A bad boss’ impact on mental health

I watched my boss through his plate glass window office. I had already put in a 12-hour day, I was tired and frustrated. I had spent the day working on my piece for the next day’s newspaper and he was making wholesale changes. 

I was all for edits, I loved good feedback, but his changes often made little sense and were done without much thought or consideration to style or tone. When he was done, he handed it back to me with a huff and went back to his desk. 

I made his changes and then left for the day exhausted and beaten. When I pulled into my apartment complex, I was confused on how I had gotten into this strange situation. I hated my job, it took everything to get up and out of bed everyday and go into work, but my home life couldn’t get any better. I loved my time with my wife.

Managers and our mental health

I’ve had more than a few moments like that in my life. I saw a report this week that helped give the problem some context. A new report from the Workforce Institute shows that managers impact employees’ mental health (69%) more than doctors (51%) or therapists (41%) — and at the same rate as a spouse or partner (69%). Other reports from other firms have reported similar findings.

I’m not surprised by the numbers. It makes sense that managers and bosses would have a significant impact on your life, but it was interesting for me to see the figures in black and white and see how much of a role a bad manager can have on our lives.

In my own situation, I was newly married and extremely happy, my time in the evenings and weekends were heavenly. I couldn’t wait to get home to my wife. At the other end of the spectrum, I hated my job. My boss cared little about anyone else, his actions rarely matched what he promised, and I could never give him what he wanted. 

An uneven scale

I tried to keep my two lives separate, a barrier so-to-speak, but work caused more than a few unnecessary headaches. My wife commented on how nervous I seemed to be over little things. Of course, I was worried constantly about my boss blowing up on me and work. I guess I’m not alone in work challenges seeping over into home. In the report, 43% of employees reported “often” or “always” being exhausted, and 78% of employees said that stress negatively impacts their work performance. That stress from work carries into our personal lives, with employees reporting work negatively impacts their home life (71%), wellbeing (64%), and relationships (62%). 

My wife was wise enough to see the source of my unhappiness, but it still caused some early tension in our marriage. Fortunately, I wasn’t in the job long. My wife was experiencing her own work challenges and we decided to move back to Pennsylvania. I hated resigning from the job, because it took a long time to get and I had worked hard, but it felt good leaving a bad job behind and turned out being one of the best decisions we ever made.

We put each other’s happiness over work.

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