Confronting Abuse at Work
If your New Year’s resolutions include better job performance, one essential ingredient may be your relationship with your boss. Recently researchers at the University of Haifa (Isreal) examined how employees cope with the stress of abusive treatment by a superior.
They found employees prefer to avoid direct communication even thought it would be the most effective tactic for their emotional wellbeing.
Subjects were asked to rate the frequency of experiencing abusive behavior by a supervisor including ridicule, invasion of privacy, rudeness and lying.
The study found that abusive treatment from a superior was most strongly associated with avoiding contact-disengaging from a supervisor as much as possible and seeking social support.
The researchers found that avoiding a supervisor actually contributed to more stress.
The irony of the study is that is shows that managers should be alert to signs of employee detachment. It might indicate that their own behavior is considered offensive to the employees.
Still the study stops short of recommending what steps managers might take to ameliorate the problem they are causing.
Tags: corporate executives, employee attitudes, harassment, management, organization man, workplace
