{"id":12145,"date":"2026-05-04T14:41:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=12145"},"modified":"2026-05-04T14:41:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T14:41:33","slug":"6-in-10-workers-say-they-have-a-toxic-boss-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=12145","title":{"rendered":"6 in 10 workers say they have a toxic boss, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Your boss can make or break your job experience: a good boss, smooth sailing ahead. A bad boss? Misery. According to a new workplace study, most employees are dealing with the latter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The research comes from Harris Poll\u2019s Thought Leadership Practice who just conducted its Toxic Boss survey,<\/a> which included online responses from 1,334 employed U.S. adults. It defined a toxic boss as someone who \u201cexhibits harmful workplace behaviors, including unfair preferential treatment, lack of recognition, blame-shifting, unnecessary micromanagement, unreasonable expectations, being unapproachable, taking credit for others\u2019 ideas, acting unprofessionally, or discriminating against employees based on personal characteristics.\u201d<\/p>\n

A staggering six out of 10 workers said they currently have a toxic boss. Meanwhile, 70% say they\u2019ve had a toxic boss at some point in their career. This rises to 75% for LGBTQIA+ workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The impact is significant. Nearly half (47%) say their boss\u2019s bad behavior is stressing them out, burning them out, or causing their mental health to slide downhill. Meanwhile, one-third say bad bosses have caused them to lose money, either because their behavior caused them to miss out on financial rewards or stalled their chances at a promotion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Most workers cope by working harder. The majority of workers (66%) say they\u2019ve responded to toxic bosses by trying to meet their demands \u2014 working on weekends and on days off. Two-thirds of workers also say they\u2019ve changed jobs because of a toxic job. But either way, workers are seeking mental health care to cope with how they feel about the situation. More than half (53%) have gone to therapy over their toxic boss.<\/p>\n

And while some workers say they avoid reporting their bosses\u2019 behavior at all costs to avoid deepening the conflict, many are pushing back. More than half (55%) say they\u2019ve taken at least one action to push back against their boss\u2019s harmful behavior. Interestingly, it\u2019s Gen Z who is stepping up the most: 73% of workers have pushed back against a toxic boss. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Largely, workers say bad bosses are a result of external pressures: 71% blamed current economic conditions for high stress around the office. The AI race is playing an important role in driving toxic boss energy, too: 44% of workers said that their company invests more in AI than things like providing one-on-one coaching for people managers, and training the next generation of leaders within the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Your boss can make or break your job experience: a good boss, smooth sailing ahead. A bad boss? Misery. According to a new workplace study, most employees are dealing with the latter. The research comes from Harris Poll\u2019s Thought Leadership Practice who just conducted its Toxic Boss survey, which included online responses from 1,334 employed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brand-spotlights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}