A new study has found it’s not just sexist men holding women back in the workplace – but other women, with more than two-thirds reporting they feel bullied by female colleagues in the workplace.

The research, published in the journal of Development and Learning Organizations, reports 70 percent of female executives feel they have been bullied by women trying to block their professional ambitions, The Sunday Times reports.

“Queen Bee Syndrome” occurs when women “use their social intelligence to manipulate relationships or damage colleagues’ reputations,” and can be the “biggest hindrance to women advancing in the workplace,” the study found.

“Queen Bee mischief manifests in ways that can have lasting negative effects on individual careers and entire organizations,” writes London-based consultant and study founder Cecilia Harvey, who was motivated to conduct the research – surveying 100 female executives – after experiencing such workplace bullying herself.

“Queen bees are women [who] treat colleagues in a demoralizing, undermining, or bullying manner. They are adult versions of the mean girls from school.”

“[They] often prevent other talented, up-and-coming women from advancing in the workplace,” she continues, citing figures suggesting 58 percent of bullies in the workplace are female, who choose other women as their victims almost 90 percent of the time.

This type of behavior can have a negative effect on companies as a whole, resulting in reduced productivity, lower profitability and reduced rates of employee satisfaction. Harvey suggests management needs to develop a “more complex and realistic image of women” which recognizes their “aggressive tendencies” and “forms of victimization females are more likely to use.”

Harvey notes this type of bullish behavior should not be confused with strong and ambitious women but “adds a new layer of complexity to the old idea that it is sexist men who hold women back.”

“If organizations want to increase the number of women in senior roles then they need to take account of the Queen Bee problem.”