Bosses Need a Fair Shake Too
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Wavebreakmedia Ltd/Thinkstock(EAST LANSING, Mich) — It’s good to be a fair boss but it’s also a tough job.
In fact, Russell E. Johnson, an assistant professor of management at Michigan State University, says that supervisors who consistently try to adhere to fairness rules when dealing with subordinates often experience mental and emotional side-effects that can hamper their own productivity and management skills.
As Johnson also found by studying 82 bosses over a couple of weeks that some of those who were particularly drained by giving people a fair shake at the workplace often didn’t treat their employees quite as well the following day.
He explained that “managers have to run around making sure their subordinates’ perceptions remain positive, whether the threat to the atmosphere of the workplace is real or imagined. Dealing with all of this uncertainty and ambiguity is depleting.”
So what can the bosses do to keep people happy while maintaining their own sanity? Johnson recommends plenty of sleep, taking breaks on the job and leaving the rigors of work behind when it’s quitting time.
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