Matt Paknis Leadership Development

"Those organizations who have health, have hope; and those who have hope, have everything." - Thomas Carlyle #leadersarentbullies #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Successful leaders, however, expose the truth. They solve problems, influence people in positive ways, and achieve growth-perpetuating healthy outcomes.

 "Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues." - Confucius "Honesty is a foundation, and it's usually a solid foundation. Even if I do get in trouble for what I said, it's something that I can stand on." - Charlamagne tha God #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

 Take Off! "Nothing is more destructive of human dignity than a rule which imposes a mute and blind obedience." - Anthony Eden #leadersarentbullies #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Bullies expect blind obedience; for people to laugh at their jokes (indecent or not), and for their so-called minions to kowtow, comply, and fawn. Don’t be bullied.

 "Someone with a fixed mindset starts thinking, 'Maybe I don't have what it takes?' They may get defensive and give up. A hallmark of a successful person is that they persist in the face of obstacle, and often, these obstacles are blessings in disguise." - Carol S. Dweck #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

 Piping Plovers "Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort." - Paul J. Meyer #leadersarentbullies #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Successful leaders are measured, and held accountable, for their performance in reaching three critical outcomes: an organization’s bottom-line results, adherence to #ethical and legal processes, and the demonstration of healthy and respectful relationships.

"One of the signs of a bad coworker is a pattern of persistent undermining - intentionally hindering a colleague's success, reputation, or relationships." - Adam Grant "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." - Bill Gates #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

"If you see harassment, speak up. Being harassed is terrible; having bystanders pretend they don't notice is infinitely worse." - Celeste Ng "Standard workplace operations: safe conditions, fair wages, freedom from forced labor, harassment, and  discrimination." - Paul Polman #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct A closer look at international industrial organizations with more than five hundred employees showed 89% of their workforces experienced harassment in the previous six months.

 "Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it's a lethal cocktail." - Graydon Carter #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

 Farming Community “A higher pay ratio (between CEO and salaried workers) could signal a company suffers a winner-take-all philosophy. A lower pay ratio could indicate a company is dedicated to creating high-wage jobs and investing in their employees for the company’s long-term health.”  AFL-CIO #healthyworkplaces #stepup #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Predatory bullying is most prevalent in countries with more aggressive cultures, like in the United States, and in organizations with great power and salary disparity between reporting relationships. #LeadersArentBullies

 "We want everybody to act like adults, quit playing games, realize that it's not just my way or the highway." - Barack Obama "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature." - Marcus Aurelius #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

Bullying at work can be like slow boiling a frog: "If a frog is placed into a pot of boiling water it will immediately try to jump out; but if it’s placed into a pot of cool water, gradually heated until boiling, it will stay put and never try to jump out." - Richard Beckham II #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct During the early phases of workplace bullying, indirect and discrete types of behavior prevail; for example, sly comments & insults no one else but the target witnesses from the bully. More direct and overt acts appear later.

 "The (person) who cannot endure to have his or her errors and shortcomings brought to the surface and made known, but tries to hide them, is unfit to walk the highway of truth."-  James Allen "One mustn't close one's eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

Clam Bake! "The purpose of whistleblowing is to expose secret and wrongful acts by those in power in order to enable reform." - Glenn Greenwald #leadersarentbullies #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Objective bullying evidence (photos, recordings where legal, emails, etc. ) is necessary to prove workplace abuse.  Witnesses also  validate abuse and strengthen truth with numbers.  The current court of public opinion favors "Davids," and not the Goliaths.

...yet only 13% do anything to address it.   "Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph." - Haile Selassie #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

 "Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." - Buddha "There are no secrets time does not reveal." - Jean Racine "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life." - Harvey Fierstein #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct The worst bullying managers I’ve known conducted their premeditated assaults in private to avoid being seen or heard or captured on hand helds by witnesses. This was intentional.

 "Goodness is about character - integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people." - Dennis Prager #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

 It was great to talk with my friend Bernie Tiger  on his podcast.  We discussed how to share  raw thoughts & feelings in a constructive manner when adressing, and seeking resolution to, life's tough situations. Following please find a link to this podcast:  https://courses.tiger-resilience.com/podcasts/tiger-resilience-addiction-solutions-for-reaching-human-potential/episodes/2147778718 These pictures were taken in 2019 at my book signing near Philly and in 1977 when Bernie and I were Football Dodger Teammates in Madison, NJ.   Bernie and I reconnected in 2005, thanks to our kids being at the same Massachusetts Regional School's 7th grade orientation.  If you'd like to read about how this serendipitous meeting led to our renewed friendship and Bernie's receiving his team  championship ring, earned in high school, please visit the following link. http://mattpaknis.blogspot.com/2009/02/championship-rings.html

"Courage is knowing what not to fear." ' Plato "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Winston Churchill "Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke." - Benjamin Disraeli #healthyworkplaces #stepup #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Workplace bullying targets who make subjective (sans witnesses, pictures, recordings, emails, etc.) bullying claims, are often stigmatized as troublemakers or whistleblowers. Although, any effort to expose and to stop  bullying  is courageous and admirable. #LeadersArentBullies

 "Each one of us can make a difference. Together we make change." - Barbara Mikulski "When you encourage others, you in the process are encouraged because you're making a commitment and difference in that person's life. Encouragement really does make a difference." - Zig Ziglar #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

"Words are the most powerful force available to humanity. We can use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively with words of hate. Words have energy and power; to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble." - Yehuda Berg #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct Dan Olweus, defines schoolyard bullying as: “...as aggressive behavior or intentional harm doing by peers that is carried out repeatedly and involves an imbalance of power, either actual or perceived, between the victim and the bully.”

 

 "Successful business leaders build institutions of lasting value - committed to talent and a culture of excellence. This is accomplished by identifying, developing, and retaining great people." - Bobby Kotick #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

"Challenging and highlighting abusive power dynamics in our culture is my goal; replicating them is not." - Kara Walker #leadersarentbullies #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Workplace bullying involves a target's exposure to repeated and enduring negative and demeaning acts, where a formal or informal power imbalance exists between the involved parties. #workplaceculture

"Trauma fractures comprehension as a pebble shatters a windshield. The wound at the site of impact spreads across the field of vision, obscuring reality and challenging belief." - Jane Leavy "Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence." Peter A. Levine #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

Crazy recent backyard animal spottings! "Corruption takes two - it's possible only when there is complicity of, even manipulation by, an (executive)." - Victoria Abril The collusion of big business, big labor, and big government threaten the spirit of small business that makes America great. - Foster Friess #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct In bullying environments, bullies maintain complicit, colluding, and corrupt relationships with executives at the expense of worker health, safety, and productivity. #LeadersArentBullies #healthyworkplaces

"Just as the body goes into shock after a physical trauma, so does the human psyche go into shock after the impact of a major loss." - Anne Grant "The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect." - Peter A. Levine "I'm still coping with my trauma, but coping by trying to find different ways to heal it rather than hide it." - Clemantine Wamariya #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

"Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving." - James E. Faust "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." - Alice Walker #healthyworkplaces #stepup #leaderselevatethoughtandconduc t #DignityAtWorkAct Bullies hate to be objective. It requires honesty and truth, unwelcome traits in their distorted power-control universes. #LeadersArentBullies

" Transparency increases credibility and accountability." - Park Won-soon "Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences." - Robert Louis Stevenson "Punishment is justice for the unjust." - Saint Augustine #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct  

"We all have mental models: lenses showing us how we see the world and driving responses to everything we experience. Being aware of your mental models is key to being objective." - Elizabeth Thornton #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Bullies thrive on subjectivity and flawed mental models. Don’t let them get away with it by using respectful and fact based reflections and observations. Insist on transparency and shared accountability. #LeadersArentBullies

Please, what's your take? Yesterday, I stopped my car two miles from the house to give a baby deer time to muster courage and jump a roadside ditch.  In the yard 15 mins. later this solo fawn came within a few feet of me, and stared. Drawn by my smell, look, vibe, the Rose of Sharon petals, or was it just a coincidence? Thanks.

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." - Henry David Thoreau "Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil." - Plato "I believe the root of all evil is abuse of power." - Patricia Cornwell "Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." - George Washington #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

"First comes thought; then organization of thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination." - Napoleon Hill #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct   #DignityAtWorkAct Good leaders and organizations can manage successful outcomes and buck workplace bullying with:  A. shared accountability and commitment, B. clear and agreed upon goals, roles, and processes, and C. healthy and respectful relationships. #LeadersArentBullies

"There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves." - Lyndon B. Johnson "You will only be remembered for two things: the problems you solve or the ones you create." - Mike Murdock "The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing." - James Brown #leadersarentbullies #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #stepup #DignityAtWorkAct

Fort Adams, Newport Jazz Festival "Intimidation, harassment and violence have no place in a democracy." - Mo Ibrahim "A culture of intimidation has no justification in any administration." - John Barrasso #leadersarentbullies #stepup #healthyworkplaces #leaderselevatethoughtandconduct #DignityAtWorkAct Workplace bullying includes, but is not limited to, behaviors such as intimidation, public humiliation, offensive name-calling, social exclusion, and unwanted physical contact.