so good) reasons.

The doctor could suspect that the symptoms are imagined and not real. Everyone is at least a little bit of a hypochondriac. That’s just how humans are. This is more likely if the symptoms are not particularly strong (which they aren’t, because it’s subclinical).
While you have first-hand experience of what’s happening in your own body over a long period of time, the doctor doesn’t have that wealth of information, and needs to rely on the limited information they hear from you and what the test results say. The doctor is evaluating the situation based on a different set of information to you.
Symptoms and test results have natural fluctuations that could look like a disease when in fact there isn’t one. If a single blood test result comes back slightly outside of the normal range, that’s not enough evidence to conclusively prove something is wrong. It might be normal for that person, or it could be an outlier and not indicative of what’s really happening. There is a chance that everything will be fine and correct itself without intervention.
Symptoms and test results could indicate a range of possible diseases, not just a single disease, and those possibilities would need to be eliminated before deciding on treatment.
The treatment itself usually has costs, risks, and side effects, that could outweigh any potential benefits. The more mild the symptoms are, the less value you would receive from treatment, making the potential downsides of treatment an important consideration.
The doctor could be acting on their own biases. Everyone is at least a little bit biased. That’s just how humans are. One of the unfortunate things about humans is that we have self-protective mechanisms in our mind that blind us to our own biases, and it take dedicated effort to discover and correct for them. That’s quite a difficult thing to do, and so it’s incredibly easy to act on gut feelings and instincts without examining them.

And the list goes on.

Managers

There is a similar pattern in the workplace, where instead of diseases we’re talking about bullying, harassment, discrimination, or other inappropriate behaviours (which I’ll just refer to as “bullying” here, for the sake of brevity) and instead of doctors we’re talking about managers. There are situations where your manager might agree that something is not quite right, but for better or worse, will refuse to act on it.

Why would a manager refuse to address bullying while also agreeing that it could be happening? The reasons are similar.

The manager could suspect that there isn’t really any bullying happening. It’s not uncommon for someone to feel like they’ve been wronged, but on closer inspection they’ve actually misunderstood or misinterpreted what happened. That’s just how humans are. This is more likely to happen if the alleged bullying is subtle or more minor in nature (which it is, because it’s subclinical).
While you have first-hand experience of what’s been happening to you, your manager unfortunately doesn’t, and needs to rely on the limited information received from not just you but everyone involved. Your manager is evaluating the situation based on a different set of information to you.
Conflict is a natural occurrence, and is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate between natural, constructive conflict that will play out and resolve itself, and something more sinister that should be stopped. One single complaint isn’t enough to conclusively prove it either way unless it’s particularly egregious (which it isn’t, because it’s subclinical).
A complaint about subtle bullying could indicate a range of possible problems, not just bullying, and those possibilities should be eliminated before taking action. Jumping straight to a conclusion of bullying and then later discovering that wasn’t correct is pretty terrible for everyone involved.
Taking action against bullying will have costs, risks, and side effects, for both you and your manager. So depending on how minor or subtle the bullying is, addressing it could leave you in a worse situation overall, and therefore might not be worth it. This hurts my soul a little bit to type out, but I don’t think it’s incorrect.
Your manager could be refusing to act due to their own biases. There is no shortage of stories about situations like this, and it disproportionately affects underrepresented groups.
And last but not least, your manager might be showing grace. This one only applies to managers, not doctors. It’s a nuanced and delicate topic that I want to explore in a bit more detail below.

Grace

Genuinely good and decent human beings absolutely will fuck up from time to time. Nobody is perfect, people have bad days, et cetera.

Showing grace, in this context, is the act of allowing someone to fuck up — maybe letting them get away with doing a little bit of bullying — in acknowledgement of the fact that we are all imperfect humans and shouldn’t be punished for every little mistake we make.

Should they be allowed to get away with serious bullying? No. No grace for big fuck ups. Should they be allowed to get away with subtle bullying forever? No. No grace for a pattern of repeated fuck ups. But if it’s not a pattern of behaviour, and it really is quite minor in terms of seriousness, should they be afforded grace? Yes, in my opinion.

From the outside, as the person on the receiving end of the subtle bullying, this can feel unfair. And it is. It’s basically saying: yes, what happened to you was probably wrong, but we’re not going to do anything about it. The only consolation I can give — the only thing that approaches fairness — is that you should be eligible for grace too. Today you’re taking one for the team, but tomorrow, when you fuck up, you’ll be glad that someone else is taking one for the team.

Despite the unfairness, grace is actually an important aspect of creating a healthy work environment. When people are punished for every tiny mistake, they start pretending to be perfect, and this creates a slew of problems with the team dynamic. It might be counter-intuitive, but allowing some bad behaviour, in a controlled fashion, prevents worse behaviour from becoming entrenched in the team.

Receiving grace should not mean that someone can ignore what what they did, and move on without acknowledging it — quite the opposite. Being given grace is an opportunity to acknowledge the mistake, talk about it, and learn from it, without fear of punishment. If someone can’t acknowledge what happened they’re unlikely to receive grace in the future.