Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
Poor Health Can be
Caused by Bad Bosses
Thoughtless and incompetent managers
can turn workplaces stressful and this has
a negative impact on the health of employees
A Swedish research team has studied the health of 3,000 working men and found a strong link between the quality of their managers and the incidence of heart disease.
The results of their work have been published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Foul Tempered Managers
They yell, kick garbage cans, throw furniture, and behave like spoiled children; most people have encountered such bosses during their working lives. Some enjoy belittling their staff and bullying them.
The antics of even worse examples of toxic managers are revealed by harassed staff at websites such as bigbadboss.com:
- There’s the retail sales assistant who saw her boss take some merchandise and was told: “Look miss smarty pants, if anyone finds out that these [things] are missing I’ll say you took them. I’m your boss, so they’ll believe me.”
- A gay male, still in the closet, tells how his female boss keeps hitting on him.
- And, there are many bosses who take credit for any success a staff member has but is nowhere to be found if a project doesn’t work out too well.
Health-
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University have been looking
into how poor quality supervisors affect the well-
The research project followed men between 19 and 70 for almost a decade. The 3,000 people in the study were asked to rate the competency of their senior managers in areas such as communication and goal setting.
Reporting on the results of the study, BBC News (November 2008) wrote that, “The
staff who deemed their senior managers to be the least competent had a 25% higher
risk of a serious heart problem. And, those working for what was classed as a long
time -
These unhealthy outcomes affected everybody. It didn’t seem to matter whether the subject smoked, drank, did neither or what educational or income level they were in – the toxic boss had a negative impact on health.
Stress Results from Poor Quality Management
The U.K.’s Blood Pressure Association puts the heart problems down to stress. “One
reason put forward for this increase in heart disease risk,” says the Association
in an online commentary on the Swedish study, “is that employees can feel undervalued
and unsupported in their work. This produces stress that may cause people to make
unhealthy choices -
“To counter the negative effects of a bad boss and protect your health, the best advice is to keep active and follow a healthy diet. Both these choices will improve your mood and help keep your heart and blood pressure in good condition.”
Image credit
Bill Alldredge
Sources
“Bad Bosses May Damage your Heart.” BBC News, November 25, 2008.
“Having a Bad Boss is Bad for the Heart.” Bill Hendrick, WebMD Health News, November 24, 2008
“The Problem with Harper’s Government is Harper.”
Susan Riley, Ottawa Citizen, July 21, 2010.
© Canada and the World, October 2010
All rights reserved
PRIME MINISTERIAL MANAGEMENT
In a column that appeared in several Canadian newspapers in July 2010, Susan Riley wrote that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s management style in based on “bullying.”
In his 2010 book Harperland, Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin paints an unflattering portrait of a man who seeks control over everything around him, who is given to fits of temper, and who intimidates his staff.