Surround and conquer: When bullying runs a campaign

A covert campaign of pressure and manipulation can isolate a target while leaving the true architect of the bullying safely out of sight, writes Char Weeks.

YOU COULD BE forgiven for thinking that bullying is endemic in Australian workplaces. Research commissioned by leading mental health organisation Beyond Blue suggests that around 50% of employees may experience bullying at some point over the course of their career.

A study conducted in 2024 found that 13.3% of public sector employees reported having experienced bullying. Of those, 47.7% were bullied by a colleague and 45.2% by a manager.

Bullying occurs at work ‘when a person or group of people repeatedly behave unreasonably towards another worker or group of workers’ and that ‘behaviour creates a risk to health and safety’.

Behaviour defined as bullying covers a wide range of actions, including aggression, intimidation, exclusion from work-related activities or events, withholding essential information, making unreasonable work demands and teasing or playing practical jokes.

Under Australia’s Fair Work Act, workers can apply to the Fair Work Commission for an order to stop bullying. However, the onus is on the person alleging bullying to prove that it has occurred and that it may occur again. That is not as straightforward as it sounds. Aggression does not need to be overt or direct. Gathering evidence can be difficult when bullying is covert, occurs one-on-one and leaves no witnesses.

As Independent Australia has previously observed, workplace bullying ‘can be disguised and embedded in organisational culture’.

Sometimes the only signs of bullying appear in the prodrome – the anticipatory fear a victim experiences in the presence of the perpetrator – or in patterns of distress that become visible to others after each encounter.

More insidious forms of bullying seek to undermine a person’s integrity and confidence to force compliance, or in extreme cases, to convince them that they are the problem — or even that they are losing their grip on reality. These behaviours are not confined to workplaces. They fester in volunteer committees, strata communities and community organisations, particularly where influence is informal and recognition is scarce.

One of the most effective contemporary forms of bullying operates quietly, strategically and unfolds in stages. I call it “surround and conquer” bullying.

On the surface, surround and conquer bullying looks harmless. It presents as well-intentioned colleagues taking an interest in another’s well-being or work. Individuals are coerced, cajoled, or charmed into eliciting specific information from the intended victim. It looks like care, one colleague checking in on another, particularly if they have never done so before. The victim may even feel flattered by the attention.

At the centre of surround and conquer bullying is an instigator. This is usually someone with authority, power, position, or real or perceived status. They may be an executive, a manager, a board or committee member or a respected community figure.

For reasons that may never be stated openly, the instigator takes issue with the victim. It may relate to their behaviour, ambition, independence, influence or refusal to fall into line.

The instigator may inhabit office space within earshot of the victim or, in a community setting, live right next door. They could address the issue directly. They choose not to.

Why?

Direct engagement with the victim invites a response. It invites disagreement. It risks observable conflict and exposes the instigator to accountability. Instead, the instigator adopts a deliberate strategy, carefully and methodically recruiting others, privately and one at a time, to function as intermediaries.

The ideal intermediary is vulnerable, keen to be liked, subordinate, seeking approval, ambitious for advancement and, preferably, close to the victim.

Each is encouraged to “have a quiet word” or “see what you can find out”.

They are told, “It looks better coming from you than me”, or “You can understand why I can’t get involved in this”.

Their task is to approach the victim, apply pressure, or extract specific information that only the victim may hold. Once obtained, the intermediary reports back. The instigator then triangulates this information with that gathered from others.

The victim is not attacked head-on. They are encircled and that circle is tightened over time.

With the endgame being compliance, retreat, resignation or withdrawal, the victim gradually succumbs to the pressure. The instigator’s power lies in holding all the information required to undermine the victim while remaining largely invisible.

Surround and conquer bullying is as noxious and invisible as carbon monoxide. Even when it is noticed, it rarely looks dramatic enough to report.

No voices are raised. No explicit threats are made. There is no physical attack. There is just the silence of orchestration.

Different intermediaries are deployed with slightly different lines of enquiry or advice, each oblivious to the broader strategy until a pattern begins to emerge.

By the time that pattern is recognised, the damage has often already been done. It is nearly impossible to point to any one person. The harm lies in the pattern.

Crucially, none of the intermediaries is told how many others have already been approached. Each believes they are acting alone; complying with a manager’s direction, doing a favour or helping to put things right. None realises that they, too, are being used and placed at risk.

It is an ideal situation for the instigator, the conductor, who controls and stages the bullying from a distance. This includes identifying opportunities to approach the victim one-on-one, calculating the interval between approaches, and managing the flow of information to and from both the intermediary and the victim. Days, weeks or even months may pass between approaches.

Meanwhile, the instigator triangulates the intelligence gathered. They profile how the victim responds, whether they appear defensive or hesitant, who supports them and who might need to be recruited next. Armed with this information, the instigator can reinforce the narrative, shape perceptions about the victim to suit their purpose, map alliances and test loyalty. In some cases, the material gathered is later used to justify formal disciplinary action.

“She’s difficult. There’s something wrong with her.”

“We’ve tried to help him change his attitude.”

In all of this, intermediaries, oblivious to the broader pattern, become unwitting victims themselves. In effect, they, too, are being bullied.

As more intermediaries are engaged, the appearance of consensus grows. Multiple people raising similar concerns or offering similar advice creates unease and the illusion of collective dissatisfaction. The victim is led to believe they are the problem. The consensus, however, is manufactured.

Meanwhile, workers further removed from the original issue begin to hear fragments of the story. The issue shifts from conduct to character.

“She’s always been hard to work with.”

“He’s not a team player. He does his own thing.”

Behind the scenes, emails and messages accelerate the disconnect between behaviour, commentary and accountability. Fact and context are lost, while the victim’s reputation is quietly dismantled.

Over time, the victim senses a shift. All eyes turn towards the victim and conversations are paused mid-sentence when they enter the room. Lunch invitations taper. The casual flow of colleagues stopping by dries up.

There is no single explosive incident to report. Only the atmosphere has changed.

Pattern recognition brings a turning point

The power dynamic shifts when the victim recognises the surround and conquer structure for what it is.

Recognition often comes slowly. Sometimes it is accidental — say, a slip in conversation revealing multiple parallel approaches. In hindsight, the victim traces the conversations and the shifting alliances to a common source. They may never understand why they were targeted, but they recognise how it happened.

Once recognised, the victim stands to gain most by staying calm and responding strategically.

Because they have experienced the approaches directly, they are uniquely positioned to identify new recruits and repeated lines of enquiry disguised as concern or advice. Each approach should be documented carefully, factually and without emotion: when it occurred, where, who was present and what was said, word for word.

Records should also note exclusions from meetings, withheld information that affects work and escalating demands.

Over time, chronological documentation makes visible what was designed to remain hidden. It becomes evidence.

If we are serious about integrity in our workplaces and communities, we must learn to recognise bullying not only when it shouts, but when it organises — because by the time surround and conquer bullying is visible, it has already done its work.

Char Weeks is the founder of the award-winning secure digital information safe, Secure My Treasures. Intolerant of injustices, she now campaigns against job ageism, elder abuse and domestic violence.