It is Men’s Health Week here in New Zealand, a time when the spotlight rightly turns to longevity, preventable illnesses, and the shocking statistic that nearly one in four Kiwi men won’t live to see retirement. The overarching message of the campaign—championed by the likes of Tame Iti and Amanda Gillies—is powerful: Take the "What's Your Score?" survey. Look closely at your habits. Own your health before it’s too late.
But as we talk about survival, prevention, and well-being, we need to talk about the silent killer lurking in our office corridors, our online interactions, and our performance reviews. We need to talk about the toxic stress generated within our public sector and beyond.
And we need to have a brutally honest conversation about a pattern of behaviour that both men and women are actively keeping alive: workplace bullying.
For those of us working within the machinery of government, the public service is supposed to be about manaakitanga (uplifting others) and whakawhanaungatanga (building connection). Yet, behind the polished corporate values statements, many ministries, crown entities, and departments have become pressure cookers.
Here is the uncomfortable truth we need to confront: Bullying doesn't always look like shouting or slam-dunking someone in a meeting. In the public sector, it is often sophisticated, heavily bureaucratised, and structural. And worst of all? Many of us—males and females alike—have been endorsing, enabling, or participating in it.
The "Passive Endorsement" Trap
It is easy to point fingers at the classic "toxic boss." But what about the rest of us? Coming to terms with the fact that you have been a bystander, or an active participant, in harming a colleague's mental health is a heavy, painful pill to swallow.
Endorsement in the public sector and beyond rarely looks like open malice. Instead, it looks like this:
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The Systemic Squeeze: Managing someone out through weaponised Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) or endless, nitpicking "feedback" cycles, knowing the real goal isn't growth, but compliance or departure.
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The Silent Sidebar: Sitting in a meeting, watching a colleague get subtly undermined, gaslit, or stripped of their portfolio, and saying absolutely nothing because you want to protect your own career progression.
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The In-Group Exclusion: Strategically leaving someone out of key emails, decisions, or social catch-ups because they "don't fit the culture" or they dared to challenge a senior leader's direction.
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The "Heavy Workload" Excuse: Dismissing a staff member's genuine burnout or distress as a failure of resilience, telling them to "manage up" or "thick skin it," because the department's targets matter more than the human beings hitting them.
If you are reading this and a cold dread is settling in your stomach because you recognize your own past actions—take a breath. You are not alone.
The pressure to perform, to survive restructures, and to please the executive tier can warp our moral compasses. Women in leadership are often pressured to adopt overly aggressive, hyper-rational, or exclusionary tactics to "survive" in male-dominated hierarchies. Men are often conditioned to mask vulnerability, praise stoicism, and look the other way when a colleague is broken by the grind.
But if we want a healthier public sector and beyond—and a healthier State—this cycle has to stop with us.
The True "Score" of Toxicity
Men's Health Week asks us to look at our physical scores: blood pressure, cholesterol, stress levels. But if you are coming home every day carrying the guilt of how you treated someone at work, or the exhaustion of operating in an unsafe environment, your body is paying the price. Toxic stress elevates cortisol, destroys sleep, wrecks relationships, and drives mental health crises.
Just like physical health, turning your workplace behaviour around starts with small, deliberate steps.
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Acknowledge the Impact: Stop calling it "robust performance management" if it’s actually a personal vendetta or an abuse of power. Call it what it is. Look at the data: are your staff taking high amounts of sick leave? Are they quiet, anxious, or resigning?
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Break the Silence: If you are a manager or a peer, use your voice. When you see a colleague being targeted or frozen out in a restructuring loop, challenge it. Refuse to be the rubber stamp for an unjust process.
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Apologise and Pivot: If you have used your position, your gender, or your tenure to make someone else feel small, isolated, or incompetent, own it. It takes massive courage to step back, change your leadership style, and say, "The way we did things in the past was wrong. We are doing it differently now."
Put on Your Tutu and Stand Up
At JAT - MVP Journeys ®, we believe in standing out, standing up, and bringing our whole, authentic selves to the space we occupy. We don’t conform to environments that ask us to shrink or to crush others to fit in.
This month, let's take the spirit of Men’s Health Week and apply it to our professional souls. To the men and women navigating the shifting sands of the public sector and beyond: look in the mirror. If you have been endorsing bullying behaviour—whether through active participation or complicit silence—it’s time to stop.
True leadership isn't about how many people you can control or manage. It's about how safe, respected, and empowered people feel when they are in your presence. Let’s clean up our backyards, look out for one another shoulder-to-shoulder, and build a public service and beyond we can truly ratify!
