Supervisors' abuse, regardless of intent, can make employees behave poorly

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-10/sfsu-sar100214.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 8-Oct-2014

Contact: Anthony Lazarus
San Francisco State University
Supervisors' abuse, regardless of intent, can make employees behave poorly
So-called motivational abuse is seen as a violation and leads to behavioral backlash

Employees who are verbally abused by supervisors are more likely to "act out" at work, doing everything from taking a too-long lunch break to stealing, according to a new study led by a San Francisco State University organizational psychologist.

Even if the abuse is meant to be motivational -- like when a football coach berates his team or a drill sergeant shames her cadets -- the abused employees are still more likely to engage in counter-productive work behaviors, said Kevin Eschleman, assistant professor of psychology at SF State.

The fallout from this abuse is not limited to the supervisor and employee and can in fact affect an entire company if it leads to lost work time or theft, Eschleman warned. "We didn't just focus on how these workers felt or whether they started to dislike their jobs more. We looked at consequences that actually affect the bottom line of an organization," he said.

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The researchers found that employees aim these counterproductive behaviors both at the supervisors and at the organization as a whole. "Supervisors are often the face of a company, and so their behavior really kind of implies the company's values," Eschleman explained. "So it's not just that they would target the person who's treating them poorly or abusively, but that they're going to target the organization that's allowing that to happen."

Although abused employees were more likely to engage in such behaviors, Eschleman said it is not clear why the workers act out. "We used to think it must be retaliation, but I think more recently researchers and organizations have begun to recognize that it is not always done with ill intent," he added. "It could be more of a release or venting, and I think it is a form of coping sometimes."

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