研究：坏老板会让员工也变坏

研究发现，坏老板的粗暴会传染他人，甚至让一整个团队的人都变得恶毒。

研究人员指出，冲着员工吼叫、向员工发送侮辱邮件的老板不仅会影响员工的态度和行为，还会让团队里的成员都用同样敌意的方式对待彼此。

坏老板伤害的不仅是个体员工，更糟的是，他会营造出一个让大家都备受煎熬的工作氛围。

此外，直接遭受老板虐待的员工会缺少自我价值感，对团队的贡献也会变少。

Bosses who shout and send demeaning emails to employees can cause conflict throughout their team, researchers have claimed.

They say the abuse is 'toxic' and can spread through the workplace.

This leads to everybody suffering, they concluded.

The Michigan State University study, conducted in China and the United States, suggests the toxic effect of nonphysical abuse by a boss is much broader than believed.

Published online in the Journal of Applied Psychology, author Crystal Farh said supervisors who belittle and ridicule workers not only negatively affect those workers' attitudes and behaviors, but also cause team members to act in a similar hostile manner toward one another.

'That's the most disturbing finding because it's not just about individual victims now, it's about creating a context where everybody suffers, regardless of whether you were individually abused or not,' she said.

Farh, assistant professor of management in MSU's Broad College of Business, said the findings could likely be explained by social learning theory, in which people learn and then model behavior based on observing others, in this case the boss.

Previous research has shown that workers emulate supervisors' positive behaviors, she said, so it only makes sense they would follow negative behaviors as well.

For the study, Farh and Zhijun Chen from the University of Western Australia studied 51 teams of employees from 10 firms in China.

Average team size was about six workers and the teams performed a variety of functions including customer service, technical support and research and development.

The study looked at nonphysical abuse such as verbal mistreatment and demeaning emails. Employees who directly experienced such abuse felt devalued and contributed less to the team.

At the same time, the entire team 'descended into conflicts,' Farh said, which also reduced worker contributions.

'Teams characterized by relationship conflict,' Farh said, 'are hostile toward other members, mistreat them, speak to them rudely and experience negative emotions toward them.'

The study was replicated in a controlled laboratory setting in the United States, with nearly 300 people participating.

The findings have implications for companies faced with rehabilitating a team of employees following abusive supervision.

In the past, companies may have simply targeted abused employees with efforts to restore their self-esteem. While that's still important, Farh said, efforts should also be made to fix the team's interpersonal relationships by re-establishing trust and harmony.