Kariyer rehberi
6 Types of Workplace Mobbing You Should Know
6 Kasım 2025
💼 Types of Workplace Mobbing and Their Scope
1. Vertical Mobbing (Top-Down)
This is the most common form of mobbing — when a manager or superior uses their authority not to empower, but to silence subordinates.
Behavioral examples:
Constant criticism and belittling of performance
Assigning meaningless goals or restricting autonomy
Creating an atmosphere of fear and control
Psychological effect:
Employees begin to doubt their worth and feel constant anxiety about job security: “Am I going to lose my job?”
2. Reverse Mobbing (Bottom-Up)
In some cases, subordinates or teams may target a manager, often a new or inexperienced one, to undermine authority.
Behavioral examples:
Withholding information, passive resistance, or ignoring directions
Publicly challenging the manager in meetings
Psychological effect:
Managers feel isolated, paranoid, and lose confidence. This often leads to a toxic “us vs. them” dynamic.
3. Horizontal Mobbing (Peer-to-Peer)
Occurs between employees at the same hierarchical level. It usually stems from jealousy, competition, or alliances formed to isolate someone.
Behavioral examples:
Taking credit for others’ work
Social exclusion or spreading rumors within the team
Psychological effect:
A sense of disconnection and loneliness: “I’m in the office, but not part of the team.”
4. Institutional Mobbing (Systemic or Policy-Based)
Here, the system itself enables mobbing rather than individual behavior. Organizational culture and policies promote burnout and silence.
Behavioral examples:
“Always available” expectations and overwork culture
Performance measured only by output, no value for well-being
Lack of safe reporting channels
Psychological effect:
Learned helplessness — employees internalize that “everyone here behaves this way.”
5. Micro-Mobbing (Drop by Drop)
These are small, seemingly insignificant acts that, over time, erode confidence and self-worth.
Behavioral examples:
Misspelling someone’s name in emails repeatedly
Excluding them from meetings or not acknowledging achievements
Psychological effect:
Erosion of self-esteem; the victim begins to doubt themselves: “Am I overreacting?”
6. Digital or Remote Mobbing (Behind the Screen)
A growing form of psychological harassment in hybrid or remote work environments.
Behavioral examples:
Sending insistent messages after work hours
Publicly shaming someone during screen sharing
Muting or ignoring them during online meetings
Psychological effect:
The blurring of home–work boundaries, leading to loss of personal safety and emotional exhaustion.
📊 Who Are the Main Perpetrators of Workplace Bullying?
According to a 2014 workplace bullying study:
56% of cases are caused by bosses,
33% by coworkers, and
11% occur from bottom up (employees targeting managers).
🧭 Mobbing Has Many Faces
Workplace mobbing doesn’t always look like open aggression — sometimes it hides in silence, exclusion, or constant pressure.
Understanding its types helps both individuals and companies recognize early signs, take preventive action, and build psychologically safe workplaces.