Examples of abuse of authority include:

• Unfair delegation of duties or request that an employee undertake personal services unrelated to their official duties;
• Excessive supervision and over-checking of a person’s work;
• (Mis)Use of power or personal authority to force an individual not to exercise her/his right to complain, or raise concerns, about potential breaches of standards of conduct  or ethical obligations;
• Regularly ‘putting down’ or singling out an individual and treating him/her differently, typically in a demeaning way;
• Regularly picking on an individual and/or group of people and making them the target of offensive language or gratuitous personal remarks, and/or offensive teasing;
• Regularly taunting, humiliating or embarrassing someone, or a group of people, especially in front of others;
• Forced or offensive or humiliating initiation rites or practical jokes, any or all of which may cause physical or psychological distress;
• Imposing sanctions or other forms of punishment without reasonable justification;
• Preventing an individual’s progress by intentionally blocking or interfering with promotion for unjustifiable reasons;
• Reacting to a minor problem or issue with the same severity as a major one;
• Inappropriately disclosing or threatening to disclose confidential information about an individual, whether relating to personal or professional matters;
• Changing the duties or responsibilities of employees without reasonable justification;
• Over-monitoring an employee with malicious intent, such as deliberately focusing on ‘tripping them up’;
• Manipulating the nature of the work to undermine the person being bullied, such as  by unfairly and unjustifiably overloading an employee with work, inappropriately  withholding information, or repeatedly setting meaningless or trivial tasks;
• Inconsistent management style where some individuals are unfairly favoured over others;
• Persistently and inappropriately finding fault with a person’s work and using this as  an excuse to humiliate the person rather than trying to improve performance;
• Constantly picking on a person when things go wrong even when he/she is not solely or primarily responsible for any perceived shortfall in performance;
• Persistently making negative attacks on personal or professional performance or  competence without good reason or legitimate authority;
• Persistently setting objectives with unreasonable or impossible deadlines or unachievable tasks;
• Asserting a position of intellectual superiority in an aggressive, abusive or offensive manner.

A Guide to Recognizing Sexual Harassment 

Sexual Harassment Online Resource Centre

REPORT SEXUAL HARASSMENT