By Maureen Kyne, a workplace culture and leadership expert specialising in upward bullying. Her international research report, Understanding and Addressing Upward Bullying, is available at maureenkyne.com.au

When a competent leader exits unexpectedly, boards rarely hear the real reason. They might hear “cultural misalignment.” Or they hear sentiment like “the leadership style wasn’t the right fit.” What they almost never hear is that the leader was targeted and eventually pushed out by the very people they were hired to lead.

Upward bullying is the sustained, covert behaviour through which staff undermine or intimidate those in authority above them. Its incidence and prevalence are a failure of governance rather than people management oversight. New international research suggests upward bullying is happening at a scale boards are not prepared for.

The numbers demand attention

Seventy-one per cent of senior leaders surveyed have personal experience of upward bullying. Nearly three-quarters have witnessed a competent leader pushed out because of it. In almost every case, the exit was reframed as a matter of “fit” or “transition.” The organisation removed the symptom, while the cause remained intact and unaddressed.

Upward bullying tactics are often disguised as standard procedure and are usually dispersed. They include coordinated resistance, narrative manipulation, strategic formal complaints, and what researchers call DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. A leader raises a concern and suddenly becomes the subject of one. On the surface, it looks like a legitimate grievance. That is precisely why it is so difficult to govern.

The misdiagnosis problem

Over 80% of senior leaders in our survey were already familiar with the term “upward bullying.” Yet two-thirds believe their peers and senior leadership do not understand how it actually operates in practice. Awareness of the label has not translated into the capability to recognise the behaviour.

The data suggests a significant proportion of these cases involve structural upward bullying that has never been correctly identified. When the behaviour is mislabelled, the response is misaligned. When the response is misaligned, the consequences escalate.

That awareness-identification gap is damaging for organisations. When they cannot accurately identify what they are looking at, their responses are inadequate. Upward bullying gets reclassified as a communication breakdown, a performance concern, or a culture issue. The organisational response that follows addresses none of the underlying dynamics.

One respondent described it plainly: when their authority was undermined, it was reframed as “concern” about process or “feedback” about their communication style.

A growing exposure to governance risk

The organisational consequences of upward bullying accumulate quickly. Sixty-six per cent of respondents report major negative impacts on their performance as leaders. Eighty-one per cent link it to loss of trust and morale. Nearly two-thirds report leadership turnover as a direct result.

But the figure that should concern every board most is this: only 18% of senior leaders trust they would receive strong board or executive support if targeted by their team.

That structural gap shapes everything. It determines what leaders are willing to say, and how honestly they communicate upward. When 93% of senior leaders say upward bullying reduces their willingness to remain in or return to senior roles, boards are facing a retention issue that cascades into decision-making and succession risks.

The research also makes clear that organisations which recognise upward bullying yet fail to act become carriers of the harm. Awareness without intervention is not neutrality. When boards delay to respond, minimise complaints, or route concerns back into the HR process without accurately interpreting the complaint, they signal that organisational systems will not reliably protect those at the top. In these circumstances, silence always favours the perpetrator.

What needs to change

More than 94% of leaders believe earlier intervention could have prevented or reduced the harm of upward bullying. The problem is solvable. But solving it requires building capability as well as awareness.

What leaders are specifically asking for is telling. Over half identified board and executive education as a priority need. Senior leaders with decades of experience are looking upward and concluding that those responsible for governance do not understand the risk well enough to govern it.

The strategic response requires three things working in concert: naming upward bullying as a distinct organisational risk rather than a subset of general conflict; building the capability to identify patterns over time rather than responding only to isolated incidents; and intervening early, before authority is compromised and leaders begin to withdraw.

Organisations that wait for the crisis point have already lost the moment.

The question boards should be asking

Given that 71% of senior leaders report personal experience of upward bullying, the question for boards is not whether this is happening in their organisation. The more productive question is: would we know if it was?

If the answer is uncertain, that uncertainty is itself a governance gap worth closing.