The Fallout of Abusive Supervision

“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their jobs done.”
Peter Drucker

There is pretty solid research suggesting that working for a competent jerk might not only create a psychologically unhealthy climate for talent engagement, productivity and retention but it might also be harmful to your personal and family health.
A solid meta-analysis of studies along these lines showed two significant outcomes ((Harter, Schmidt & Hayes. (2002). Business unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement and business outcomes: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 268-279)).

• The personalities of leaders directly and significantly influence employee satisfaction and job performance
• When employee satisfaction is high, positive business outcomes result

Emotional Contagion of Bosses

A recent set of studies by Chi and colleagues also found that the moods of bosses play a key role in important business outcomes ((Chi, N.W., Chung, Y.-Y., & Tsai, W.-C. (2011). How do happy leaders enhance team success? The mediating roles of transformational leadership, group affective tone, and team processes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 64, 1421–1454)).

The researcher’s sample consisted of 86 leaders and 365 team members from 85 retail sales teams in five different Taiwanese insurance firms that differed in size, market share, and assets. Measures of employee mood, team performance and leader’s transformational leadership behavior and emotions were collected. Positive moods in leaders were significantly associated with transformational leadership style of the boss and this directly impacted team sales performance, employee satisfaction and team morale.

So, it appears both the behavior of bosses and their emotional demeanor has a dramatic impact on individual and team performance and well-being.

The Fallout of Abusive Supervisors on Families and Partners

A new study has shed some light on talent’s experience of abusive supervision and how it impacts both the employee and his/her partner at home ((Carlson, D.  et al., (2011).  The fallout from abusive supervision: An examination of the subordinates and their partners.  Personnel Psychology, 64, 937-961)).

Using a matched set of 280 employees and their partners, the study found that abusive supervision contributes significantly to work-to-family conflict and tension with one’s partner at home.  Additionally, this caused the employee to report decreased family satisfaction through the experience of family tension.

This study validates the “line of sight” and link between working for a competent jerk and the impact they have on employee’s experiences outside the work environment.  This study is one of the first to really suggest that supervision’s effects extend beyond the workplace.

The base rate of supervisory incompetency might be anywhere from 30% to 75% based on published research and we know that over 50 percent of employees in any given organization report that the worst aspect of their job is their immediate boss ((Hogan, R. & Kaiser, R. (2005).  What we know about leadership. Review of General Psychology, 9, 169-180)).

It appears that minimally, incompetence in leaders is a workplace reality.

Taken together, these studies suggest that organizations should continue to do a better job in selecting leaders with emotional intelligence (particularly in organizations that service customers, patients and the public) and to be more vigilant to constructively “vote off the island” the ones that create havoc for employees (and ultimately their family relations and satisfaction)…Be well…

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)