When bosses go bad, colleagues go worse

By Dr. Erica Xu, Prof. Xu Huang & Prof. Ed Snape

Having an abusive boss is no fun especially when how they treat you can inspire co-workers to turn against you!

There is no English or Chinese equivalent for the German word “schadenfreude” but most of us – even if we are loath to admit it – have taken joy at the misfortune of someone we know. In a recent report¹, researchers tested whether people who experience “evil pleasure” after seeing a colleague being openly abused by their boss tend to emulate their superior by also harming that colleague.

As the Black Lives Matter protests demonstrated, how we react to injustice is a matter of perspective. Witnessing the same abuses, many empathise with victims while others are prone to blame them. The situation is even more complex at work, where people paid to work together also compete over money, promotions and perks. Known to cause a sustained psychological desire to outperform opponents, can workplace rivalry go too far?

The research shows that witnessing the downfall of a rival induces a feeling of social comparison advantage. Far from feeling sorry for our disgraced co-worker, many push this advantage by engaging in abusive behaviours that – by further harming our colleague– add to this “evil pleasure”. Interestingly, findings suggest that seeing rivals receive constructive feedback or being disciplined is not enough. Only the witnessing of utterly unfair abuse triggers our evil side!

Since abusive supervisors can induce co-workers to harm colleagues, organisations should strive to control abusive work supervision. In addition, managers should be alert to the detrimental effects of interpersonal rivalry. If rivalry has been found to promote greater work effort, it has also been associated with irrational decision-making and unethical behaviours.

One way to harness the positive impact of rivalry while counteracting its harmful consequences is to establish common cooperative goals shared by all employees. It seems misery loves company!

Reference:

¹ Xu, E., Huang, X., Jia, R., Xu, J., Liu, W., Graham, L., & Snape, E. (2020). The "Evil Pleasure": Abusive Supervision and Third-Party Observers' Malicious Reactions Toward Victims. Organization Science.