Bad Bosses Could Turn You Into a Great Leader, Research Says

A study conducted by the University of Central Florida (UCF) suggests that mistreatment and abuse by the superiors of an organisation do not lead to abusive behaviour by lower-level leaders. When offered leadership opportunities, workplace abuse victims are more likely to treat their own subordinates better by learning from their leaders’ bad behaviour.

UCF College of Business professors Shannon Taylor and Robert Folger, in collaboration with researchers at Suffolk University, Singapore Management University and University of Texas, recently published their findings in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Learn from the Bad

Taylor said that some employees who are abused by their leaders decide not to repeat that pattern with their own subordinates and become better leaders of their teams. “Our study sheds light on a silver lining of sorts for people who are subjected to abuse at work. Some managers who experience this abuse can reframe their experience so it doesn’t reflect their behavior and actually makes them better leaders,” he said.

The research found those who relied on their personal principles and integrity to defy their manager’s abusive method felt encourage to prevent it from moving beyond their leaders.

Through multiple studies over recent years, the researchers examined the differences in behaviour and attitude of supervisors who had been mistreated by superiors and those who had not. In turn, they then studied how each group treated their employees. They discovered that abused supervisors who purposefully distanced themselves from their manager expressed kindness and respect toward their own employees, regardless of the poor treatment they received from their own managers.

Encourage positive leadership style

“The lesson here isn’t to hire more abusive managers, of course, but to try to encourage people who have been abused, among other things, to say, ‘Look, I’m not like my boss,’” Taylor says. “You can take a stand—not just by reporting the bad behavior, but by actively rejecting this abusive leadership style.”

Taylor said he does not expect workplace abuse to go away, but he notes that organisations are learning and trying to solve the issue through training and maintaining positive workplace climates.

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