Notes on Resilience
Notes on Resilience explores how human experience, including adversity, shapes leadership, innovation, and culture. Host Manya Chylinski talks with people whose work, research, or lived experience reveal how we adapt, care, and create after challenge—what these stories show about the systems we build, and what must evolve.
These conversations are rooted in a simple idea: the goal isn’t resilience for its own sake, the goal is well-being. Resilience is what makes recovery and growth possible.
The show serves as field research on how people and systems recover, rebuild, and move forward.
Notes on Resilience
155: Breaking The Silence On Workplace Bullying, with Kim Williams
Silence protects bullies.
We sit down with Kim Williams—veteran HR executive, survivor of workplace abuse, and founder of the Fair Path Project—to unpack how brilliant jerks get shielded, why moral injury cuts deeper than most leaders realize, and what it takes to turn empathy into accountability.
Kim explains how fear operates at every level: employees fear retaliation, HR fears litigation, and executives fear losing a top performer. We examine the leverage that drives organizations—EPLI insurance exposure, workers' compensation for psychological harm, turnover costs, productivity loss, and even share price risk when toxic cultures are exposed in the press.
If you’ve ever wondered how to quantify the brilliant jerk tax, this conversation is for you.
We also explore policy as a catalyst. Current frameworks require proving intent, a bar so high it keeps most targets unprotected. The Workplace Psychological Safety Act reframes abuse by decoupling harm from intent and recognizing psychological injury as real, documentable damage.
Kim shares why hundreds of organizations support the effort and how advocates are engaging lawmakers to move beyond empathy-driven PR toward enforceable standards. Along the way, we find hope in Gen Z’s refusal to accept broken norms and in practical tools that automate documentation and surface patterns early.
If you’re an HR pro ready to lead, a manager looking for scripts that de-escalate, or an executive determined to protect both people and performance, this episode offers a clear playbook: care for your nervous system, document precisely, use leverage wisely, and act consistently.
Kim Williams is the speaker and advocate, spokesperson for End Workplace Abuse, and the founder of the Fair Path Project to confront the silent epidemic of workplace bullying and to help employees reclaim dignity at work. A veteran HR executive and survivor of workplace abuse, she witnessed firsthand how workplace culture, gaslighting, and retaliation harm not only individuals but entire organizations. Determined to create change, Kim transformed her lived experience into a mission of accountability and healing. She equips employees with tools to document abuse, protect their rights, and recover their confidence, while guiding employers toward cultures rooted in psychological safety and integrity.
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We gotta avoid the silence because what happens is I think when people get afraid is they shut down and they don't engage. They run away from the problem, which is never gonna fix anything.
Manya Chylinski:Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Kim Williams. She is a veteran HR executive and the survivor of workplace abuse. She founded the Fair Path Project to confront the silent academic of workplace bullying and help employees reclaim dignity at work. And that's what we talked about on the episode today. We learned about brilliant jerks. We learned about what organizations can do to combat bullying, and what we as individuals can do. I think you're gonna really enjoy this episode. Kim, thanks for being here. I'm so excited to get to talk to you today. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here too. To kick us off, what is one thing that you've done in any area of your life that you never thought you would do?
Kim Williams:Stand up to a bully chief executive by myself, knowing I would probably get fired and uh doing it anyway.
Manya Chylinski:Wow. That takes a lot of courage. Did yeah. I feel anxiety just hearing you say that you did that.
Kim Williams:Yeah, most do.
Manya Chylinski:Um, well, I'm glad to hear that you did that. And I am pleased that you found the the strength or the resilience or whatever that quality was that enabled you to stand up for that. And um, that is what you and I are talking about today. We're gonna talk a little bit about bullying in the workplace, but just as an overview to get us started, I think bullying exists when there's a lack of compassion and a lack of empathy. And do you agree with that sentence, first of all?
Kim Williams:I do. I would probably add though, accountability.
Manya Chylinski:Okay.
Kim Williams:Because I tend to see it, it gets worse the higher up you go, the more people get away with. Yeah.
Manya Chylinski:Yes. Well, if a workplace has empathy and compassion as a value or something that they actually care about, and maybe they state that they care about it, can bullying still exist?
Kim Williams:Yeah, unfortunately, I've seen in a lot of places where organizations do kind of like empathy PR, the way they did DEI PR. So it's a nice public statement that they want out there for consumers, um, but they don't necessarily live those values internally. Right, right.
Manya Chylinski:Well, that's not great to hear.
Kim Williams:Um not everybody, of course. There's a lot of wonderful organizations out there, but absolutely, absolutely.
Manya Chylinski:Um, and you know, I think so many of us, I know I personally can understand having a bully at work. I've had one. Um, I've had instances of that, and I'm sure that so many of our listeners can. You have this great phrase that I don't like what it stands for, but I think it's perfect, which is called the brilliant jerk. Can you talk a little bit about who is a brilliant jerk and what does that mean for an organization?
Kim Williams:Yeah, so oftentimes they're someone who's considered high value. So we never have like bully or jerk janitors, right? Like if you're a lower-ranking person, they tend to say, Oh, our, you know, our culture doesn't support this, the rules don't support this, you're fired. But if they're say a top salesperson who brings in a ton of revenue, a family member of the CEO, or a personal friend, or you know, someone who is an engineer who created a product that the company relies heavily on. So a lot of times they're considered to be making a contribution that is valuable. And so therefore, certain jerk behaviors are excused, um, but they can come at a high cost that people don't realize.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, absolutely. I'm I'm thinking of my own experience of someone who was yelling at me and was so close to me that they were spitting on me. And when I reported it, I was told he's really important.
Kim Williams:Yeah.
Manya Chylinski:And oh, we're sorry, but he's really important, so nothing's really going to happen to him.
Kim Williams:Yeah.
Manya Chylinski:And that as an employee, that's demoralizing.
Kim Williams:Completely. And it's for many, it's also a form of moral injury that can be kind of a second traumatic event following the initial traumatic event because most of us understand what's right and wrong. There's a reasonable person standard here. Um, we don't treat people that way. We hold ourselves to this. We know that it's not okay. And so to have an institution or an employer which holds enormous power over our lives, give that permission. Um, it can be just as tough as the actual initial act.
Manya Chylinski:Oh, I never actually thought about it that way. It's like a second, you know, a second trauma, a second injury.
Kim Williams:Yeah.
Manya Chylinski:Yeah. So you mentioned the term moral injury, which I think I know what that means, but can you help me understand what is what is that actually referring to?
Kim Williams:Yeah. So a lot of times, uh, you know, in the work context, I first learned about this or really focused on it with whistleblowers. So a lot of whistleblowers in like the federal government or banks or these big organizations that really affect all of our society, you know, they'll see something that's wrong and they'll think, oh, you know, if the talk might organization just knew, then they would fix it. And especially like I think in government institutions where people, you know, a lot of people have very strong values and ideas tied to government work. You know, government workers they tend to do that for their entire career. They're highly specialized, they're deeply loyal, they believe in this concept of fairness, things that are associated with democracy, America. So, like these, there's these very, very deep threads in them about what is right, what their job stands for, their organization stands for, and even their country stands for. So these are like huge ideals. And so when they go and report something that they know is objectively wrong, and then that whole of government goes after them, punishes them, punch down at them, tries to keep them quiet, there's a terrible moral injury that is deeply painful. And I think to a lesser degree, even though we may not expect as much in the private sector from employers, um, this can feel the same way because social isolation actually registers in our brain is physical pain. It's something our brains have been wired through, you know, over thousands of years. And so there's a lot of uh nerves that are struck in these particular moments that um that definitely cut pretty deep.
Manya Chylinski:Right. Thank you for sharing that. And you know, you even as we're talking about the private sector, employers many seem to say that they want their employees to care about the mission and care about the company. And then saying that on one hand, and then on the other hand, not necessarily being supportive of employees when they're being bullied or when they're, you know, saying something is um wrong. You know, when you mentioned the whistleblower and they said, oh, if only the people who were in charge just knew this thing was happening, I've had that own experience in my life where I just thought, oh, they just don't know that this is what's happening. So let me be, I will step out and I will be the one to tell them. And then basically got slapped down for uh and came to the realization later that, oh no, they know they just didn't care. And that's a hard pill to swallow.
Kim Williams:It's a really hard pill to swallow. And but I've also found over years of kind of closed door conversations with a lot of uh chief executives and other leaders, and even HR folks, a lot of times they're scared. Um, to me, that's not an excuse. Um, but what's really fascinating is like when a complaint comes forward, oftentimes you know, the complaint is terrified. But HR, the the company, everyone except for lawyers, you know, who are catching the tracks, tend to be really, really afraid. Um, they're afraid of doing the wrong things or afraid of lawsuits, they're afraid of the bullying. And and it, you know, to me, it's like I said, it's not okay. I I think in this day and time where there's so much information and so much data that shows the financial ruin, the devastation to families, the illnesses, you know, the direct lines to cancer, to increased rates of suicide, when our jobs are in danger, our whole life can feel like it's in danger. And so to not be able to take a stand on something so simple as addressing workplace bullying, I feel like if if your HR shop is not ready or willing to deal with that, then they may need to look for another occupation. Like I think the entire HR profession needs to change and really own this and how, you know, and thinking about how they want to engage in it.
Manya Chylinski:Right. Well, you mentioned two things I I would love to unpack. So one of them was that the amount of fear that is happening in the organization. So not just the complainant, maybe HR, maybe their manager, just thinking back to my own experience, it never occurred to me that maybe other people were afraid of this person or afraid of saying something. And I guess from an organizational standpoint, what can be done if that if in those kind of circumstances? I mean, you know, fear is a very real emotion and we base lots of behaviors on it. So how do we get out of that cycle or how do we break that?
Kim Williams:We've got to avoid the silence because what happens is I think when people get afraid is they shut down and they don't, they don't engage, they run away from the problem, which is never gonna fix anything. And so a lot of times too, I I try to help people come up with leverage and explained leverage. And so whether you're working in HR and you want to protect employees, but you know the CEO is scared, or maybe the CEO is the bully and you know that they're gonna punch down at you too, and your job's in jeopardy for going forward. And so you've got a lot of fear and you've got to navigate that. And so, you know, I think one of the most important things we have to look at is entering every conversation with calm as best you can, you know, because like, you know, I've had to send emails where my hands were shaking. I've had to send emails where like I actually drove out of a parking lot before I hit sin. I was so scared of the consequences, and it's a-okay to be afraid. And I think it's okay to talk about that because by acknowledging our fear and acknowledging how like people get PTSD from this, it leaves scars on the brain. Like, treat it like the life-threatening situation that it is and care for yourself. Do whatever you have to do to get that cortisol down and and make sure you're getting enough sleep, make sure you're burning things off with exercise, make sure you're giving yourself whatever you need to show up in a way where you can be clear and very, very calm. And then the second thing I think is really important, um, whether you're HR or that person, is to document everything and to make sure that you've got very, very good notes to support what a reasonable standard is, um, because safety oftentimes lives outside the walls of an organization. If the if abuse is going in there, they want everything to stay there because consumers won't like it, clients won't like it, potential employees won't like it. And that's for the accountability. And then I talk about leverage. And so, like, you know, for HR folks that I work with, and even what I've done myself, you know, I'll say, look, um, there's a big movement afoot right now with um insurance carriers to look at DEIB and the connection between race discrimination claims, sex harassment claims, and particularly when you're getting into EPLI, so employer protection liability insurance, which a lot of folks carry. And so the more claims you have, the higher your rates are gonna be. And so you can put real hard dollar numbers to say that, like, look, by ignoring this, you're opening yourself up to these types of claims because we already know that they exist in toxic environments. There's a higher likelihood of those occurring. More and more states now, like New York, have um allow workers' comp claims. So if you go to your doctor and say, I'm being bullied at work, then that doctor can provide document documentation, you can submit a workers' comp claim, you know, where you may be able to get that time off compensated, you may be able to get meds, therapy, all those visits um taken care of. Again, that raises claims. And so you have these bottom line impacts that go beyond Gen Z lighting you on fire on TikTok, or, you know, a bad press story for large public organizations, you know, something can hit the press and we'll see, you know, share prices drop 6% on average the very next day. And then shareholders can go after boards if they knew that you know they were aware of these environments because you've now hurt their investments. And so the there are a lot of levers of accountability that I think are really, really important. And then quantifying the cost of a brilliant jerk through return on salaries is you know another great way to share so that you think this is invisible because it's not tangible to you in the way that a slip and fall situation is, but there are real dollars associated with ignoring this type of abuse.
Manya Chylinski:Yes. And actually, I I'm glad you shared all that because that got at my second question, which you had been talking about the individual impact on a person who's being bullied. And that is important, but from the organizational standpoint, on a certain level, they don't care what's happening to you as in your individual life. But what they care is how what's happening impacts the business, which you just gave some great examples of some of the impacts that are publicly known and can really hurt the business. Now, what if you are the CEO or you're someone in the C-suite and you are not the person who's doing the bullying, but you see that this is happening and you see the fear and you see the ripples, what can be done from the top down that makes a real difference in these kinds of cases?
Kim Williams:So I think having the honest conversations and you you don't have to have a big conversation because where I see a lot of chief executives get stuck is they're they're saying, Oh, if I confront this really mean person, what if they throw up their hands and say, I'm out of here and it's gonna, you know, really affect the business. We'll have to lay off people or clients will go or any of those types of things. One, I mean, ideally, there should never be a single point of failure to begin with.
Manya Chylinski:Yes.
Kim Williams:And so um, regardless of that behavior, I mean, we the the opposite is true. You could have like a dream employee who is so valuable to the business that also could walk away at any point. They could be poached for being so awesome, they could win the lottery. There could be a lot of reasons why they would go and it would equally leave a hole. So I think it's really important to be thinking about, you know, structure and training up, building in other folks, you know, looking at other ways to fill a potential gap or to kind of um diminish any impact ahead of time and be thinking about that long term. But I also think a lot of times people get stuck around this idea of one big, scary conversation. And you can actually have a lot of small conversations that acknowledge the problem and start just simply catching things in the moment. Hey, Jane, you know, I noticed you were kind of tough on her in that meeting. I'd like to look at that. We need to have a conversation here. And again, emotionally flat, that's always the most important thing. Because if you keep the temperature down, it tends to keep the temperature down for other folks. So things don't have to escalate, but you're calling it out. You're saying, I see it, I don't like it, and we need to address it. And at the very least, start engaging in that and then documenting as well, so that if you are afraid of that person doing something to hurt your reputation, trying to sue you or do something really nasty, that you've built up this. I have been engaging, I have been taking this responsibility. And again, which is also really important because if an employee ends up suing you, you're gonna want that to protect your yourself too.
Manya Chylinski:Right. That documentation piece is so important. And but often it's you're documenting after the fact. It's you don't have an email necessarily that this person is saying something awful, but it's been in person, and now you need to go and sit and write it down, as difficult as that is to do in the moment. And I appreciate your talking about the small steps, that it doesn't have to be this one big conversation. At some point it may become that, but it's the it's the reminders. And it's so true of so many things, right? It just if you consistently do it, that's often better than exercise every day versus exercising for five hours on Sunday, right?
Kim Williams:Before your beach vacation, yes.
Manya Chylinski:Exactly. Exactly. Um okay, that's so interesting. As you were talking earlier, I was thinking about there's a quote and I'm not gonna get it right, and I don't remember who said it. So that's great. But it was essentially stand up and speak your truth, even if your voice is shaking.
Kim Williams:I love it.
Manya Chylinski:And I've had times when, like you said, you pressed send right after you drove out of the parking lot. I've had times where my voice was shaking and I might even have been crying, but I said the thing I needed to say. And that's brave. That's really brave. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's hard. You want to acknowledge that that it's it's very your whole body is saying, there's danger in you saying this, or there's danger in you sending this email because it's gonna wake the bear, but you do it anyway. I'm and I'm thinking as we're talking of the Me Too movement, which is an anti-workplace bullying movement. And, you know, I appreciate that there's more attention to it. How do you feel we're doing? Are we better? Are we getting this?
Kim Williams:Um, I one thing that I I am encouraged by that I like a lot is I went through my situation, you know, five years or so ago. And when I first started talking about workplace abuse, nobody was talking about it. Now my LinkedIn feed is full of people giving very specific things, showing, you know, that vulnerability. Here's how my company betrayed me, here's how they stepped on me, here's how they harmed me, here's how they did all these things, here's how they humiliated me, destroyed my career. And it's getting thousands of in likes and engagements. And so I think we've made a giant step forward with regards to shame. I think that that really locked a lot of people from just talking about it, very similar to Me Too movement. Like, I'm not going to be believed, I'll be punished if I talk about this. So I'm really encouraged by people finding their voice in all of this. And so for me, right now, like my big focus is on how do we translate that into action. And so I spent a lot of time working to try and pass the Workplace Psychological Safety Act. And so I'm working with DC City Council members. I've, you know, we've got uh folks as part of the in-workplace abuse effort that are active in 25 states working with different lawmakers, uh, roughly 50 people a day uh log in and send a note to lawmakers. I think we've covered 10% of all legislators in the US have heard from constituents saying, I care about this. And it's really just an accountability tool. So if you're, you know, your company knows that you've been bullied and they ignored it, that there's some accountability there. It's a recognition of that real harm. And it's not to like trigger billions of lawsuits or anything like that, but without it, in the absence of that, you're asking companies to police themselves and we already know they're not. Hopefully, this will strongly encourage them to take some of these complaints seriously.
Manya Chylinski:Right. Can you talk a little bit more about what is the Workplace Psychological Safety Act and what are the specifics? What is it asking?
Kim Williams:Yeah. So basically what it's doing is it's looking at all the civil rights laws that exist now that protect people based on protective characteristics like race, ethnicity, gender. And so right now, if you look, if you go to the EOC website and you look at harassment, it gives you a lot of really clear detail. Like, you know, it talks about like someone screaming at you, being isolated in ways that impact your ability to do your job. And so it leans on that reasonable person standard, acts and behaviors anyone would find threatening, humiliating, hostile. So that's a description of really awful behavior. But the way the laws work now, you have to prove that they did it because of your race or their gender.
Manya Chylinski:Okay.
Kim Williams:And it's deeply problematic because uh the courts going back to the 80s have really put the burden of proof on employees to show intent, which is insane because that requires you to read someone's mind. So, like, unless that person is dumb enough to say, I'm bullying you because you're a woman, mana, you know, like you don't have anything and you need to get it in writing and you know, or have it like recorded. And so it's wildly difficult to do. And so the whole point of Workplace Psychological Safety Act is to decouple these two things and to say, this is bad all by itself. And it's easier to document the harm. Your doctor can do that, a therapist can do that. All there's structure around all of that, and so it gets us out of that space where you're having to read minds, having to prove intent, and say, This harm happened and it's no different than physical harm. If I have a slip and fall at work, you have to compensate me. You know, the government has taken ownership of that to say that you need to make someone whole, and the same would apply for psychological abuse.
Manya Chylinski:So interesting. I never realized that you would in, well, as it exists still now, that you have to prove intent because that's a really high bar and essentially makes it as if we're saying, yes, we're protecting you, but then whispering to the side, ha ha, not really.
Kim Williams:Yeah. And that's fundamentally how so much of HR is built. All of it, from like investigations to complaint process, like 100% of it is built to reduce liability. It's written by lawyers who work for companies. And a lot of times, like these are the back-end compromises made with lawmakers. They want to pass a law, they're worried about how the business community might perceive it. And so they water things down, or they they build in loopholes or they build in workarounds uh from there.
Manya Chylinski:Yes. You know, I understand a business exists to make money for the owners, the shareholders, or what have you. And that there are certain things that need to be done in order to make that happen. I remain disappointed at the number of ways it seems organizations, and I'm not going to call out any particular people, but maybe lawmakers and organizations work to say, but can we please abuse the people that work for us?
Kim Williams:And that is effectively what they're saying. And they hide behind certain phrases like, oh, there'll be too many frivolous claims, which is exactly what they said with me too. You know, women make it up. And so this can't be real. And, you know, it took like a social moment where millions of people came forward and said, No, I do deal with this. And some incredibly brave women who also came forward up against some really powerful men where we finally saw some accountability. And I do think workplace abuse and bullying is going to be an extension of that Me Too movement. I think we are going to see kind of another massive wave of social change uh around this because right now so many people are hurting and people are breaking under that.
Manya Chylinski:Yes. I hope this is the next movement because I've seen it in others, I've experienced it. I know the incredible toll it takes. And I am tired of hearing the, well, you just need to be resilient or you just need to do some self-care.
Kim Williams:Yeah. Or even burnout is like the you know, such an absurd cop-out around this. Like, we're, oh, our employees are burned out. I'm like, well, they're burned out because they're working 17 hours a day. They're burned out because they're like, like, like you're completely disconnected from the source of the burnout. But then we're gonna offer you EAP program where you can get three visits and then pay for the rest on your own.
Manya Chylinski:Right, exactly. Yeah. I can't think of any specific organizations to name, but shout out to those who do care about your employees and are have reduced burnout and are doing all of the the right things.
Kim Williams:And there are a lot. Over 200 organizations have co-signed onto the Workplace Psychological Safety Act saying that's great. That they care. And I hope you will too.
Manya Chylinski:Um, so yeah. Yeah, and we're gonna put a link to that in the show notes so thank you. And we're getting close to the end of our time. So you've already touched a little bit on this, but I'm curious what is giving you hope right now?
Kim Williams:My daughter's generation. So I have a 17-year-old. Um, and so I'm looking at Gen Z and even millennials to a fair degree. I'm a Gen Xer, way older, and I kind of grew up at a time where you just took abuse. Like you didn't even question it. And so, and now I see these amazing kids coming up, and they're like, Yeah, that's stupid. And they're right, you know, so like they're demanding more. And um, kudos to them. Like, you know, I I think um they're really kind of uh changing a lot of the rules of the game. And when I look at those who are coming out there with the really creative solutions, the ways to automate documentation, all these things that are really going to address our real social ills are coming from these young folks. And so I'm excited about them.
Manya Chylinski:Yes, I am too. Thank you for reminding me of that. Because I we've got so many different generations in the workforce right now. And maybe it's the same number we've always had in the workforce, but it just feels like lots of different viewpoints coming from the way that we grew up and our experiences. So it's good, it's good to see that kind of change. And as we wrap up, can you please share with listeners a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Kim Williams:Absolutely. So I, you know, have spent more years in HR than I care to admit. I've worked in the public sector and the private sector, but I recently just started the Fairpath project because I wanted to create a home for people who've been bullied at work that covers the entire universe of support. Right now, you know, a lot of times when people are trying to file a complaint against an employer, they'll be horrified to learn that it's not unlawful. But there are paths there that don't just involve changing your job. Because if we all just change our jobs, it's not going to fix anything. And over 50 million US workers have been affected by workplace bullying. And so really trying to give people access to tools and support and cover to navigate things that are really actionable. Um, so it's not just telling you to get a hobby and just uh figure out how to endure this. Um, but that's yeah, my love and my passion and so grateful for you um for letting me talk about that today.
Manya Chylinski:Yeah, absolutely. I've really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you so much for sharing today.
Kim Williams:All right, thank you.
Manya Chylinski:And thank you to our listeners for checking out this episode, and we will catch you next time.
