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.