Having a bad boss can make your work life a misery, but it can also make you sick, both physically and mentally, researchers say.
“The evidence is clear that the leadership qualities of ‘bad’ bosses over time exert a heavy toll on employees’ health,” says Jonathan D. Quick, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and a co-author of the book “Preventive Stress Management in Organizations.” “The evidence is also clear that despite the rationalizations some leaders may use to defend their stress-inducing, unsupportive style, such behavior by leaders does not contribute to improved individual performance or organizational productivity.”
Research has linked having a lousy boss to an increased risk of heart attack, Quick said. Chronic stress that can result when someone must deal daily with a bad boss has been linked to high blood pressure, sleep problems and anxiety and is also associated with several unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, excessive use of alcohol and overeating.
Difficult bosses can come in many forms, including hypercritical micromanagers, inept managers, bosses who push blame for problems onto others or hurl obscenities, and those who make unwanted sexual advances. But researchers say that whatever the type, when employees deal with a bad boss day in and day out, negative health effects often begin to pop up. One key study published in 2009 in Occupational & Environmental Medicine analyzed data on 3,122 men to see whether the leadership qualities of their managers were associated with a risk for fatal or nonfatal heart attack, angina and death due to heart disease. Men who rated their managers as good (essentially meaning considerate, and providing information, feedback and sufficient control to employees) had at least a 20 percent lower risk of developing heart disease over a 10-year period than those who rated their managers as poor on such attributes. Although the study did not prove causality, the association became stronger the longer the employee stayed at the same workplace and was independent of other factors such as smoking and exercise. Anna Nyberg, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University, says there’s an important takeaway from the research: “The longer you have worked at a workplace, the better or worse the situation becomes. So if you are working under a boss who stresses you in a destructive manner, and your possibilities or chances to change the situation are limited, you should try to change jobs as soon as possible.”
Probably anyone who has been in the workforce for any amount of time has had a bad boss. Many of us have had more than our fair share. A bad boss can hurt marriages, parenting, sex lives, social lives and give you physical illnesses. What can people do about a bad boss if they can’t easily change jobs? Sometimes bad bosses set up employees so they can’t move by giving them poor evaluations. Some jobs have grievance procedures. Other jobs leave employees at the mercy of unscrupulous bosses or just plain mean sons of bitches (or just bitches). What advice do you have for those dealing with a bad boss? Do you have your own story? Get it off your chest.
