Stan was a bad boss, and he was my dad’s boss. I knew there was something off about Stan, though I was only four or five years old when I met him. Stan was tall, thick-bodied and balding — normal-looking, for an adult. But when Stan smiled he had a shark’s grin, and he glided into our living room like a Great White looking for something new to chomp.
Stan peered down at me from where he drifted near our couch, and teased me about something I can’t quite remember — either my toys or my age. My youthful, nervous response amused him, and he flashed his toothy grin. Stan teased me again, and turned every word I said around (all in good fun). I felt confused and embarrassed by the not-so-nice tone of his attention. Why did he tease me? Did I have to be nice to him? My dad, who stood nearby, smiled and shook his head, and didn’t seem inclined or able to stop Stan’s teasing.
Stan liked my dad, which meant that he escaped most of Stan’s bad-boss behavior, or so my dad later said. Stan reminded me of my grandpa, who was also blunt, worldly, and authoritative. In my small voice I told Stan that he was lucky my grandpa wasn’t there to defend me, which amused Stan further. I wished that my dad hadn’t brought Stan home for a visit. Stan made me feel anxious, targeted, and full of self-doubt. My heart thudded as warmth crept up my cheeks.
The Connection Between a Bad Boss and Your Heart
It’s not difficult to imagine a connection between a bad boss, an employee’s anxious heart, and a negative outcome, but Swedish researchers from the Stress Institute at Stockholm University sought definitive evidence. To accomplish this, the researchers conducted a 10 year study of over 3,000 men in average workplaces. First, the study’s participants, aged 19 to 70 years old, underwent heart-health checks between 1992 and 1995. Then the researchers matched these men with hospital reports of heart disease and death for the next eight years, to 2003. During the monitoring period, 74 participants experienced instances of fatal and non-fatal heart attacks, angina, or death from heart disease.
Bad bosses increased the participants’ risk of heart disease by 25%. The effect appeared to worsen over time — the longer a participant worked for a bad boss, the more potent the negative influence. A participant who worked for a bad boss for more than four years had a 64% higher risk of heart disease. This influence affected participants equally despite lifestyle factors, social status, or income.
How Do You Define a Bad Boss?
Researchers used a questionnaire with the following statements to measure the caliber of participants’ bosses. If a participant answered all the statements in the negative, the study’s findings indicated that the participant was at an increased risk of heart disease from working for a bad boss.
- My boss gives me the information I need.
- My boss is good at pushing through and carrying out changes.
- My boss explains goals for our work so that I understand what they mean for my particular part of the task.
- I have sufficient power in relation to my responsibilities.
- I am praised by my boss if I have done something good.
In my personal experience with bad bosses, their negative behaviors mirrored several, if not all, items on the above list. The most significant bad-boss behaviors I’ve endured include: a reluctance to be a decisive leader, an attitude of dismissal, substance addiction, a lack of emotional control, and the use of fear as a means to motivate. In each instance, I felt helpless to stop what was happening, and resolved to either leave, or endure.
If you choose to endure a bad boss, you have two options, as far as I can tell: suffer in silence, or say something to your boss or to another person in your company with the power to implement change. I admit that, time and again, I opted to suffer in silence though I knew it was unlikely that my bad bosses would improve, or “see the light,” on their own. But I was too scared to confront their bad behavior head-on. If you work in an environment that supports employee-feedback, I encourage you to seriously consider that option.
Our Bad Boss and Our Ancient Brain
What’s the secret behind why a bad boss can harm our health? I think it’s simple. In short, when we’re confronted by a volatile boss with the power to terminate us, our ancient brains register them as predators, and we react accordingly. The boss becomes the saber-toothed cat rustling the tall grasses, and eons ago, our instinctual wariness saved us from this threat. Back then, we could run away, and both escape and expend the stress-energy. Today, we’re less likely to run. Our modern brain reasons that there’s no real immediate danger to life and limb, (and we have bills to pay). So, we sit at our desks and marinate in our stress.
The Swedish researchers missed something important in their study, I believe: Did the bad bosses also fall victim to various forms of heart disease at higher rates than the average person? My reason for this question stems from the idea that negative behavior, or mistreatment of others, also affects the perpetrator.
My dad inferred that Stan was belittling, short-tempered, and unapologetic. Stan was a terrible boss, my dad said. Nevertheless, my dad appeared visibly disturbed the day he told me Stan had died of a sudden heart attack, and I also felt saddened by the news. I had developed a soft spot for Stan, despite the tone of our first meeting. A short time after I met Stan, he bought me a gold-heart locket and gave it to my dad as a gift. My dad put a picture of himself and my mom in the locket, and I still have the locket today. This random act of kindness from Stan always confused me, since he was better known for his unkind behavior. Perhaps the gift was his attempt to make amends.
Studies on longevity support the notion that caring for others, and less individualistic behavior, add years to life. To me, Stan’s story instructs on multiple levels within these, and the Swedish study’s, findings. If you behave unkindly at work, occasional kind acts will not neutralize constant negativity. We carry our hearts with us wherever we go — in meetings and performance reviews, in every interaction with our employees and co-workers, and throughout our careers. In the end, our heart’s conditioning always wins.
I encourage you to examine your treatment of others at work. You may not be a bad boss, but if you see room for growth in the way you interact with your co-workers, you stand to benefit as much as they do from improvements. If you work for a bad boss, the options of enduring or leaving do not address the potential damage happening to you now. The only way to do that is to say something to someone capable of helping the situation. This is by far the scariest option, and the outcomes are uncertain. I have not felt capable of this in the past. But if I think about my heart’s health, and those who depend on me, I feel more capable of speaking up for myself in the future.