By Alessandra Alonso.  The accusation of staff bullying by the Prime Minister may have now subsided, but what has mostly surprised me in the last couple of weeks is the sheer number of people discussing their own experience of bullying in the office, particularly amongst those working in the City. This is surprising because many would say bullying was a thing of the past. Those of us who are old enough will remember how in the 1980's bullish environment tough managers/traders would bully their way through to fame and fortune...as brilliantly portraid in the film 'Wall Street'by Michael Douglas.   But things appeared to have changed for the better in the last decade, partly due to regulation, partly due to generally greater awareness....or have they? The truth is, there will always be managers who view bullying as a 'management style' and use it to gain a reputation as the 'tough guy' who gets things done. I would argue however that getting people on board and empowering your staff is far more productive and results oriented than strong language and a dispondent attitude. We call it the 'manager as coach-mentor'.  In today’s fast changing world nobody is privy to all information required to make the most effective decisions. Knowledge is shared amongst a greater number of employees and some of them are becoming increasingly powerful due to the technical and highly specialized knowledge they hold. As a result, the power dynamic between managers and staff has shifted considerably and managers need their employees to share their knowledge and contribute to the strategic decison making process far more than a couple od decades ago. Forward looking managers understand that and develop mentoring/coaching/facilitating skills to engage and develop their staff and to ensure they empower them to fulfill their potential. By so doing they are able to elicit better responses, encourage a pro-active mindset and ultimately achieve better decision making by tapping into the whole team’s creative skills, innovation and expertise.  This does not mean abdicating responsibilities or lowering expectations. On the contrary, a manager who behaves as a coach-mentor will help employees focus on what really matters and on which (alternative) resources are available to them in order to address an issue/problem with a given time frame. When the process is embedded, employees will feel they have the power to resolve matters and will seek feedback rather than the continuous support of their managers. Ultimately, coach-mentoring staff will free up the manager's time so that he/she can get on with the bigger task... and whether this is an election campaign or reporting to the City about year-end results, time must be the one thing all managers could do with!