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I got intrigued by an article in LiveScience, titled “Angry Boss Can Bring Out Workers’ Creativity“.

The gist of the article is that, contrary to simple intuition, an angry boss, telling his/her employees off about their performance, may bring about as a consequence better performance and creativity. The key, however, is the level of engagement and desire to understand exhibited by the employee, a trait called epistemic motivation.

Epistemic Motivation, in simple words, relates to the level of involvement and dedication one has towards a particular area of involvement. It is less about the way you apply yourself physically towards a particular task as much at the level of intellectual and emotional involvement and your level of motivation to see that task done in the best possible way.

So here’s what the study shows. Study participants with a high degree of epistemic motivation reacted positively to angry feedback, resulting in more ideas, increased originality and breadth, and higher level of engagement. Those participants with low degree of epistemic motivation showed opposite results.

This and previous studies performed by the same research team conclude that for some employees (those exhibiting high degree of epistemic motivation) working with an angry boss would yield better results than working for a non-angry/happy one.

I personally have some methodological issues with the above study as although it demonstrates an increased level of performance as a result of angry reaction it does not necessarily imply that an angry boss is a better boss. I would suggest, and would await further research to confirm it, that a motivational, happy and easy going boss is likely to achieve the same increased performance from his/her team while, obviously, also appealing to those team members who, for what ever reason, do not show the same level of high epistemic motivation.

So, watch this space.

Related posts:

1. Project Management Science Corner – Multitasking
2. Project Management Science Corner – The Impostor Syndrome
3. Project Management Science Corner – Decision Making – Part 2
4. Project Management Science Corner – Decision Making
5. Project Management Science Corner – The Dunning-Kruger Effect