Research Hit: How A Bad Boss Makes You A Worse Employee

Bad bosses lower engagement from those most motivated

Research hits give a short conversational overview of a recently published (or simply fascinating) piece of research.

Isn’t one of the definitions of a bad boss that they lower engagement of employees?

For sure, that is a key feature and one that we measure using the SCOAP-Profile. But there are many ways of being a bad boss. I have previously reviewed toxic leadership here with some reference tables and a surprising form of bad leadership.

But in this piece of research, published end of October, Ui Young Sun et al. of the Stevens Institute of Technology looked into how abusive leadership impacted “taking control” behaviours i.e. willingness to be proactive and drive things forward.

And what did they find?

Well, the results were a bit of a surprise.