Karina Rodriguez
Staff Writer
Issam Ghazzawi, associate professor of management, discussed “From Bad Bosses to Broken Marriages: Exploring the Impact of Abusive Supervision on Work-Family Conflict and Intention to Divorce” Tuesday in the Lewis Center classroom before an audience of roughly 20 University of La Verne community members.
When people have a toxic work environment, they may potentially bring the toxicity home, Ghazzawi said.
“Bad supervisors contribute to emotional dissatisfaction and (often) conflict at home,” Ghazzawi said.
For his research Ghazzawi surveyed hotel workers from Jammu and Kashmir, a union territory of India. He did two studies.
“The first study we got 20 managers who work in the hotel industry to listen to their experience with abusive supervision and their relationship to the employees,” Ghazzawi said. “The second study was based on usage of the large database to test our study hypothesis.”
Ghazzawi was inspired to create this study following a discussion he had with his research partners, who are based in China, India, and Malaysia.
He said toxic bosses will always speak positively about themselves without disclosing any negative information about themselves.
“Do you think that in an interview we or the person that is applying for a job is going to tell you anything bad about him or herself?” Ghazzawi said. “They want to make everything beautiful.”
Ghazzawi said that toxic bosses do not understand that they are not the center of their employees’ lives. Initial study findings found that emotional exhaustion caused by a leader’s behavior led to increased conflict at home.
Ghazzawi added that Generation Z is working positively towards eliminating more toxic work environments.
“They are different from our generations,” Ghazzawi said. “And I believe that we are (moving) in the right direction to minimize the toxic work environment through the new generation who like to have an emphasis on harmony.”
Al Clark, emeritus professor of humanities, who attended the talk appreciated Ghazzawi research. Clark said he dealt with an abusive boss at one point in his career.
“It was a very difficult situation,” Clark said. “I was trying to think how much that might have impacted my home life and I suppose it did. …It was a very difficult time in my life.”
Tony Salehpour, La Verne alum who attended Tuesday’s lecture, said that people remember the toxicity of bosses, and that positivity often gets drowned out by toxicity.
“Some people were difficult for a number of reasons and they make the biggest impact unfortunately and you remember the daggers rather than the flowers,” Salehpour said. “We should remember the daggers and the flowers.”
Karina Rodriguez can be reached at karina.rodriguez3@laverne.edu.
Karina Rodriguez is a senior journalism major with a concentration in broadcast journalism, and editor-in-chief of the Campus Times. She has previously served as sports editor, social media editor, arts editor and a staff writer.
Camille C.Nan is a senior photography major and art history minor who specializes in portraiture. She is a staff photographer for Campus Times and La Verne Magazine.
