Managers who try to regulate what kinds of emotions employees are allowed to express at work are pushing their workers to the edge, according to a new study by Lisa Moynihan, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School.
The study found that the emphasis supervisors place on the behaviour of workers had a unique effect on the levels of emotional exhaustion discovered in those employees.
In other words, it is not just having a demanding supervisor that causes emotional exhaustion, it is having a supervisor who is demanding about the way employees behave that frays the nerves and can push some to breaking point.