50 Bosses To Put In The Hall Of Fame Of The Most Aggravating Superiors

Discussing the best and the worst approaches superiors can take, Dr. Ronald Riggio told Bored Panda that exemplary leaders are relationship-oriented; they work hard to develop good relationships with their followers.

“This serves three purposes,” he suggested. “Firstly, it increases the employee’s commitment to shared goals; for example, performing at a high level. Secondly, it allows the leader to help the follower learn and develop and build their capacity to grow and develop their own leadership capacity. Lastly, it increases employee satisfaction and reduces stress (the greatest source of employee stress comes from difficult relationships at work, particularly poor relationships with supervisors or bosses).”

“The very best relationships between bosses and employees are built on mutual trust. If there are high levels of trust, the boss doesn’t have to micromanage, because the boss knows the worker will perform,” Dr. Ronald Riggio continued.

“On the employee side, it can allow the employee some freedom and autonomy to get the job done in the right way. The very best bosses try to understand and empathize with their employees. This allows them to better understand what motivates each employee, what their strengths and weaknesses are, so that the boss can better leverage those. The happiest and most productive employees tend to have bosses who support them, make them feel secure and appreciated, but a boss who can also challenge them to have them be motivated and perform at their best.”

The type of boss a person has can significantly influence their well-being, especially if the two have to communicate on a daily basis. Bearing in mind that many people work roughly 260 days out of the 365 comprising a year, daily communication with someone aggravating could be compared to a form of torture.

Unfortunately, quite a significant number of people reportedly suffer such a form of torture at work. According to Pew Research Center, 55% of employed individuals say their boss is excellent, or very good, at least; however, one-in-five would strongly disagree, as being only fair or poor, their bosses line up on the other end of the spectrum.

While one-in-five employees being unhappy with their bosses might not seem like a lot to some people, they might change their opinion after contemplating just how detrimental working for an awful superior is. A study of 3,100 men presented back in 2009 found that managers lacking certain skills can lead to the risk of suffering a heart attack increasing by 40%.

“This was the first time leadership was so clearly connected to physical health. I think, in general, bosses have a great impact on us. They are people who have power over our lives by defining the boundaries of our work, where we spend a lot of our time,” said the researcher behind the study, psychologist Anna Nyberg.

“If there is a bad boss-employee relationship it can disrupt performance at work,” Dr. Riggio pointed out. “At a basic level, employees may avoid going to the boss to get proper instruction or information about how to do their jobs and about goals.

“As mentioned, a poor relationship with one’s superior can lead to employee stress. Stressed employees may then call in sick—either because they are suffering from stress-related illnesses, or they simply want to avoid the bad situation at work—which leads to increased absenteeism. In extremes, a bad boss-worker relationship can cause an employee to leave altogether, looking for a better situation.”

Roughly 75% of workers in the US say that their boss is the worst and most stress-inducing part of their jobs, the World Economic Forum reports. For some employees, the situation is so dire, as much as 60% of them would rather choose a new boss than a pay rise.

According to the World Economic Forum, more than a quarter of individuals working for an awful boss quit as soon as they find a new job; roughly one-in-ten do even without having a new job lined up. (For those willing to keep changing workplaces until they find one with a tolerable boss, the possibility of remaining perpetually jobless is better than working for someone unbearable.)

Unfortunately, nearly one-in-six employed adults continue working for the person they likely find aggravating at best, which ought to have an effect on their performance, as well as their personal well-being.

As if having to deal with an annoying superior is not bad enough at a given moment, the negative effects of such encounters might last for as much as a decade to come.

A meta-analysis of 57 different studies found that the negative impact of dealing with a bad boss can linger for up to ten years. To make matters worse, such an impact outweighs the positive influence of a good boss, Inc reports.