Bullying can be defined as the use of one’s strength or status to intimidate, injure, or humiliate another person of lesser strength or status. The bully/bullies are in a clear position of power, the victim in a correspondingly clear position of powerlessness. Bullying can be categorized as physical, verbal, or social. Physical bullying involves physical injury or threat of injury to someone, while verbal bullying refers to teasing or insulting someone. Social bullying refers to the use of peer rejection or exclusion to humiliate or isolate a victim. Bullying behavior isn’t always obvious either. It can be irrational, subtle and devious, taking place when there are no witnesses, or inflicted in front of colleagues to cause maximum humiliation. Either way, it gradually wears down the victim’s self-respect. As a target of workplace bullying, I was guilty of a major vulnerability. I did not respond to aggression with counter-aggressive tactics. My first impulse was to walk away (to be safe) and to blame myself. This shamed me into silence and allows much time to pass. The bully also interpreted the silence as permission to sustain the torment. Examples of the behavior of the bully at my workplace included withholding information which affected my performance, as well as my bosses performance, spreading gossip, and humiliating or ridiculing me in the office. For example, the bully would often make comments to both my boss and I that we “were so blonde”, or she would make other degrading and humiliating comments that were often times sexually oriented. Not to my surprise, my level of competency in gaining power and influence was in the top quartile and my primary influence was reason. When I finally realized that I was experiencing bullying at work, I decided that I had to do something about it. But to strike at an enemy, you need a sound offensive game plan. Realistically, when someone attacks you, you should not be interested in minimizing the damage they inflict. I developed a strategy to attack back, weaken the bully considerably and ensure that she understood the heavy toll she will risk by preying on me. That is how defenses win championships; they already know the counterpunch they will strike their opponent with. Power can be embedded in one’s personal disposition, or it can be attributed to one’s position. Although my supervisor had position power, she lacked personal power, which trumps position power. When someone has personal power, it is very hard to beat them in a conflict. After all, if someone has rational personal power, they can out-argue you. If someone has expert personal power and knows more than you about a particular topic, they will beat you with facts. If someone has referent personal power, they are (fairly or unfairly) well-liked, and will always get others to side with them. Finally, if someone has Charisma Personal Power and you are in conflict with them, then once again, you will be out of luck. As a result, my goal was to gain personal power, not position power. I started talking to colleagues, and I was surprised to find that they also felt victimized by this bully. Since most of them had more experience than me, they gave me advice and told me to never trust the bully. After talking to others, I felt better knowing that I wasn’t the only one – it wasn’t just me that the bully victimized. I also talked to my family and close friends and started keeping a record of what happened, i.e. the words used and the actions taken. I figured the records would come in handy if I ever had to prove the bullying experiences. It was also at this point in time that I began mentally preparing myself to stand up against this person. Preparation would help me to stay calm and civilized when I actually stood up to the bully. It didn’t take long before another incident happened at work, but this time my reaction was much different from the past. I took a deep breath and said; ‘I find the way you’ve just spoken to me (or acted) offensive and I believe it’s harassment. I’d like you not to do it again or I’ll have to take further action’.” At that point, my supervisor was shocked and didn’t apologize immediately, however, after some time, she did. Since that day on, my supervisor never humiliated me again. That was all that was needed because she didn’t like being confronted, and because I think she genuinely did not realize her behavior was perceived as bullying. I learned a life lesson that day. If you want to make changes, you have to take action. After all, “You don’t drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.”