Having a nasty boss is stressful enough – but having a boss who tries to make up for it the next day could be even worse, according to a new study.
Researchers from the Stevens Institute of Technology found that bosses cause more stress when they unpredictably lurch between good and bad behaviour.
Their study found that employees’ morale and performance dropped sharply when their bosses behaved erratically.
So-called ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ bosses who try to make up for their bad behaviour by acting nicely actually do more damage than those who are nasty all the time, according to the study.
Lead author Dr Haoying Xu says that: ‘Organizations tend to intervene when bosses are consistently abusive, but are more tolerant of leaders whose abusive behavior only shows through from time to time.
‘With this study, however, we’ve shown that intermittent bad behavior can actually be more toxic for organizations.’
The effect of this uncertainty is so strong that Dr Xu and his colleagues found it affected staff who weren’t even directly impacted.
Employees who saw their supervisor’s boss behave unpredictably were less confident in their work and had less faith in their manager’s capabilities.
Having a nasty boss is stressful enough – but having a boss who tries to make up for it the next day could be even worse, according to a new study (stock images)
Scientists say that having a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ boss could be more stressful than having a supervisor who is nasty all the time. Pictured: Fredric March in Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
As anyone who has had a tyrannical boss can attest, researchers have long known that a bad manager has a serious impact on employees’ well-being.
But not every boss is a full-time terror and some will switch between what the researchers call ‘ethical’ and ‘abusive’ styles of management.
While you might expect that a consistently abusive supervisor would be the worst thing for employee morale, this study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, found that this is not necessarily the case.
While Dr Xu saw that employees with abusive bosses had low morale and poor job performance, they also discovered that a boss could make things worse by trying to be nice.
When bosses tried to make up for previous abusive behaviours with a bout of ethical management, this actually made their employees more stressed.
Dr Xu says: ‘We already know that abusive leadership takes a serious toll on workers—but now we’re seeing that leaders who swing back and forth between abusive and ethical leadership do even more damage to employees.
‘It turns out that reverting to an ethical leadership style doesn’t magically erase the impact of prior bad behavior—and in some circumstances, it can actually make things worse.’
The likely cause of this damage is the uncertainty that Jekyll and Hyde bosses create with their volatile shifts in style.
Bosses who tried to make up for past bad behaviour with bouts of ethical management left their employees uncertain and stressed, leading to emotional exhaustion (stock image)
With a consistently bad boss, employees at least know what to expect and can find ways to work around it.
But for a boss who can be vicious one day and friendly the next, workers have no way to prepare themselves.
Dr Xu says: ‘If you’re constantly guessing which boss will turn up—the good cop or the bad cop—then you wind up emotionally exhausted, demoralized, and unable to work to your full potential.’
Additionally, what this paper shows for the first time is that a Jekyll and Hyde boss doesn’t just affect a boss’s direct subordinates.
The researchers also found a range of indirect issues caused by having a Jekyll and Hyde boss in the company.
Employees who saw their supervisor’s boss behave unpredictably had higher levels of emotional exhaustion and worse job performance than those with consistent higher management.
To make matters worse, the researchers suggest that this kind of erratic behaviour could be contagious.
Since employees tend to pick up their manager’s worst habits, Dr Xu says that a boss’s volatility could foster volatility in others.
Consistently toxic bosses such as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (pictured) are bad – but volatile and inconsistent bosses are worse, according to the researchers
‘If that’s the case, then it would be another big reason for organizations to take Jekyll-and-Hyde leadership seriously,’ says Dr Xu.
A bad boss is more than just an annoyance – as studies have shown that poor management can have serious consequences for companies.
A 2023 study from the Chartered Management Institute found that one in three people had left jobs due to a bad work culture while half of those who say their bosses are ineffective plan to quit within the next year.
On the other hand, some negative interpersonal traits have been shown to have positive outcomes in the world of business.
For example, research from Aarhus University in Denmark found that companies with narcissistic CEOs tended to perform better – although this was only the case for female bosses.
But when it comes to dealing with Jekyll and Hyde bosses, the researchers suggest that the best solution is to take the psychological root of the problem.
Dr Xu says: ‘This kind of intermittent abusive leadership tends to be impulsive.
‘That means there’s scope to reduce or eliminate it by helping leaders to manage their tempers and improve their impulse control.’
