Leadership, Mental Health at Work

What Bad Leadership Does to Your Mental Health

14. Oktober 2026

You used to be good at this job and also enjoyed doing it. A few months under a new manager, you have started to wonder whether you ever were… You rehearse the weekly 1-on-1 in the shower. You have stopped proposing ideas in meetings, because the last two were dismissed harshly in front of everyone. When you return home, your partner has learned to ask, what kind of day it was at work, in order not to add additional pressure on you.

Most people in this position reach for a private explanation: I am too sensitive, I am not resilient enough, maybe I am simply not as good as I thought.

The research tells a different story. It looks at leadership the way it looks at noise or night shifts: as a working condition that affects people’s health in ways you can measure.

What the research shows

In 2017, a team led by Diego Montano combined studies on leadership and employee mental health into one large meta-analysis. Supportive, clear and fair leadership was consistently associated with better mental health in employees. Destructive leadership, the kind that belittles, intimidates or exploits, was strongly associated with worse mental health.

A Swedish review by Töres Theorell and colleagues in 2015 looked at which working conditions predict depressive symptoms over time. The strongest evidence was for three: job strain (high demands combined with little control over your own work), low decision latitude on its own, and bullying. Notice how many of these sit with the person you report to. A manager decides, more than anyone else, how much say you have, how the workload is distributed, and what happens when someone is treated badly.

The effects do not stay in your head. In a Swedish study of 3,122 male employees, Anna Nyberg and colleagues found that those who rated their managers' leadership highly had a lower risk of heart disease over the following years. The link grew stronger the longer people stayed in the same workplace: after four years, the risk was about 39 % lower.

Bad leadership is also quieter than people expect. A Norwegian study of 2,273 employees by Anders Skogstad and colleagues found that laissez-faire leadership, the manager who avoids decisions, is absent when problems arise and leaves conflicts to fester, was linked to role confusion, conflict between colleagues, bullying and psychological distress. You do not need a manager who shouts to be worn down by one.

An honest caveat: these are observational studies, so they show strong, consistent associations rather than proof that one particular manager causes one particular illness. And one bad meeting is not a health risk. What the research points to is pattern and duration.

What it often looks like from the inside

People describe it in similar ways: doubting skills they have relied on for years, going quiet in meetings, replaying conversations in the evening, sleeping worse, carrying tension in the jaw or shoulders, heart palpitations. That is what sustained strain tends to look like.

What actually helps

Name it accurately.

"My working conditions are poor" is a different problem from "I am failing", and it leads to different solutions. Keep brief, factual notes: dates, what was said, what was asked of you. They help you see the pattern clearly and support any conversation you may need to have later.

Protect what buffers you.

Support from colleagues is one of the resources that research repeatedly links to lower strain. So is genuine recovery outside work, which means time when you are not mentally rehearsing the next one-to-one.

Use the Danish system - if you reside in Denmark.

Since November 2020, Denmark has had a specific executive order on the psychosocial work environment ( bekendtgørelse om psykisk arbejdsmiljø). It obliges employers to prevent harm from high workload and time pressure, unclear or conflicting demands, and offensive behaviour such as bullying. Your working environment representative (arbejdsmiljørepræsentant), your union and HR exist for exactly this. Many internationals do not know these routes are there.

Notice when it has become a health matter. If low mood, poor sleep or dread before work have been there most days for two weeks or more, talk to your GP. That is not an overreaction; it is the right level of seriousness.

If working under a particular manager is costing you more than a job should, book a free 15-minute intro call, in English or German. We will look at what is happening and what kind of support fits: coaching if you want to think through your options and how to handle the relationship, therapy if it has started to affect your health.