This article looks at educators’ understanding of workplace bullying through the lens of a two-
dimensional model of bullying. Educators, who were furthering their studies at the University
of the Free State, were invited to take part in a study on different types of bullying. Deductive,
directed content analysis was used to analyse 59 participants’ descriptions of workplace
bullying. The study found that the theoretical model provided a valuable framework for studying
bullying in this context. The analysis of the educators’ descriptions provided the following
insights about the relational and organisational foundations of workplace bullying: (1) The
relational powerless victims are subjected to public humiliation, disregard, isolation and dis-
crimination. The bullying of educators results in escalating apathy and disempowerment, to the
detriment of their professional and private wellbeing. (2) Bullying is likely to occur in schools
where organisational chaos reigns. Such schools are characterised by incompetent, unprin-
cipled, abusive leadership, lack of accountability, fairness and transparency. (3) There is
interplay between relational powerlessness and organisational chaos, i.e. the absence of
principled leadership, accountability and transparency gives rise to workplace bullying.

doi: 10.15700/201412120954