"He just had to pee all over it ... to make it his own"

Paul Hansen is a confident, well educated and strong professional, who has built a successful career for herself in organisational development and leadership. This has been both as a senior manager in major mining companies and as an independent consultant in the sector.

So it came as a shock, when once a ‘new’ manager of her team adopted an adversarial approach that featured a high level of personal bullying and unsupportive team behavour. The explicit negative actions and the implied undermining of individuals in the team … including Paul … saw a number of them leave within a 3 month period. Paul was the second to leave the team, and this was at a time that coincided with the start of the infamous GFC in October 2008.

So, she was not only challenged by the personal impact of the bullying, but had to deal with starting a consulting business in financially risky times.

Using her lived experiences from this event and also acknowledging the need to personally accept and cope with the emotional fall-out, Paul was able to successfully craft an ongoing career until her recent retirement.