Toxic bosses affect 8 out of 10 executives

“I need ‘more gas’ in you.” The subtle charge, in an email sent by the boss a few weeks after starting the new job, made Renato (not his real name), 36, uncomfortable. Senior IT analyst at a large telecommunications company, he was trying to do his best after inheriting tasks from a recently laid-off colleague, delegated by the boss who took a vacation shortly after his hire, in the remote regime.

The initial annoyance gave way to a deep unease when, in online meetings, he, a senior analyst, began to be disparagedly compared to a junior analyst. Reviews sent by the boss by email not infrequently had other analysts copied, some with ten years or more at home, who were no longer promoted with the arrival of Renato.

Hired in the midst of the pandemic and living in Belo Horizonte (MG), far from the company’s headquarters, in São Paulo, he did not find receptivity in the team. He didn’t know who to talk to to solve simple questions, while urgent questions, which involved third parties, took hours to answer. He went to work at dawn to be able to solve pending issues by himself.

Charges for results increased. Renato says that the boss kept repeating that he was a senior analyst at one of the largest companies in the sector in the world, and that because of this he would know how to act, since the company did not tolerate mistakes.

But Renato no longer felt confident in himself and began to suffer from anxiety, experiencing panic episodes when he saw the boss’s name on his cell phone calls. He thought he would be fired at any moment.

He claims that he felt “like garbage”.

Renato’s problem and that of 78% of the country’s top executives is called “toxic boss”. This was identified by a survey carried out by the management and executive education consultancy BTA Associados, between March and April of this year, with 321 professionals from the management, board, presidency and company councils.

“We asked executives if they have ever worked or work with a toxic boss and 78% said yes,” says psychologist Betania Tanure de Barros, a partner at BTA and an expert in organizational behavior.

As the main characteristics of a toxic boss, who practices moral harassment, the executives pointed to dishonesty, aggression, narcissism and incompetence.

WHAT IS THE PROFILE OF THE TOXIC LEADER?

Source: BTA Associates

“It is a completely opposite profile to that of a reference leader, pointed out by the interviewees as someone with integrity, with a strategic vision, technical competence, who has open listening, good communication and empathy”, stated Betania. The survey identified that 82% have worked or work with such a leader.

WHAT IS THE PROFILE OF THE REFERRAL LEADER?

Source: BTA Associates

26% believe they will get sick because of work

Most of the executives interviewed in the BTA survey say they currently suffer some level of moral harassment at work. The most severe cases indicated high levels of distress for 42% of respondents, anxiety for 60% and stress for 62%. More than a quarter of executives (26%) said they can get sick at work.

“During the pandemic, companies ended up neglecting, somehow, the training of leaders. There was a lot of investment in technology, but leadership was in the background”, says Betania. At the end of 2020, another survey by the BTA showed that 84% of companies intended to reduce or, at most, maintain investments in the development of their executives.

“Now there is a predominance of leaders with average skills in a highly demanding environment,” he says.

At the same time, remote work has allowed for a higher level of harassment in terms of billing, because there are no spectators, says Tatiana Iwai, behavior and leadership professor at Insper.

“The executive is not in front of a team, except in online meetings, and the dialogues are private”, says Tatiana. “In this kind of environment, the pressure can be much more intense.”

Companies recognize and maintain this type of toxic leadership because, most of the time, it delivers results, says BTA partner Vânia Café.

“Precisely because of the assertiveness and certain aggressiveness of these leaders in leading the team, they are able to meet goals. This leads the company to overlook toxic behavior”, says the expert.

Tatiana Iwai points out, however, that major corporate scandals – such as what happened with Caixa Econômica Federal recently – do not happen overnight.

“These are toxic behaviors that become regular and end up shaping the culture of that company,” she says. “However, at some point, all this comes to light and compromises the company’s image with all its stakeholders: employees, suppliers, consumers, community and investors.”

Toxic companies have higher turnover

The counterpart of bullying behavior is the difficulty in attracting and losing talent, says Vânia Café. “Companies build reputation in the market, based on their leadership culture. A company – or team – with high turnover can be indicative of moral harassment”, she says.

Flávio (not his real name), 45, has been in the sales field for decades and prides himself on working under pressure. He is an account executive for a technology multinational and serves federal government clients in Brasília.

He says that companies often set overestimated goals because, if one sector fails, another can compensate. Flávio also says that bosses put pressure on salespeople to become friends with customers, not understanding that building this type of relationship takes time.

The problem is that, when the end of the year comes and the executive needs to reach his goal, he starts to take risks.

He says that, in his previous work, he placed an order for equipment for some customers who later gave up on the purchase. When this happened, he reports that he was subject to a lot of pressure —according to Flávio, his boss shouted: “There are millions of reais in equipment stopped. Latin America and the Americas division were counting on that. How do you fail like that? It’s the second month you’ve failed.”

As a result, he says he developed an anxiety disorder. He says that he began to have trouble concentrating, that he could no longer drink, because alcohol unbalanced him emotionally, triggering crying, and that he had libido problems.

The way out he found was therapy and the spiritist religion, he says. A while later, she left the job.

Today Flávio complains about the workload, which has increased a lot in the pandemic. According to him, there are countless meetings every day, and each one defines a new task to be performed by him. The salesperson also says that he is no longer able to impose limits on his working hours, using the time before and after work to have a private moment to think and define strategies.

Now, he says he’s already considering a plan B: say goodbye to executive life and focus on country life.

WhatsApp in the ICU bed

Renato, in Belo Horizonte, left the telecom company after six months and started working in a technology company. He still goes to therapy today, but he has overcome his panic attacks.

The last straw for him at his old job was the boss’s lack of empathy with his illness: Renato caught Covid in early 2021 and was hospitalized for 20 days, 10 of them in the ICU. He says that his immunity was low because he had been sleeping poorly and eating a lot due to anxiety, and that he belonged to a risk group, as he was obese. Renato says he had 70% of his lung compromised.

He took the laptop to the hospital and continued working. A few days later, however, he informed the boss that he would be sent to the ICU, due to the worsening of the condition, and he would only take his personal cell phone to communicate with the woman.

Five days later, in one of the most critical moments of the therapy, when he was being put on a mechanical ventilator to supply the lack of oxygen, without being able to speak, he received a message by WhatsApp: “Hi, when you can, call me”. He was the boss, wanting Renato to provide a medical certificate.