This content was created by GHION.AI . This content was uploaded by GHION.AI . This is a YouTube video titled "Bob Sutton: The Toxicity of Tyrants" created on October 19, 2017. It features Bob Sutton discussing the negative effects of toxic behavior in the workplace, including emotional and health impacts, and the contagious nature of such behavior.
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If we're going to do a rough sort of parsing of the academic literature on what I'm calling all things asshole, there's two kinds of effects. And my focus, especially in the workplace, and I'm talking about studies that look at conditions, and this is, I guess, my definition of an asshole. That leaves others feeling demeaned, de energized and disrespected. So that's the kind of. That's what would be my definition. Anxiety, depression, physical health problems. There was a longitudinal study in the UK that people had abusive supervisors were more likely to have fatal heart attacks, for example. And then you got a whole bunch of performance effects. So we might have the whether or not assholes finish first conversation, which people seem to love to have in Silicon Valley. But whether or not they are finishing first, the people around them are not, as the evidence is really clear on that. So the way I like to describe it is if it helps you get to the top of the hierarchy, you are climbing to the top and simultaneously destroying at the same time. Okay. Another thing about it that's really important is it's incredibly contagious. We have very good research that shows that negative emotion is more contagious than positive emotion, that if you're around nasty people are going to catch it. And there's another thing that happens. There's even been some studies published since I finished this book in late 2016 that show that assholes prefer to hire and be around other assholes, especially assholes like them. So if you're Machiavellian, you want to be around Machiavellians. If you're a narcissist, you want to be around narcissists. So assholes attract.
