Resilience: A Coping Strategy for Professional Women Dealing with Workplace Bullying

Workplace bullying, the repeated and regular act of harassing, offending, socially excluding someone, or negatively affecting someone’s work has been recognized as a serious threat to the health and well-being of employees. This study explored resilience, the successful adaptation despite challenging and threatening circumstances, as a coping strategy to help improve the physical and mental health of professional women who have experienced workplace bullying.

The central research question was, how does perceived resilience, when used as a coping strategy, help with the physical and mental health stressors while helping to improve the overall well-being of professional women who were or have experienced workplace bullying? Four major themes emerged: Negative Experiences, Consequences of Bullying, Impact on Health, and Support Systems. The results suggested that the participants believed they were targeted because of race, gender, and age. Workplace bullying does have negative health consequences; however, various support systems greatly increased their resilience.

Keywords: Workplace bullying; Resilience; Coping strategy; Health; Well-being