It turns out that 'Jekyll and Hyde' type bosses who use both good and evil faces cause great damage to employees
Many people may have encountered a boss who yells at employees or behaves in a way that makes people uncomfortable, and then the next day, he or she suddenly becomes a very kind person. This shows that bosses who think they can make up for their bad behavior by being kind cause more psychological damage to employees than bosses who always behave badly.
Jekyll and Hyde leadership: Examining the direct and vicarious experiences of abusive and ethical leadership through a justice variability lens.
'Jekyll and Hyde' leaders do lasting damage, new study shows
Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology classified verbal abuse and angry behavior as 'abusive leadership' and good behavior as 'ethical leadership,' and investigated how these two different patterns affect employees.
Previous research has shown that abusive leadership can have a serious psychological impact on employees, but it was unclear what impact a boss who alternates between abusive and ethical leadership has.
The researchers surveyed more than 650 full-time employees based in the US and Europe and found that when a manager alternates between abusive and ethical leadership, it has a stronger negative impact than a manager who is consistently abusive.
According to researchers, bosses who alternate between personalities erode employee trust, lowering morale and performance, and even if they do something good, it doesn't magically erase the effects of previous bad behavior.
'Employees are constantly guessing whether they'll have a good or bad boss, which can leave them mentally exhausted, demotivated and underperforming,' said lead researcher Haoyin Xu. 'Even if the boss apologizes for yesterday's behavior, in some situations it can make things worse.'
'To combat Jekyll and Hyde leadership, organisations should keep a close eye on what's going on within their company, listen to employees who voice their concerns, and hold leaders accountable for sporadic bad behaviour,' says Xu. 'It's also worth considering anger management coaching for leaders who show signs of instability. By improving leaders' ability to control their own anger and suppress their impulses, it may be possible to reduce or eliminate it,' he says.
In addition, existing research has shown that employees are more likely to learn from their leaders' bad behavior than their good behavior, so correcting leaders' bad behavior early is also important for maintaining a healthy internal environment.
'It has been suggested that abusive leadership can be contagious, and that a leader's volatility may encourage volatility in others,' said Xu. 'In future studies, we would like to explore how employees respond to and learn from Jekyll-and-Hyde leadership, and how regularly engaging in abusive behavior by a leader affects individual and team behavior.'
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