Stop Making Excuses for Toxic Bosses

Far too many people have worked for a boss who has bullied or belittled them. This behavior takes many forms: insulting direct reports in public, invading their privacy, or gossiping about them behind their backs. Toxic actions such as these contribute to not only employee dissatisfaction and stress, but even more harmful outcomes such as alcoholism, family conflict, and health complaints. Yet, abusive bosses continue to wreak havoc and leave destruction in their wake. Why, then, does it seem that organizations and employees put up with toxic bosses?

In a recent study published in Personnel Psychology, we examined one possibility: After a run-in with a toxic boss, the tendency of many people is to heed what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” and forgive the indiscretion, especially when the boss appears to be making amends for their uncivil behavior. For example, former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson was notoriously ruthless toward his staff, constantly berating them in public, calling for favors at all hours of the night, and throwing objects at them when they did not work as quickly as they wanted. George Reedy, a long-time aide of President Johnson, wrote in a memoir about how Johnson’s cruelty extended “even to people who had virtually walked the last mile for him.” However, it seemed that whenever Reedy considered resigning, Johnson would present “a lavish gift” or do something else that made it so Reedy “forgot his grievances” and kept working for Johnson. However, Johnson’s abusive behavior toward Reedy persisted — and even worsened — during the 15 years they worked together.

It may be that bosses, like Johnson, are not really trying to make nice with employees after an abusive tirade, but, rather, are attempting to fake nice in order to manipulate their social image without actually changing their behavior. In other words, some bosses are skilled at looking good after an episode, leading employees and higher ups to forgive and forget — until the next tirade occurs and the cycle continues. If this is true, employees and organizations may be unknowingly enabling toxic boss behavior by being too forgiving of it.

How Bosses Act After Abusing Employees

In our study, we examined this possibility using a daily survey approach; this enabled us to uncover the motives and behaviors of abusive bosses in “real time” with a sample of people that past studies argue have the keenest insight into those motives and behaviors: the bosses themselves. In particular, we surveyed 79 bosses that volunteered to participate in our study via an online platform. Their responses were anonymous so that they would be more candid about their abusive behaviors and feelings at work. These bosses — who worked across various organizations and industries, such as consulting, education, healthcare, and retail — were surveyed twice per day for 15 consecutive workdays across three weeks to understand how they felt and responded when they abused their subordinates. Specifically, each morning we asked supervisors about their abusive behaviors the day before by inquiring about whether they told their subordinates they were incompetent, invaded their subordinates’ privacy, or made negative comments about their subordinates to others the day before. At the same time, we asked the bosses how they felt their prior-day behaviors impacted their current moral and social standing. Finally, later that same day, we asked them how they subsequently behaved toward their subordinates throughout the day.

We found that when bosses reported having abused their employees, they viewed their social image as being damaged, with this effect being especially pronounced among those who reported at the outset of the study that it was important to them that they appear moral to their employees. In other words, among those bosses who were highly focused on having an image of adhering to a strict moral code, engaging in abusive behaviors, such as ridiculing employees, made them feel more concerned with their social image.

As a result, the offending bosses reported taking multiple steps to repair their social image. Specifically, they reported that they engaged in impression management behaviors, such as doing small favors for employees with the express purpose of getting employees to view them more favorably, while also engaging in self-promoting behaviors like highlighting how hard they work or showcasing past successes. However, these bosses did not admit to engaging in behaviors aimed at genuinely repairing the damage done by the prior-day abuse, such as offering a sincere apology.

Consequently, even though abusive bosses may appear on the surface to be considerate to their victims following one of their abusive episodes, the bosses in our study reported behavior that was instead a superficial attempt at impression management. As a result, toxic bosses were not likely to change their ways, mainly because their focus was on covering up their bad behavior through manipulative ingratiation and self-promotion behaviors, not on actually changing their toxic behaviors.

Stemming the Cycle of Abusive Leadership

In the end, our research offers a word of warning: by giving bosses a pass when they abuse employees but act nice afterwards, organizational leaders and employees end up reinforcing the cycle of mistreatment that pervades so many companies. Unfortunately, it appears from our research and that of others that toxic bosses don’t change as much as we would like them to — instead, the bad behavior tends to continue or, oftentimes, gets worse. Even when abusive bosses may appear genuinely repentant after a tirade, they usually have ulterior, self-interested motives. Our research shows that there is little organizational leaders can do to break the cycle of self-centered, manipulative, and uncivil behaviors, other than implementing zero-tolerance policies for toxic supervisory behavior and consistently adhering to those policies, even when bosses appear to strive to make up for their bad behaviors. Sanctions, rather than forgiveness, are important, especially since past research has indicated that sanctions curtail abusive behavior.

That said, a boss’s behavior can never be fully regulated by organizational policy; in the end, whether a boss fails to exhibit common decency and civil behavior to his employees is ultimately up to them. Sincere apologies and reconciliations on the part of the offending boss are the only sustainable way of regaining credibility and moving forward from a lapse in civil behavior. Further, engaging in these surface-level efforts to manipulate employees’ perceptions can be draining for supervisors; as such, acting genuinely is imperative. The best course of action for offending bosses is to be cognizant of their own motives and behaviors in the aftermath of an abusive outburst.

Some have recommended that bosses take time each day to reflect on their motives in order to stay motivated. Indeed, we urge the same type of reflection when it comes to behavioral lapses. If bosses take time each day to honestly appraise their own behavior and motives, and to carefully reflect on the impact of their behavior on their subordinates, they may be able to really make nice instead of fake nice in the wake of a transgression.