Working for a Bad Boss, Periodic Depression or Caring for Elderly Parents: What’s Worse?

“The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization.”

Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers 

It’s not surprising that research suggests unequivocally that leadership has tremendous impact on talent engagement, retention and productivity ((Nowack, K. (2006). Emotional intelligence: Leaders Make a Difference. HR Trends, 17, 40-42)).

Can leaders directly affect the health of their talent?  Can bosses actually kill?

Can Bad Bosses Cause you to be Absent?

Well, if causing talent to be absent due to illness, have higher blood pressure and more heart attacks is one criteria you are using, then the answer is likely yes!

A recent prospective study of 506 males and 3,570 females measured “perceived justice” (supervisory practices and positive leadership behaviors) and absenteeism due to illness and self-reported health ((Elovainio, M. et al., 2002. OrganizationalJustice: Evidence of a New PsychosocialPredictor of Health American Journal of Public Health, 92, 105-108)).

The rates of absence due to sickness among those perceiving low justice were 1.2 to 1.9 times higher than among those perceiving high justice. These associations remained significant even after statistical adjustment for behavioral risks, workload, job control, and social support.  Indeed, talent working for bosses who are perceived to be difficult directly leads to greater absenteeism.

Can Bad Bosses Contribute to Hypertension?

A recent study by Wagner and her colleagues recently showed how working for jerks can directly cause a significant  increase in blood pressure and how these leaders can be a potent workplace stressor which has a long term clinically significant impact on cardiovascular functioning ((Wagner, N., Feldman, G. & Hussy, T. (2003).  The effect of ambulatory blood pressure of working under favourably and unfavourably perceived supervisors.  Occupational Environmental Medicine, 60, 468-474)).

Their field study of female health care assistants explored blood pressure as it related to perceptions of supervisor interaction style.  Ambulatory blood pressure was measured every 30 minutes over a 12-hour period for three days.  Statistically significant SBP differences were observed for those working for supervisors perceived to be less favorable.  You can probably guess the direction of the blood pressure for those working for competent jerks sometimes called bosses.

Can Bad Bosses Kill You?

In one of the most startling studies longitudinal studies recently published, 6,442 male British civil servants were asked to rate supervisory practices (perceived justice at work) and were followed for cardiovascular events for 10 years.  Those employees who perceived their supervisors treated them fairly had 30% lower CHD incidents even after adjustment for other known coronary risk factors ((Kivimaki, M. et al., 2005.  Justice at Work and Reduced Risk of Coronary Heart Disease Among Employees: The Whitehall Study.  Archives of Internal Medicine, 165, 2245-2251)).  Indeed, bad bosses can actually kill their talent rather than laying the off.

Are Bad Bosses Worse than Annual Flooding or Getting Migraines 3 Times a Week?

In a recent study, patients with chronic illness (lung disease or diabetes) were asked to rank quality of life situations compared to nonpatients ((Lacey, H. et al. (2008).  Are they really happy?  Exploring scale recalibration in estimates of well-being.  Health Psychology, 27, 669-675)).  The researchers found that patiens not only assigned higher ratings of quality of life to their own disease than did nonpatients, but also rated it higher than a broad set of conditions (this is only interesting if you are a health psychologist!).  The reason I share this study with you is that the researchers had patients and nonpatients rate and rank 23 life situations in terms of what would be most to least challenging to deal with.

One of the “life conditions” was working for a boss you hate (others included: having a long and unpleasant commute, frequent nightmares, caring for elderly parents, bad marriage/relationship, child being born with a severe disability, severe allergies with weekly shots, havng a child die painlessly in a car accident, having neighbors frequently interrup sleep, aand having periodic depression).  Here are a few of the conditions and rankings relative to “working for a boss that you hate.”

It seems that “bad bosses” are slighly less traumatic than having your home flooded annually but much worse than caring for elderly patients, having bad nightmares or having a terrible commute home each day.

RANK/CONDITIONS

23. Quadraplegia

2. Child dies painlessly in car accident

9. Living in a high crime neighborhood

10. Migraines 3 times per week

11. Annual flooding of home

12. Working for a boss you hate

15. Infertility

17. Caring for an elderly parent

19. Frequent nightmares

20. Severe allergies, weekly shots

21. Long unpleasant commute

All together it seems that working for incompetent bosses can be a major life risk that can affect both our physical health and psychological well-being.

In today’s economic mess, sometimes we have to stay in a bad marriage rather than get divorced but it appears that this certainly will be at a cost to our overall health….Be well…..
[tags]emotional intelligence, competent jerks, stress, job burnout, leadership, heart disease, talent management, engagement, depression, coronary heart disease, hypertension, absenteeism, preceived justiceproductivity, bad bosses, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack[/tags]

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)