Bad Bosses Significantly Affect Employees

Society continues to recognize how meaningful, healthy relationships with our family, friends, and partners are for our overall happiness. But we often overlook or underestimate the effects of our relationships at work, especially with our bosses.

As the saying goes: People don’t leave companies; they leave managers. People don’t quit their jobs; they quit their bosses.”

Bad bosses cause a long list of problems for employees and create a toxic environment in the workplace. And when these managers and bosses are permitted to remain in place or promoted, productivity and morale can suffer.

“It is important to think not only about what we want from our leaders but whether their behaviors actually have an appreciable influence on our work experiences and productivity,” Emily Campion, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Management & Entrepreneurship at the University of Iowa, told Student Select in a recent interview.

“Both of these behaviors yield positive results: we tend to like our jobs more, like our leaders more, feel more motivated, and have better performance as a unit,” Campion continued. 

A PRN Newswire study found that 56% of American workers report having toxic managers. And an American Psychological Association survey found that 75% of Americans say their boss is the most stressful part of their workday.

One of the leading causes of workplace stress is bad managers. Dealing with a bad boss can lead to various poor health outcomes, both physical and mental, and workplace stress already spills over and impacts every aspect of life.

How Bad Bosses Heavily Impact Mental Health

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act and helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. 

Mental health is essential at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. But it’s important to remember that a person’s mental health can change over time, depending on many factors.

For example, mental health concerns are epidemic in the workplace.

In a February 2020 Korn Ferry survey of professionals, the vast majority (88%) stated that the stress level in their workplace is higher compared to 5 years ago, with 51% saying it is much higher.

Additionally, 90% of respondents said they’ve lost sleep due to work stressors, more than a third (34%) said stress has gotten so bad that they have called in sick, and 34% say they’ve had to quit due to the pressure of the job.

Respondents listed “bad bosses” as a primary workplace stressor, second only to a too-heavy workload.

“A bad boss and too heavy of a workload often go hand-in-hand,” Bryan Ackermann, Managing Partner at Korn Ferry Advance & Digitized Services, said in the study. “While it’s important to accomplish tasks and achieve organizational goals, it’s up to both the employee and their supervisor to manage workloads and focus on what will create the best outcomes, including eliminating non-effective ‘to-do’ tasks.”

In March 2022, an Express Employment Professionals survey found that 60% of companies increased their employees in the first half of the year primarily due to increased workloads (49%). 

Overall, a full-time relationship with your boss that isn’t working or is filled with conflict and resentment will inevitably have direct and dire consequences on your overall feelings of happiness, sense of security, and perception of self. 

Studies show that these constructs can decrease from 10% to 86% depending on daily interaction with a bad boss.

How Bad Bosses Impact Physical Health

Beyond mental health, bad boss relationships can wreak havoc on your physical state. When we find ourselves in conflict, our sympathetic nervous system is activated, and our bodies go into a natural fight-or-flight response.

A 2008 NIH study of 3,122 employees from Sweden found that those who work for toxic bosses were 60% more likely to suffer a stroke, heart attack, or other life-threatening cardiac condition. We can imagine that those numbers have greatly increased in the over 10 years since the study was published. 

Other studies show that people with bad bosses are more susceptible to chronic depression, stress, and anxiety, which increase the risk of a lowered immune system. Stress, anxiety, and emotional wellness have been topics of conversation in recent years, but physical aspects can be just as deadly.

The Stress Institute at Stockholm University discovered that the risk of angina, heart attack, and death increases when someone works under a toxic boss. Specifically, 3,100 men between 19 and 70 years old had their hearts checked between 1992 and 1995 and then had their hospital records studied up to 2003.

In the study, researchers found 74 cases of fatal and nonfatal heart attacks and bad bosses increased the risk of heart disease by 24%.

Additionally, staying in a toxic work environment can contribute to greater odds of cardiovascular disease risk factors, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

The smaller, more frequent sympathetic activations over time are worse for your health than the bigger issues. This harmful and chronic stress response will affect your stomach and digestion, blood and liver, reproductive organs, lungs, and skin. 

For example, you may develop gastroesophageal reflux disease or peptic ulcers, Type 2 diabetes, sexual dysfunction and infertility in men and women, asthma and any obstructive pulmonary disease, and worsening skin problems. 

Over just one year, medical costs can exceed $5,000 in treatment or medication per direct report- not counting long-term health problems. 

Regardless of what type of bad manager deflates the workforce and why, the result is the same: it frequently leads to stress, depression, and various mental illnesses.