Workplace Articles By BCC
One of the most difficult challenges in managing sexual harassment issues is to hold top leadership accountable to an organization's anti-harassment policy. The credibility of the policy can be easily undermined when subordinates--managers, employees, faculty or students--become aware that it has been violated by the very people who are held to the highest standard of conduct. Individual counseling and coaching can provide effective and appropriate corrective action when it has been substantiated or is likely that such a violation has occurred.
The Issue is Power
Sexual harassment is fundamentally about power. Individuals who engage in sexually harassing behavior more often than not are in positions of greater power or authority than the recipients of their conduct. The power imbalance can be reflective of numerous factors including length of service, perceived or actual value to the organization, physical size, strength of personality, and being a member of the gender which is disproportionately represented. The most obvious power difference, and the one accounting for the greatest incidence of sexual harassment, is determined by position in the organizational structure. For all of these considerations and more, a man is most likely to be the offender. This article is focused on this most common configuration, while acknowledging the reality that any person, regardless of gender, can be the perpetrator or the recipient of the harassment.
That men more so than women tend to hold these positions is not necessarily a reflection of the person himself, but often a combination of his individual character reinforced by societal, institutional and organizational norms. Historically, sexism and gender bias have contributed to maintaining a higher percentage of men in leadership positions. In addition, the socialization process of men and women in our culture has contributed to widening the gap in perceptions regarding what constitutes sexual harassment, how often it takes place, to whom it is most likely to occur, and the standards of what is considered to be offensive, unwelcome or inappropriate in a workplace or academic institution.
In addition to the more external forces, there are common traits that higher-level offenders often share. Many of these men are high achievers, making significant contributions to the success of their organizations, rendering them popular in terms of their work product, if not their offensive behavior. Because of their organizational value, these men often have large egos and are experienced, by themselves as well as others, as exceptional. Unfortunately, this exceptional status, while often accurate relative to their performance, can translate to exemption from the same standards of conduct to which others must comply. Because of their power and the fear that it frequently generates, they are often not held as accountable for their actions. Power is often accrued over time and, at the point at which the "senior offender" has violated the anti-harassment policy, he is most likely quite removed from the experience of occupying the less powerful position if, indeed, in the course of his career he has ever had or can remember such an experience. It is precisely this power that is both the source of the violation, the greatest obstacle to behavioral change, and the primary focus of the counseling and coaching intervention.