He looked completely different from what I remember from our last meeting just a few weeks ago. He appeared pale and thinner and the glows in his eyes had dimmed. In other words, he looked a different person — not the man I had known for years, a man who was full of life and dreams just a few weeks ago.
The reason: He had switched his job. Although the new job was a breakthrough in his career, a move up the ladder, a whole new prospect for his future as a professional. Unfortunately, he was destined to come to work under one of the worst bosses around.
“He lacks trust in everything and everyone, it looks to me that he does not even trust himself,” my friend said describing his new boss. “He is so old school and dismissive, I do not think he ever heard about the words ‘thank you’ and ‘good job,’ he believes that authority is acquired through power, keeping information and showing the ‘tough face’ is like a religion to him.”
“I am now anxious most of the time, I lost my good nights sleep and I am always on the edge with my wife and kids, the job is creeping into to my life, taking it over,” he continued.
It is unfortunate that my friend and a lot of people have to bear with wrongly-chosen managers out there. Working for such people is not only bad for one’s career but it is also bad for one’s health. A number of studies have linked lousy managers to heart attacks, high blood pressure, sleep problems, anxiety and a number of unhealthy behaviors like smoking and overeating, according to an article published recently on the Washington Post.
“The evidence is clear that the leadership qualities of ‘bad’ bosses over time exert a heavy toll on employees’ health,” says Jonathan Quick, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Despite the huge advancements in the field of workplace psychology, some managers seem to be entirely ignorant, disconnected to some of the very basic concepts of employees engagement, productivity and work-life balance. Such lack of understanding of how a productive environment works goes deeper in societies where managers are chosen based on qualities that have nothing to do with leadership or strategic competencies, but on seniority and social relationships; the Saudi workplace, in general, is guilty of such tendencies.
“A more recent meta-analysis published in 2012 in the Journal of Applied Psychology looked at 279 studies to examine the associations between perceived unfairness and employee health; it found a link between unfairness and mental health complaints, such as depression and physical ailments, such as sleep problems, high blood pressure and being overweight,” reported the Post article.
The funny thing is that such bad bosses seem to be always unaware of the low productiveness and low morale amongst their employees. The tougher they get, the slower work crawls, care and enthusiasm flown out of the window a long time ago. Now imagine if the job requires direct customer contact!
The writer believes we can understand now why the whole concept of customer service is malfunctioning in the Saudi market.
“The evidence is also clear that despite the rationalizations some leaders may use to defend their stress-inducing, unsupportive style. Such a behavior by leaders does not contribute to improved individual performance or organizational productivity,” Quick told the Post. The advise the article gives is if working for such bosses, change your job, immediately, but if quitting is not an option, try to talk to other people whom you trust in the same organization, knowing that there are others who are going through the same reduces the stress.
“If there are people you trust within the workplace to talk to about the problem, for example, you may be reassured to learn that they are having similar conflicts with the same manager,” says Richard O’Connor, a psychotherapist in New York. Although changing jobs is always an option, I believe that the whole management and leadership culture in this part of the world needs to be refreshed, and in a way, revolutionized.
Those with leadership traits and competencies need to be nurtured and given the chance to grow and lead. The whole landscape of the market would change if true leaders replaced the lousy managers.
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@smaldosari
