18 • Workplace scapegoating

Scapegoating is an equal opportunity form of harmful workplace behaviour, because anyone can find themselves being made the workplace scapegoat.

A phenomenon associated with workplace bullying, scapegoating takes place at a systemic level - described by Dr Nathalie Marthinek as akin to an “organisation’s immune response” to challenge, questioning and unwanted cultural change.

Nathalie writes extensively about workplace power dynamics and she’s an expert on how unhealthy behaviours like scapegoating, narcissism, exclusion and female-on-female aggression can infect a workplace culture.

In this episode, Nathalie talks about Life at the Sharp End for people who’ve found themselves subjected to the scapegoating playbook — from the targets harmed by this unpleasant and unkind behaviour, to the bystanders, HR practitioners and investigators swept along as the enablers of harm against the person targeted as the scapegoat.

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The relationship between scapegoating and workplace bullying

Our discussion reveals both differences and similarities between scapegoating and workplace bullying.

As Nathalie explains, they're related, but distinct, with scapegoating focused on the organisation's systemic response to the challenges someone represents to the established culture.

She explains how bullying can exist as part of the playbook used to scapegoat someone, but not necessarily the other way around.

Like workplace bullying, Nathalie demonstrates how scapegoating follows a clear pattern, some aspects of which can involve bullying behaviours.

What struck me during this conversation is the similarity between the 8 steps that Nathalie describes in the "Scapegoating playbook" and those patterns presented by Associate Professor Dorothy Suskind in her "Predictable cycle of workplace bullying", which she discussed with me in episode six.

Whether it's scapegoating or bullying behaviour, what's clear is that both the methods - and the psychological and physical harm caused to people who find themselves the target - are equally damaging.

Scapegoating affects targets and the people around them

Unless they've seen it happening before, people being picked as the scapegoat won't recognise that they're actually being targeted until it's too late. A subtle, gradual process within the organisational culture, it builds up to marginalise the individual concerned until the 'powers that be' decide to eliminate the threat to the status-quo.

Nathalie talks about how this behaviour progresses within teams, with unethical leaders running a campaign to undermine and discredit the person they're finding inconvenient, in order to prepare the ground.

Just as it requires a 'village to raise a child', it requires supporters to assist the unethical leader in scapegoating and eliminating the person who's causing a problem for the established culture.

This is how bystanders and organisational functions like HR or behavioural complaint investigators end up finding themselves playing a part (deliberately or unwittingly) in targeting the scapegoat.

Don't think that the person being scapegoated is always 'just a minion' either! In her writing on Substack and LinkedIn, Nathalie provides plenty of examples of how people targeted as scapegoats are often those who have been welcomed in and given the role of undertaking organisational change.

When that change becomes too uncomfortable for the organisation however, it's the person brought in to make it happen who finds themselves being eliminated for doing the job they were asked to do, asking a few too many questions or presenting some inconvenient facts that leadership may find too uncomfortable.

Female on female aggression and tackling the gender balance

Not unrelated to scapegoating, Nathalie also talked about her experiences of — and work researching — female on female aggression in the workplace.

With some sectors having poor gender balances (such as Fire and Rescue as one well-known example), we explored the unexpected tactics taken by some female leaders seeking to get ahead.

Rather than acting as champions for change, some women choose status and the need to put down other people to get ahead.

Nathalie shares her observations on this behaviour, along with some suggestions for how organisations like Fire and Rescue services can tackle gender imbalance through culture change.

Lessons to learn from Dr Nathalie Martinek

Whatever role you find yourself playing when scapegoating takes place, it's going to have an impact.

That might be perpetuating a poor culture (if you're the unethical leader or colleague who's targeting someone), or inadvertantly assisting the process if you've been 'groomed' as an HR, complaints or investigation practitioner who doesn't know what to look for.

In this episode, there are lessons to learn covering:

• Nathalie's top tips for people swept up in the process to recognise what's happening, and to counter the harmful impacts on themselves and others.
• How people targeted as the scapegoat can make sense of their experiences, to assist in recovery from the harm caused.
• Organisational change - for those people recruited to make a difference, how to understand if the leaders who've appointed you actually want change to happen, or whether they just want the illusion of being an organisation that cares about change.
• Female-on-female workplace aggression and constructive ways to tackle a gender-balance disparity in sectors with historical track records of poor workplace culture

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References and links

• Read and subscribe to Nathalie’s Hacking Narcissism Substack
• Visit Nathalie’s website
• Connect with Nathalie on LinkedIn