Emotional Abuse in the Workplace: Perception, Influence and Consequences

Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse is latent and cancerous by nature. It gradually grows from a benign stage into a malignant stage. It starts like a nuclear chain reaction having a ripple effect on the mental, physical, and socio-economic well-being of a person. It is mostly regarded as an inconsequential offence as it has no legal backing. Survivors of emotional abuse do not have the privilege to demand justice, unlike survivors of physical and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse is an attempt to have control over someone or something.

There is always a power play factor between the offender and the offended which may sometimes be attributed to age, position and influence.

A workplace; Is known as an employment location where an employee works for an employer or a self-employed. It is also a physical location which ranges from home offices to medium or large buildings.

LEADERSHIP STYLES:

There are different types of leadership styles ranging from autocratic, laissez-faire, democratic and to mention a few, but when an organization’s leadership style is autocratic there are high tendency that it might influence an employer’s vulnerability to emotional abuse. An autocratic leader be it a{ supervisor, head of department, or manager} of an organization tends to exert some degree of power or control on a junior or less ranked employee due to position, duration of employment, level of qualification, years of experience, in areas such as ideation process, decision-making process and level of participation. For instance, An employee was cut up in a situation that required the urgent attention of his superior, unfortunately, he or she was unable to get a directive or instruction on time from his supervisor and went ahead to use her initiative to resolve the problem and got a positive outcome. Instead of the supervisor to appreciate the employee, what plays

out most times is that most supervisors will likely want to take the credit and demeanour of the employee by finding fault in the process of the outcome.

RELATIONAL POWER

Is like a cultural psychic syndrome that is peculiar to about 70% of small-scale or partnership businesses in Nigeria. It is not uncommon that an averagely owned company or establishment in Nigeria usually exhibits these traits. It is believed that when an organization is established, it is important to ensure that one of your relatives is part of the workforce, the theory behind it is to enable the owner of the business to have access to firsthand information and gain total control of affairs in the organization. The process of recruitment of a relation into an organization most times is not based on merits but rather, through a referral process. The relation is planted as a spy who reports to the head of the organization on all the activities, happening in the organization.

In the long run, the person begins to exercise or coercive power over his colleagues or even his superior resulting in emotional abuse, and gas-lighting which if not controlled can aggravate emotional violence and any other violence.

GENDER INEQUALITY

These have been a serious threat to female employees, who found themselves in a profession, vocation or position that is predominately occupied by male counterparts. The dynamics of this situation are that most men find it offensive when a woman gives orders; they throw tantrums and view her corrections as disrespectful and rude.

The concept of respect is a subject that is highly held in great esteem. Society has a defined pattern of ways a female should accord respect to the male and most of these sets of rules are accompanied by hundreds of baseless interpretations and meanings. Conversely, it is a different ball game when is from the male counterpart. Hitherto in Nigeria, our cultural background has a well-defined, configured role for women and the perceived gender and social norms that need to be adhered to.

It is also believed women who have risen to a certain stage in their careers are most likely to have a failed marriage because marriage is seen as a means to an end. These situations have impeded the chances of women thriving and advancing in their careers.

LOW SELF-ESTEEM

It can be attributed to a lack of confidence and feeling bad about oneself. Employees who have suffered emotional abuse from their superiors often feel unlovable, awkward, or incompetent. They tend to be over-sensitive, and over vigilant towards signs of rejection, inadequacy, and disapproval. Employees lacking self-esteem have a presumptive thought virtually about everything whether is in existence or not. “The danger always lurks that [they] become fallible, poor decision makers, behave immorally or disgraceful with high tendencies to be exposed to ridicule and criticism.

Everyone’s self-esteem is vulnerable to other people, who may openly criticize, ridicule or point out their flaws. It’s someone believes that other people dislike them, they are more likely to avoid interactions with others and are quicker to react defensively, cynically, or even lash out.

LOW PRODUCTIVITY

An employee experiencing emotional abuse tends to display the law of diminishing returns impacting negatively on their performance. Such employees become less committed and show a lackadaisical attitude and lack of interest towards work. Oftentimes, when there is an opportunity to take up responsibility they will rather give an excuse and shift the responsibility to fellow colleagues than accept the task. This behaviour may truncate their opportunities of being promoted at work, Apart from this, it can also affect their visibility in the workplace because they tend to hide under the shadow of other employees, thereby losing confidence and short-changing themselves.

POOR WORK-LIFE BALANCE:

This can be associated with the inability of an employee to find peace and balance between the demand for work and personal fulfilment in living a happier life. This is predominant among victims of emotional abuse who are constantly looking for ways to redeem themselves. They act in such a way to please their superior in a bid to gain approval and recommendation. They sometimes show desperation over things that are infinitesimal and unnecessary such as increased responsibilities, working long hours more than others, and volunteering to assist others, this behavior tends to make other colleagues vulnerable, thereby jeopardizing the efforts and contribution toward a task. Conversely, emotionally abused employees may find it difficult to maintain and foster good relationships with his or her spouse and children at home, because of mental fatigue at the workplace.

Such victims may become emotionally unstable, withdrawn, hostile agitated and depressed. All these symptoms are dangerous signs of mental illness that can negatively encourage unhealthy lifestyles such as smoking, alcoholism and drugs.

CONCLUSION

There are different schools of thought on the shape of the earth, a series of inventions marked with experimental research and evidence by geographers, astronomers’ meteorologists, and planetologists reviewed that the earth appears round, but is irregularly shaped ellipsoid. Likewise, there is no perfect workplace, system, structure or institution on the planet Earth.

Human beings are wired differently and we are products of our experiences in divers’ shapes and sizes. It is therefore important that for an organization to maximize their employees’ potential, and capacities and increase productivity, employees’ emotional wellness and well-being should take utmost priority and relevance, also emotional Intelligence skills should be displayed in all facets of organization operations to help create a robust and friendly-healthy environment in the workplace.