Having an infuriated high school basketball coach launch a chair at you, or a restaurant supervisor who manages through intimidation and shame can have life-altering consequences.
Those behaviors are part of what influenced two professors in Clemson’s College of Business to better understand what prompts abusive behavior by those in positions of authority, and they’ve spent a good part of their careers looking for answers.
Kristin Scott and Tom Zagenczyk, associate professors in the business school’s Department of Management, say disruptive, gossipy, retaliatory and bullying behaviors often associated with adolescents are all too common in the workplace, and they exact a heavy toll on businesses and their employees.

“You’d like to think in the 21st century people have evolved and learned to work side-by-side in a civil manner, but that frequently isn’t the case,” says Scott. “That kind of disruptive behavior is more prevalent than most people realize, and it exacts a toll on business productivity and employees’ emotional well-being.”
Scott and Zagenczyk are Clemson’s resident experts on workplace dysfunction. Whether it’s a boss who bullies, employees who retaliate, work-family conflict issues or snubbed co-workers, these two have collaborated on extensive organizational behavior research and its impact on workers and their employers.
In the last decade, their research surveyed several thousand employed adults through online questionnaires and other means. Most of the research involved field studies within organizations where employees were surveyed across multiple points in time, usually over three- to four-month periods.
The two researchers have seen and heard it all about strained relationships between employees, or with their bosses, through their academic endeavors and corporate experiences.
“There are many dynamics that make it difficult for some to play nice in the workplace sand box,” says Zagenczyk. “But there is usually an underlying influence that’s causing behavior problems with the bad boss or disruptive employee. It’s often a function of what’s going on at home, and the fallout hits them.”

Motivated by Experience

Zagenczyk and Scott credit their own personal experiences for their involvement in researching workplace issues.
“Being in corporate human resources for a number of years, I was often subjected to people who exhibited bad behavior,” Scott says. “It actually drove me to want to further understand why adults, many of them professionals, resorted to that kind of behavior in the workplace. Those kinds of issues often fell on my lap and, as an HR professional, I not only had to sort through them but was also left cleaning up the mess. In a way, it sort of inspired me to want to figure out how to prevent it from happening.”
A catalyst for Zagenczyk’s desire to better understand petulant behavior by adults occurred at an earlier age.
“Basketball was my sport as an adolescent,” he says. “I was on our high school basketball team in Pennsylvania and had a coach who attended Bob Knight basketball camps to learn coaching strategies. At one of our first practices, he challenged our mental toughness and in the process went on a profanity-laced tirade, then threw a basketball that broke a ball rack, and threw a chair through a window.

“In a way, it fascinated me how a grown man could exhibit such poor leadership and behavior that he would lash out at a bunch of teenagers by swearing and throwing things at them. Though he didn’t motivate me as a basketball player, it did provoke me to better understand that kind of behavior.”

No Silver Bullet

Zagenczyk says many external factors contribute to unprofessional behavior among co-workers. During the economic downturn, for example, cutbacks prompted people to do more with less, causing stress and resulting in friction among co-workers and their superiors. But he cautions about rushing to judgment on a person because of how they act at work.
“We tend to attribute a behavior as just who these people are. Frequently, behavior is a function of what’s going on at home or with someone’s supervisor at work,” says Zagenczyk. “Don’t automatically assume a person behaving badly is a jerk or has a dysfunctional personality. Often, it’s extraneous factors like relationships, culture or climate that affect someone’s attitude. But for many it’s easier to believe the behavior is a function of who they are.”
Zagenczyk is quick to point out that a supervisor’s abusive behavior may be related more to deep-seated issues, than to current problems at home or with workplace relationships. A study he and Scott conducted showed bosses who hollered, or were generally considered abusive by their co-workers, were subjected to bad behavior by caregivers during their adolescence.
“In that study we asked supervisory employees how often before 18 years of age they were subjected to yelling or insults. The findings showed supervisors who reported being undermined growing up tended to have subordinates who said their supervisor exhibited abusive tendencies.”
Zagenczyk says negative emotions experienced during adolescence don’t just go away. There is generally fallout that is manifested in adulthood.
“Displaced aggression is very common among those whose adolescence was tumultuous,” he says. “People who have aggressive, demeaning parents believe that type of behavior is acceptable and model after them. Aggressing against others, such as co-workers, is a convenient way to release negative emotions.”

Scott adds that tension between employees is often a byproduct of what’s at stake. “Careers are livelihoods, and for many it defines who they are, so there is a lot at stake,” she says. “It seems people have a need for control when they have things at risk. So, if things don’t play out right, it tends to invoke fear, anger and frustration, which can lead to retaliation in the workplace.”

Zagenczyk and Scott say skewed work-life balance also creates stress, which can lead to retaliatory behavior against co-workers. One study they conducted showed that women are more likely than men to vent their frustration over work-life imbalances at work.
“The study found women experiencing work-family conflicts are more likely to respond negatively at the root of the perceived problem because they tend to be more protective of their family role than men,” says Scott. “Men, on the other hand, tend to be more protective of the work role and are less likely to blame the employer for their inability to meet family or personal obligations.”
Scott says there’s no silver bullet to ending abusive and obstructive attitudes in the workplace. And if organizations allow a toxic culture to exist, they will pay a price for it.

“There are ways to address how people deal with stress to help mitigate the negative fallout, and one key factor is a person’s emotional intelligence,” she says. “People can be trained, through meditation and other ways, to calm their minds by focusing on the present, not the past. It can help bring emotions under control so you can think through your actions. However, it doesn’t work for everyone. If you don’t have the social skills, or have personal issues, the problem may be harder to overcome.”

Perception vs. Reality

Zagenczyk says one of the catalysts for workplace discord can be differences in generational values. When each generation can put aside its biases of the other and see the talents and strengths each brings to the organization, the less friction there will be.
A perception that strikes a nerve among millennials, Zagenczyk said, is that they are narcissistic and entitled. Zagenczyk doesn’t buy it. “There’s no empirical evidence of differences between them and other generations in the workforce,” he says. “However, stories are written about them being different, so people think it’s true. [pullquote]Millennials are very aware of those perceptions and will tell you they’re willing to work just as hard as anyone. It seems they come into the workforce with strikes against them because judgments have already been made about them.[/pullquote]”
Being respectful to your co-workers is a good start at creating a sense of decorum at work. Scott and Zagenczyk suggest a number of things worth considering to make work more tolerable and to better understand why people act out.

• Don’t jump to conclusions about people by making assumptions that their behavior is a function of their personality. They may not be the jerk you think they are.
• There’s a lot at stake in your workplace, and you don’t always have control. Some things have to be emotionally let go so that they don’t negatively affect your personal or professional life.
• People in managerial positions can be a solution to a toxic work environment by creating a culture of fairness, tolerance, acceptance and support.
• Because so much time is spent at work, it becomes part of one’s identity. It has implications way beyond workplace. If bosses aren’t sensitive to that, it can have dramatic implications and set the tone for how everyone else acts.
• Supervisors can make a difference to someone with a bad home life. Work can become a respite for those people, but it’s on the boss to create that kind of a culture.

Rick Uhlmann is the director of media relations/public information in the College of Business.