Management Induced Anxiety

May 2, 2017 6:47 AM

A couple of recent events in my life and my wife's life, along with several recent AskMes, has got me thinking about mental health and the workplace. Obviously, anxiety, codependence, etc. are a major aspect of working life. I'm starting to think, though, that they're not so much unfortunate by-products of management techniques, but the actual intended consequence of those techniques; that is, that our bosses are intentionally making us anxious and codependent in the idea that it'll somehow make us more productive employees. I'm sure something has been written about this, and I'd like to read it. What can you recommend?

I'm more interested in (pop) sociological or survey-type stuff, rather than individual stories. I'm specifically interested in effects on individuals - i.e., threatening to move a factory to Mexico and lay off all the employees is certainly anxiety-provoking, but not the kind of anxiety I'm looking for. And I'm not concerned about how management deals with existing mental health issues (I already know a bit about that), just how management might be creating or contributing to them. Bonus points for stuff that's online.

posted by kevinbelt to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

Frequent mefi recommendation How To Keep Someone With You Forever is about this.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:51 AM on May 2, 2017 [8 favorites]

I do think it's sometimes deliberate and sometimes just a spiraling thing that nobody really set out to do but that no one is willing to fix.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:53 AM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

I think there's a strong analogy to be drawn to other kinds of relationships here; it may not be so much that bosses are trying to make you codependent and anxious so much as that they're reproducing patterns that they have learned in their own work experience and interpersonal relationships, and that they see this as just the way things are, and/or they don't have other management/interpersonal tools at their disposal.
posted by mskyle at 6:57 AM on May 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: ^^ That's the chicken-or-egg problem, but there should still be something written about it, right?
posted by kevinbelt at 7:02 AM on May 2, 2017

The terms "sick system" and "intermittent reinforcement" might be interesting to use for searches.

I doubt that these things are consciously intentional, but the effect is the same. Getting out of those work environments usually causes a dramatic, positive, change in my mental health.
posted by bunderful at 7:02 AM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Another thing - people learn to people at home. They bring their family dynamic issues to work. So information about family systems might be worth exploring.
posted by bunderful at 7:04 AM on May 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Journals of occupational psychology would probably have stuff and likely the most up to date stuff. E.g. The Insecure Workforce probably covers a lot of this stuff from a U.K. perspective but is 17 years old now and employment policy has moved on a lot. But Google Scholar could help you find people who have cited that book and so are likely writing on similar topics.
posted by theseldomseenkid at 7:26 AM on May 2, 2017

The Sociopath Next Door talks about how a ton of CEOs and managers are likely sociopaths. Oversimplification: basically the end-result for a sociopath depends on how much wealth and privilege they have at the beginning -- those with wealth and privilege are likely to end up running companies/institutions/the Executive Branch; those without are likely to end up on more of a "criminal" path.

It's not so much that these folks are "intentionally" causing anxiety in the employees, but rather that they're indifferent to any effect on the employees because they have no empathy and they've found that their methods get the results they want. It's depraved indifference to harm vs. intentional harm (but if you're the one harmed, the distinction is irrelevant).
posted by melissasaurus at 7:48 AM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Difficult question, because what really counts as "intentional"?

My first boss bullied me horribly. She used to constantly make me feel bad about myself and my work, and it had the effect of making me try harder and work harder all the time, and never ask for a better-than-peanuts pay packet (for longer than I can believe actually, but I was young). I think she was happy with that outcome, but I don't think she really orchestrated it, as such.

It's kind of like my old boss, and maybe your boss too, is sort of wandering down the metaphorical road of management and seeing like, a plank with rusty nails on it and picking up going ooh, this will be useful to beat so-and-so with instead of throwing it in the hedge like a normal person would, so it doesn't cause someone a puncture. They didn't go looking for the plank, but it's there, so.
posted by greenish at 7:57 AM on May 2, 2017 [4 favorites]

MacLeod's Company Hierarchy may be what you want here. Link one, link two.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:24 AM on May 2, 2017

Here's a good article I saw recently on "abuse as a management tactic."
posted by entropyiswinning at 9:39 AM on May 2, 2017

A lot of your front line and even middle managers were just poor schmucks like the rest of us who saw a chance for a raise and took it because no one else would. In many cases they are ill suited and incompetent and that can come out as abuse for some. Most managers who would consciously try and use abusive methods are going to be your upper management CEO types.
posted by Justin Case at 1:43 PM on May 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

Melissaurus, thanks for posting re sociopath managers; I'll try to find an article in a nz paper mag which found 20% of nz managers are s'paths, imo that's a low figure. Also here at least bully managers seem to easily transition to criminality, I'm not talking white-collar crime either.
posted by unearthed at 5:14 PM on May 2, 2017