BUSINESS PSYCHOLOGYhad witnessed either the sexual harassment of female staff, or uncivil,
rude or condescending behaviour towards them, tended to report lower
psychological wellbeing and job satisfaction. In turn, lower psychological
wellbeing was associated with greater burn-out and increased thoughts
about quitting. Miner-Rubino and Cortina surmised that these negative
effects could arise from feeling that one is working for an unjust organi-
zation, and by feelings of empathy or fear.
Leadership
“Leaders are dealers in hope,” said Napoleon Bonaparte, and indeed a key
leadership role is to provide staff with a vision for where their organi-
zation is headed and what its goals and values are. Just as importantly,
people want their leaders to have integrity and to refrain from abusing
their power, for example by displaying favouritism. The best leaders also
make the right decisions at the right times and are competent – that is,
they’ve demonstrated their talent for whatever it is that the organiza-
tion does, be it selling, publishing, teaching or whatever. It’s a tall order.
According to a 2005 paper by Robert Hogan and colleagues, countless
surveys show that 65 to 75 percent of employees think the worst thing
about their job is their immediate boss.
Disturbingly, there’s some evidence that the kind of character traits
that suit leadership overlap with those found in psychopaths. In a 2005
study, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at the University of Surrey
found that a sample of senior British managers and chief executives
averaged higher scores on self-reported measures of histrionic, narcis-
sistic and compulsive personality than did two samples of former and
current patients at Broadmoor, the high-security psychiatric hospital!
These personality dimensions reflect characteristics such as superfi-
cial charm, perfectionism, and a lack of empathy. However, unlike the
Broadmoor patients, the business managers scored significantly lower
on measures of aggression, impulsivity and mistrust.
The worst kinds of leaders are bullies. Preliminary research suggests
that this behaviour can emerge when managers doubt their own compe-
tence. In 2009, Nathanael Fast at Marshall School of Business published
results from a survey of ninety employees and found particularly high
rates of self-reported aggression in workers who claimed to be in posi-
tions of power and who also described themselves as chronic worriers
about what other people thought of them. A second study with 98
participants further showed that those who were primed to think about a