Psych Central

…here are five ways to start claiming back your power:

Express your feelings instead of reacting to them. First, it’s essential that you have a daily self-reflective practice that allows you to work through feelings; I describe an effective method in this article. Then find a therapist who can help you work through intense feelings; a good one is worth every penny. She knows how to be compassionate as well as maintain good boundaries so as not to absorb your negative feelings. You can also bounce ideas off friends. Just make sure you are mindful of your impact on them and don’t wear out their ears.

When back at work, don’t explain, don’t complain. Be a verbal miser. Don’t give away information and certainly don’t put anything in writing that could entrap and incriminate you.

Take the time to step back and see a larger perspective. This requires you to be cool, which means relaxed. From that higher place, what outcome do you want to achieve? It could take you a long time to work that out but allow it. Impatience is not your friend.

Observe and gather information (often indiscriminately shared) so that you can use it in service to your higher purpose. Find out where the cracks are so that you can open them even further to let in the light of truth. There’s nothing more threatening to a bully-prone organization than the truth. If you have that on your side, then you have the power of moral authority, and there’s nothing stronger than that.

When you reach out to someone to help you, be very clear about what you want and make a direct request. Acknowledge your impact on the other person. Be friendly, calm and polite and you will almost always receive a favourable response.

The full article is far from exhaustive on the subject — but what it does, it does well.

Knowledge is power — knowledge of tactics is even more so.

When you are faced with an organization and a bully that is implicitly (or worse) supported by such, parking your right to explode emotionally and doing some serious planning is an absolutely essential prerequisite if you don’t want to be facing a united front gunning to treat you as the problem — and remove you.