Episode 046: Winny Shen
Dr. Winny Shen studies bad bosses. You know the kind. A boss who constantly undermines you or plays favorites. A boss who takes credit for your work when things go well and blames you when things go badly. Or even worse, an abusive boss who yells at people, insults them, reams them out in front of the rest of the team. A boss like this makes you want to quit. Not many people actually set out to become a bad boss. So how does someone end up this way? What goes wrong? These are questions Winny Shen knows how to answer.
Transcript
Cameron: Winny, welcome to the podcast.
Winny: Thank you so much for having me.
Cameron: It's a delight to talk with you and to talk more in depth about your research than I usually get a chance to, because we're usually talking about things at Faculty Council, and so on. Tell me about yourself, the role that you play at the school, and what your research is all about.
Winny: Sure. I'm currently an associate professor of organization studies at Schulich School of Business. I'm also affiliated with the Faculty Scholar program at the Krembil Centre for Health Management and Leadership. So I'm a professor of organization studies specializing in leadership, diversity and inclusion issues in the workplace as well as worker well-being.
Cameron: Worker well-being is a huge topic, especially, you know, the experiences a lot of people had coming out of the pandemic and the pressure people are getting to go back to the office. There's a whole bunch of structural factors at play, in that. You are interested in some particular dynamics in the workplace. Can you tell us about that?
Winny: Sure. So I'm interested in basically how work affects our health, but also to some extent, how our health affects, how we work. The reciprocal relationship there. I'm very interested both in terms of the job demands and responsibilities we're facing and how that affects us and our stress responses. But also sometimes how we can feel crushed between our work and our family, or non-work lives, and trying to handle all those responsibilities altogether and together, how that. how we all manage those things. But I I'm really excited today to talk about some of my work around bad bosses, because I think this is a topic that really resonates with everyone. Everyone's got a horror story or two.
Cameron: No doubt you've got a paper. The title of it is "Bad, mad, or glad," and this is looking at abusive supervision and emotions in the workplace. Can you tell us a little bit about that study?
Winny: Yeah. So where this study came from was, we really wanted to get into the mindset of these leaders, who sometimes yell, scream, belittle because, as you said, we really think that people don't set out to be bad bosses, yet I think even on our maybe on our worst days we find ourselves engaging in some of those behaviors. So the question we had was. Well. how do bosses feel to give us some insight into? Do they know what they're doing is bad, you know. Or do they feel that these behaviors are justified? And they actually feel fine? And so that was the question we set out to answer and try to better understand getting ourselves into the minds of these leaders. And what we find actually is that it really varies. So some leaders really do feel bad. They feel regretful. They feel shame. They really wish that they didn't act in that way.
Other leaders, though, feel fine. In fact, some of them feel better than fine. They they feel more relaxed, more calm after it. They feel like they got something off their chest. And so I think that's really interesting, because what we know from emotions research is that suggests to us that those leaders might continue to do these behaviors again, because they actually feel some sort of relief, or have gotten some sort of positive feedback in terms of I actually feel better after yelling at my poor performing subordinate and other leaders continue to feel mad. So it's interesting, too, in that it doesn't seem to have fixed the problem for some of them. You know, if they were trying to get something off their chest, it didn't completely go away. They continue to feel bad.
Cameron: You talked about getting into the minds of these people? How does the research actually take place? How do you find out what they're thinking?
Winny: My research often uses surveys to ask participants how they feel. , Sometimes we will also do interviews where we can talk to people about their experiences. Often we will ask them to maybe walk us through a specific instance where they yelled or scream, to try to get into the nuances and the details, and also so that we can probe more. And you know It can be useful because sometimes what we found in this research was, people would say, things like, I feel bad. But there's actually nuances in terms of what that bad means. Some people might say I feel bad, and they really feel guilty, right? They really feel regretful. They really wish they hadn't done that.
Other people feel shame, but shame is actually somewhat different than guilt. Shame means you feel bad, but it often doesn't make you want to fix what you've done. It often makes you want to engage in behaviors like, avoid that person because that person reminds you of something that you wish you didn't do. But it doesn't necessarily make you want to go and, apologize to that person. And so if we engage in interviews, or more follow up questions, sometimes we can start to tease apart some of these nuances that sometimes can be difficult to capture when we just have asked people to respond to a survey.
Cameron: So when a person feels negatively about this, about their own behavior as an abusive boss, you've got the guilt possibility. You've got the shame possibility. What should be done in those two cases? Is there a different intervention? And who's responsible for making that intervention?
Winny: Yeah, so that's a great question. I think what our work shows is that you only feel guilt and shame if you feel that you are at least partially responsible for what happened. And so I think the first thing for a manager or a leader to keep in mind is that we all tend to wear rose colored glasses when it comes to ourselves, and so our reflex is often to blame the subordinate or the external circumstance. Right. I ended up yelling, because you know the deadline was near, or you know, I had told the subordinate so many times before about it, and it just pushed me over the edge today. Right? These are the types of justifications that often come very easily to ourselves.
And so what I would encourage managers to think about is, well try to adopt the lens of the people you're managing. You know, could you have contributed to that situation in some way, and if so, I think you're much more likely to feel guilt and shame. Now the research would suggest that guilt is a lot more of a beneficial emotion, in that when we feel guilty, what it's supposed to tell us is that you've done something wrong but now is your opportunity to do something about it, right? So when we feel guilty, we often apologize. We try to make amends. You know we promise to do better? Whereas shame is a more, now there are no bad emotions, but shame is a little bit more of a tricky emotion. Because often, when we feel shame, it means that we've internalized what has happened into kind of this broader issue. So instead of saying, "Oh, I messed up. I shouldn't have yelled today," shame often reflects we've overgeneralized. So actually, we start thinking things like, I'm a bad boss. I'm a person who can't control my emotions.
And once you start thinking these kind of global negative thoughts about yourself, it can be really hard to feel like you have the capacity to change it right? Because you're like, Oh, no. I'm a bad boss, right? And that's not very motivating for people. And what often happens then is people avoid withdraw. They try not to interact with situations that might force them to confront the fact that maybe they're not a great boss. So I would encourage leaders or managers to really think about, you know, not to go too far down a rabbit hole right? Really focus on that instance and thinking about well, you know, how can I repair this relationship? How can I come back? As opposed to maybe sometimes thinking like, oh, no! Now I'm a horrible boss, you know. Nothing can be done. This person hates me forever. Which I think sometimes we can fall into those types of problematic thought patterns.
Cameron: You've got a phrase in this paper, "growth mindset." What's a growth mindset, and what difference does it make?
Winny: Yeah. So a growth mindset is really about the extent to which you think that people can change or people are who they are. So someone on high growth mindset sees things as just how they currently are, but not necessarily how they have to be or need to be like this forever, including themselves and their subordinates. Right? So if I have a growth mindset, I think that I can learn, develop, and change, and so can the people around me, whereas if I am low on growth mindset, sometimes we refer to it as someone with more of a fixed mindset, we often think about things as unchangeable. I am who I am, right? And sometimes we see this when we talk to students who will say things like, I'm bad at math, right? As if this was a, a permanent thing. It's not a skill that they can develop, right? And in the same ways, if you kind of are a manager who tends to have a fixed mindset, then you're like, I am who I am, right? I have a hard time controlling my emotions, you know. Sometimes I'm kind of a aggressive hard nose boss. That's who I am right, and there's no other way I can be.
And in the same way you also think when your employees mess up like that's who they are, they're a bad performer, right? There's no hope for them. Whereas what we find in our research is that the managers who have a higher growth mindset, they're less likely to feel this overarching sense of shame when they mess up and act as a bad boss in an instance. And we think that that is more healthy because it suggests that instead of just becoming kind of like sunk into the situation, thinking like, Okay, well, it is what it is now, if you can take yourself out of that shame spiral it means that, you know, you can see that it's potentially just a one-off, right? It's something that you have control over. It's something that you don't have to just take for granted as this is the way the situation is forever.
And so developing this growth mindset, I think is, the research suggests that it's changeable. So even if you have a tendency to see things as fixed you can work on that. You can try to challenge yourself to reframe things, right. I think we all feel this way, and you know I often try to do this for myself when I think about things like. you know, sometimes I'm like, Oh, I'm just not a good writer, you know, and then I say, no, I know that I've improved a lot of my writing over the years right? But sometimes there's that tendency, and then you kind of have to bring yourself back to try to encourage yourself to be like. No, you know. Is that really true or not, in terms of am I really stuck like this? Or can I change? Can I develop? Can I work on this? Right?
Cameron: Let's go back to those bosses who basically think that the whole problem arises with the subordinate. it's not their fault at all. The reason that they're having to display these aggressive, abusive behaviors is because the subordinate is to blame somehow. Do they experience these emotions, these negative emotions of guilt and shame?
Winny: They do. They say they do, but it's maybe not as frequently as one would hope. A lot of the times as I mentioned before, they actually feel fine. So part of it , we think, is that managers, because of some of these biases that cause us to blame others, or tell us about the situation in a way that's most beneficial to our own self esteem, we often will not experience these negative emotions. But I think these negative emotions, although they feel bad, they really are a signal to us about a problem, right? And unless you feel these emotions and realize there's a problem. Then you'll kind of keep engaging in these negative behaviors.
And there's a lot of research suggesting that they are negative behaviors. It really negatively affects both the health and wellbeing of those around you, those that you're managing. Also, you know, it makes them really want to leave the organization. It's really a nasty toxic environment for them to feel like they have a boss who is just mean, unsupportive. Right? Trying to take advantage of them. It, it's a very exhausting environment for people to be in, and no one likes it. And I think that's why whenever we all have these stories you often hear about people trying to, you know, look for new jobs, get out of those situations.
Cameron: Mm-hmm. You use the word toxic, which is something we're familiar with, these toxic workplace environments. In that sort of situation where this bad boss is actually getting something out of it is there a way out of that? Who's responsible for changing that situation?
Winny: Yeah. I think there's multiple ways to think about it. Right? So, of course, I think organizations have a role to play. Bad bosses, we know, are more likely in certain kinds of environments where these types of behaviors go unchecked. or they're kind of permitted right? In some environments you'll hear about these bad bosses as tough love right? They reframe it as kind of a positive, or you know, it's like, Oh, well, you know, sometimes people need tough love in order to get good performance out of people. And so I think that that is kind of a problematic rhetoric, in terms of it makes people think that these kinds of behaviors are okay. Whereas I think the research really shows that these behaviors aren't great for anyone. It's not great for the subordinates, but also it's actually really challenging for the bosses.
A lot of times when people engage in these behaviors, they sometimes will feel guilt and sometimes they spend a lot of time ruminating and just thinking about these behaviors, because, we all want to think about ourselves as capable, good people and engaging in these behaviors that you know, although sometimes they're more permitted in certain work environments, generally we know that yelling, screaming, belittling people is not how people want to be treated. It forces us to kind of confront a negative, ugly side to ourselves, and what we see is that a lot of times when bosses are dealing with that it can actually cause them to burn out a little bit. Kind of knowing that they're engaging in these behaviors is what we call kind of like psychologically challenging. Right? It kind of, it kind of bursts your bubble that you're a good person a little bit. And so I think, actually, we spend a lot of time talking about how this is really challenging for the people whose bosses act this way. But there's actually now some evidence that suggests that it's actually pretty bad for the bosses, too. And so getting people out of this mindset where maybe these behaviors are okay sometimes, I think, is probably better for everyone.
Cameron: You've got a second paper entitled "Leading through the Uncertainty of COVID-19." This is a paper that gets into the question of gender, and how that shapes these abusive relationships. Can you tell us about the role of gender in this dynamic?
Winny: Yeah, so not in my own work, but more broadly in the literature, we know that women are less likely to engage in these mean, abusive leadership behaviors. What we show in this paper is a little bit different, in that, that's on average, right? On average, day to day, maybe there's no cause for you to yell or scream. Right? What we're really interested in is when there is a stressor involved, how leaders react. And so in the pandemic, what we see and find is that as you may recall. It was a really anxious, scary time, right? And what we know is that sometimes people engage in these abusive, bad leader behaviors when they're stressed, because it's a way to both feel powerful and feel like you're in control. And so we really saw the pandemic as a potential time where, because of all this anxiety and all the stress, leaders actually may be more likely to engage in some of these bad behaviors.
And we find that is true, but only for men. So the more a male leader was anxious about the pandemic, the more likely their subordinates were to report that. Yeah, you know, this this guy is yelling. This guy is like belittling. This guy's taking credit for my work. But that wasn't actually true for women, where regardless of how anxious women leaders felt about the pandemic, they generally refrain from engaging in abusive supervision. And so our idea was, well, maybe this is because women leaders are socialized to lead differently. They're more other oriented. And so they're more focused on what their subordinates need or their direct reports need as opposed to how they're feeling. Whereas I think, maybe some people would call this emotional intelligence, men are not necessarily socialized this way, and so they tend to act more upon how they're feeling in the moment, and in that way affect the people around them.
Cameron: I remember just how challenging it was as a teacher to be looking after, trying our best to look after, the emotions of our students during the pandemic. So I'm acutely aware of how stressful that was. But you're saying that, given that stress of the pandemic, women didn't tend to take it out on their subordinates in the same way. So where are they getting that secret ingredient, that magic potion that keeps them from passing on that stress?
Winny: Yeah. So I think that's really interesting, and something that we don't get into in this work, but would love to dig more into in the future and understand. What I'm really worried about, though we don't know, is I'm really worried about at what cost right? And that's something that we don't explore in that research project but I'm very curious about, in terms of are women really working really hard to be attentive to others, but in some ways that's really draining on them. And so they're kind of carrying that burden on their own, versus, Is it more due to how women tend to be socialized in society, such that this comes more automatically to them, and there isn't this huge cost because this tends to be how they operate. We don't know, but I think that's something that's worth teasing apart in the future, in terms of women leaders seem to do this, but I am very curious about if it's costing them something on the back end or not, and it's another, maybe a piece of the, the toll that they're carrying around during the pandemic: the emotions of others and also their own, but trying to not let it negatively impact other people.
Cameron: Let's talk about the importance of the research that you've done right now. You've got these two papers. One of them looks at the role of the attribution of toxic behavior, abusive behaviour by the boss. Do they think it's the subordinates fault, or do they think it's their own fault, and they feel guilty or shameful. And then you've got this other paper that looks at the effect of gender in this abusive relationship when people are under stress. What can people take away from that? How can that be applied or absorbed into workplace dynamics now?
Winny: Yeah. So what I take away from some of this work is that, a) being a manager or being a leader is really stressful. Right? Stress is often a part of the job. And so I think for me, given that we know that abusive supervision is one way that people deal with that stress, you might argue not in a particularly healthy way, for a leader, my question to them would be, you know, what are you doing to manage your stress so that you know that you're not going to inadvertently take things out on people or just explode because you're carrying such a big load on your shoulders? So I, I, for me, that's one piece to really think about.
The other is really this broader other-oriented perspective. Thinking about what my subordinates need. Being open to the possibility that I contributed to the problem. We talk about this in some of the MBA classes, which is, you know, one of the things that leaders really struggle with and one of the things I think our students often struggle with is, I think, students have these really good goals or aspirations in terms of like, I'm gonna be a great boss and all these things, and I'm gonna take time to reflect and make sure I don't do these things. But one of the things that managers always feel short on is time, right? And it's it's often the choice between like, Oh, I'm gonna take time to slow down and think about, you know, that situation, or how I could have handled it better, versus I've got ten other fires to put out. I've got all these deadlines, right, like people are knocking on my doors and these emails never end. And often I think people feel that those things have more immediacy, and that, you know, reflection is something I'll do when I have time. But the reality is, maybe you'll never have time unless you make time, right? Sometimes, then, we fall into these patterns where we are not helping ourselves think about what kind of leader we want to be, helping us learn from our mistakes, and all of that requires us to be really, really mindful. So I think for me, one of the big takeaways is really finding time to make sure I don't turn into a bad boss. That might be managing my stress, thinking about what others might need, thinking about how I might have contributed to the problem. All of these things requires time and space for us to really get into that. And so I think part of being a good leader is that.
And you know we, we have some successful models out there engaging in these negative behaviors. That can sometimes also lull us into the sense of you know, it can't be all bad, right? Some people are doing this and being really successful. But I think on the flip side, I would ask them at what cost to the people around them, but also to themselves . That part we often don't see.
Cameron: Just to pivot this around, is there a corporate governance aspect to this about policies and supervision, even at the very top, supervision of CEOs by the board, or supervision of senior managers by the CEO?
Winny: Yeah, I think that's an interesting question. I think more generally some organizations have tried to mandate norms around civility, in like discourse and behaviors. Now, of course, I think what's a little bit tricky is that civility is to some extent subjective right? We severely see that around things like jokes where somebody would say like, That's just a joke. And other people would say, That was really inappropriate. Right? And so because we are not always on the same page, this is hard, I think, to mandate in practice, and what it actually, I think, requires is open conversations , in order to give people feedback in terms of like, hey? Actually. I really didn't appreciate how you talked to me there, right? And it doesn't have to be confrontational. It doesn't have to be ugly, but a lot of times we don't have those conversations. We just sweep it under the rug. But that doesn't mean we're not resentful of how we were talked to or treated, right? So I think part of it is, I think civility norms are great but I think they really only work when we have the right environment, where we can give each other constructive feedback in terms of how do I really appreciate being treated.
And also giving people grace when they mess up and giving them another chance. That's part of relationships. We can all mess up, yell, you know, accidentally cut someone off. These are things that happen. But I think it's how we manage them. Of course, we want to minimize the number of times we do that. We can't just be going around yelling at everyone and then go on an apology tour. I don't think that makes a great leader either. But also understanding maybe sometimes people are really under a lot of stress, and you know this is not how they would like to act. It was an impulse in the moment. But then, having a conversation about how they could avoid that in the behavior, or also just letting them know it was noticed. And you know it kind of negatively affected you.
Cameron: Do you have any specific examples you could give me of exercises you do in the classroom or group projects, or anything like that in the classroom around this topic?
Winny: Yeah. There is a measure of abusive supervision, a validated one, and often how it's used in the literature is, we ask subordinates to answer it in response to their boss. So it will ask something like, how often does your leader do things like take credit for your work? And so often what I would find helpful, I think, to open people's perspectives is, fill it out once thinking about a recent boss, right? Get yourself in that subordinates perspective. And you may be able to think about instances where that boss treated you less than ideally. And then I would tell you to fill it again, thinking about maybe one of your subordinates, maybe one that you don't have a great relationship with, actually. How would they fill it out? I think sometimes it's actually illuminating to realize, like, Oh, this person might think about me in ways that I think about these bosses that I don't love and appreciate. I think, sometimes putting ourselves in another person's perspective to kind of take stock of like, how are we behaving, can be really helpful.
The other thing that's also really tricky is the higher you go up in an organization, the less real feedback you get. Right? You know, you have power. You have control over people's pay, their resources. You know, people often are scared of telling people negative feedback as they go higher up. But that also means that you're not hearing how people really feel about you. And so I think the other thing I often encourage my students to think about is how are you going to get real feedback as you become successful and climb up the corporate ladder? How are you going to either nurture trusted confidants who can pull you inside and be like, Hey, like that meeting really didn't go well, or I don't know if you know but so and so was crying in the corner afterwards, right? Because they probably will hide from you to do it, and you'll never know. And so I think you have to be really intentional and think about like, well, how am I going to get real feedback when you know that a lot of people are just gonna tell you what they think you want to hear, right? And that's kind of a scary place to be in some ways.
Cameron: No kidding. Tell me what you've got coming up. Have you got any new papers you're working on or workshops you're planning?
Winny: Yeah. So I'm really excited. My colleague, Keaton Fletcher and I are working on a book proposal. We're trying to consolidate some of these things we've learned about bad bosses and trying to write an accessible book to help people, continue this conversation in terms of how can we help people avoid becoming a bad boss. I like to think about it as a "Am I the asshole?" You know, boss version. I think sometimes we need to get a little bit of outside perspective, outside feedback, and also a different perspective on what happened. Right? I think if you ask a subordinate sometimes they would be like, you know, I'm really unmotivated because my boss is so mean, so unsupportive, right? Whereas maybe from the boss's perspective, you're likely to say things like, Well, I've told this person how to improve on this a million times, and they just don't get any better. And so, like I, you know, I'm yelling at them because I, I need some way to prompt them into action. Right? And it's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem, right, in terms of who's right, who's wrong. It's a difference in perspective. Now, the I think more important thing is, well, how do you resolve the situation? Right? As opposed to really just standing by your version of events.
Cameron: Yes, unfortunately, work in the business world often requires adult mature behavior and doesn't always bring it out of people. Challenging situation.
Thank you. so much, Winny, for talking with me. It's a joy to learn about your research. Is there any way that people can get in touch with you. Are you on Linkedin, or Twitter, or anything like that?
Winny: Yeah, I am on, Linkedin and on Twitter, so feel free to reach me through either channel.
Cameron: Okay, wonderful. Thanks a lot!
Winny: Thank you, Cam.
Winny Shen talking to LifeSpeak
Links
Winny Shen’s faculty profile page
Twitter/X: @DrWinnyShen
LinkedIn: Winny Shen
Articles by Winny Shen
Leading through the uncertainty of COVID-19
How Anxiety Shapes Men’s and Women’s Leadership Differently
Credits
Host and producer: Cameron Graham
Co-producer: Andrew Micak
Photos: York University
Music: Musicbed
Tools: Descript, Squadcast
Recorded: August 28, 2024
Location: Toronto
