English: A Madame Tussauds waxwork model of Ja...

Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I read this piece, I kept seeing images of Sue Sylvester in my mind. If you have ever seen “Glee” (and face it, the list is shorter for those who haven’t seen “Glee”), you are familiar with Sue’s obnoxious bullying and angry tirades. They may seem over the top, but not by far. Let’s face it: there are certain people who should not work with children. These people may be great at what they do and have the ability to turn out winner after winner, but when it comes down to it, they do more damage than good. That “winner” walks away with a severely damaged psyche. “Dance Moms” is great example of this. That dance teacher is a piece of work.

This article reveals the fine line between bullying and disciplining—or coaching. And there is a distinct difference between reacting in anger and being constructive. It talks about balance. As a disciplinary figure, you cannot allow negativity or anger to propel you into the bullying mode. A negative attitude can destroy your team and undermine your efforts as a coach—or as a parent. See, the same can be said for parenting. You should discipline your children out of love because you want them to be better people or because you do not want them to harm themselves. Even parents can become bullies when they allow anger and negativity to invade their attitudes.

Now, let us take this into another arena. As a manager or boss, it is your job to mold and shape the employees on your team into the champions you need them to be. It is easy to allow anger to take over and the bully to rise up within you. The damaging effects of that can be devastating to your employees and to your business. But this isn’t a piece about the effects of bullying; we’ll leave that for another post.

This is about learning how to identify the line that is there. It is faint and not always easy to see, but it is a very important line and you really don’t want to cross it.