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5 Bad Boss Characteristics

Bad-Boss-Characteristics

Is Your Bad Boss Killing You?

In the U.S., employees spend an average of 19.2 hours a week (including 6.2 weekend hours) worrying about their bad bosses. It turns out, a bad boss can affect your health and home life more than you might realize.

What a Bad Boss Looks Like

A bad boss can take many forms. The Bully boss uses threats either publicly or privately to get his way. The Micromanager hovers over employees and demands they do everything exactly her way. The Poor Communicator doesn’t give you any guidance or direction, so you have no idea what your deadlines or expectations are. The Saboteur takes credit for your good ideas and hard work, and then blames you if things go wrong.

They are similar to toddlers. As any parent of a toddler knows, toddlers are self-centered, stubborn, demanding, impulsive and interruptive. According to a trait-analysis study of white-color U.S. workers, so are bad bosses.

It’s most common for bad bosses to target members of their own sex. In fact, 68% of workplace bullying is same-gender harassment.

What it Does to You

We all know stress is unhealthy for us. But did you know that certain types of stress are worse? In fact, a study found that job stress is worse for your health than financial stress or family problems. And those health problems are very serious. Physical symptoms from stress are experienced by 77% of people, and 75% experience psychological problems.

Due to health care costs, stressed employees actually cost their employers an average of $600 more per person than their contented counterparts. According to a Swedish study, workers with bad managers were 60% more likely to suffer some sort of heart trauma, some of them fatal. On the other hand, employees with positive managers were 40% less likely to suffer from a heart trauma.

The stress from a bad boss can also pour over into your marriage. A study showed that when one spouse reports having issues with a boss at work, the other spouse is more likely to report marital problems at home.

What Should You Do?

A survey showed that 46% of American employees has a bad boss. But most of them stay put and deal with it. Only 11% quit right away and only another 27% quit as soon as they line up another job. If you do choose to stay, you don’t have to quietly endure the treatment. There are a few positive actions you can take such as standing up for yourself and discussing the problem in a professional way, getting clarification any time you receive poor communication and doing your best to separate your home life from your work life.

About The Author
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