The Problem When Managers Care Too Much

A study by Harvard Business Review found that managers who always help with employees' personal problems often experience increased distress, sadness and nervousness. 

Managers that care

Managers help with personal problems regularly at work. Studies have suggested that leaders in some industries spend up to 2.5 hours each week helping their employees with personal matters ranging from marriage issues to mental health to child care.

People prefer to approach their supervisors more often than they approach their other coworkers because they believe that it is the leader's responsibility to help with emotional problems at work.

How managers are affected

By responding to their employees' personal requests, these leaders' mood and performance at work are heavily affected. According to Harvard Business Review, they found that leaders' negative mood increased on days when they helped their employees with personal issues. 

This is likely because personal issues are often uncomfortable, sensitive, and even distressing. These issues create an emotional burden. When employees share personal hardships, their supervisors pick up on their negative emotions through emotional contagion. 

Since personal issues are non-work related, leaders may also find these help requests to be disruptive or inappropriate and therefore further upsetting. 

Managers can help with personal problems, but they must be careful about it.

But there is a positive finding. On days when leaders felt that their support with personal problems had a positive impact on the lives of their employees, their negative mood was less affected.

Experienced managers were not as distressed by the time they spent helping employees with personal problems compared to inexperienced managers. This may be because seasoned managers are likely to have health with many of these problems, and as a result, may have developed the skills and confidence to manage them properly.

What do the employees think?

According to the study, employees did not seem to value their manager's support on personal issues as much as on work-related problems. Whereas work-related helping improved employees' ratings of their leaders' work engagement that day at work, personal helping did not. 

On days when a manager helped with personal issues, their employees rated their level of work engagement lower despite the leader’s help with work-related issues.

This effect may be because most personal helping happens privately, leaving less time and capacity for managers to also provide high-quality and work-related help to other employees.

What should managers do?

Managers need to recognise that helping employees with personal problems may put them in a negative mood. It does not mean they should not help, but they need to know the potential impact on their performance and emotions. 

The impact may not be limited to work but could blend into their personal life as well. An inexperienced manager should be careful about agreeing to help with personal issues, especially if they have not yet developed the skills needed to manage the uncomfortable problems at work.

If a manager wishes to lessen the negative impact, they should ask if their help was beneficial to the employee. The knowledge that the manager helped may protect and improve their mood. 

For specifically distressing personal issues, it may be a good idea to refer struggling employees to professional counsellors in the company or outside, especially if the supervisor does not feel qualified to help.

It's not easy to be a manager that cares, and it is emotionally exhausting to help people with personal issues especially when the manager can barely keep up with their work responsibilities. Managers can help, but they need to choose the right time and method to do so.

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Source: Harvard Business Review

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