ALL WORK AND NO WORKOUTS

... makes for a toxic workplace.

Supervisors answered questions about how often they exercised and about their levels of workplace stress; for example, “working my current job leaves me little time for other activities,” or “I have too much work and too little time to do it in.”

The researchers found that, as expected, when supervisors were stressed, their subordinates felt more victimized.

However, analyses also showed that when supervisors experienced stress, but engaged in exercise, their subordinates reported lower levels of abusive supervision.

The research, based on a survey of MBA students and their supervisors, might have small-sample and selection biases, but it reinforces a long-held suspicion at Cold Spring Shops, that stressing an organization for its own sake is more akin to destructive testing than it is to work-hardening.

Put another way, those go-getter venture capitalists and hedge fund managers who go through two wives, three coke dealers, and four therapists by the age of forty might not be the best models of business leadership.