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According to an Ipsos study (2022, France), one in three employees has already been a victim of workplace harassment. This harassment may come from colleagues, customers, and also from managers.
Whether rooted in deliberately harmful behaviors or a lack of awareness, the outcomes are the same: deterioration of victims’ mental health, a negative team climate, and reputational damage for the company.
This is therefore an issue organizations must address head-on—to protect employees and foster a healthier work environment.
Below: a focus on managerial harassment, how it manifests, its consequences, and—most importantly—how to prevent these harmful situations.
Before looking specifically at managerial harassment, it helps to recall the broader definition of psychological harassment: a pattern of repeated behavior intended to destabilize, intimidate, or devalue a person, undermining their dignity and mental health.
Key criteria for recognizing harassment—and distinguishing it from demanding (but legitimate) management—include:
Managerial harassment overlaps with what is often called toxic management, but it should not be confused with an authoritative management style, which is characterized by directiveness and high standards.
If you believe you are being harassed by your manager: consult official resources and seek support.
Managerial harassment can take subtle but destructive forms for employee mental health, such as:
According to an infographic by Solve Recrutement (2024, France), the impacts of harassment are wide-ranging: 33% of victims reported significant deterioration of their mental or physical health, 28% experienced career progression being blocked, and 11% needed sick leave.
More specifically, managerial harassment first undermines self-confidence and trust in the organization. Victims begin to doubt their abilities, feel devalued, and may develop a sense of uselessness—dramatically reducing motivation and engagement.
Harassment can also lead to overall exhaustion—both psychological and physical—frequently resulting in anxiety, sleep disorders, and hypervigilance.
Over time, these effects contribute to lasting mental health deterioration, with increased risks of depression, burnout, and psychosomatic disorders.
When harassment is widespread—or even when co-workers are bystanders to harmful behavior—the social climate deteriorates and tensions rise. This increases collective stress and reduces cohesion, which is essential to performance.
Ultimately, such environments not only reduce productivity but also damage the company’s employer brand and attractiveness, discouraging internal talent and potential candidates alike.
Looking to prevent harassment and its negative consequences—and to respond effectively when it occurs? Here are essential measures, and how a partner like Teale can help with a safe framework, reporting tools, psychological support, and resources to shift managerial culture for the long term.
The Ipsos study (France, 2022) found that 43% of employees (including managers) had almost no knowledge of workplace harassment, and only 4% were truly knowledgeable.
This shows how crucial awareness and training are: recognizing early signs, knowing which behaviors are unacceptable, and understanding how conduct can escalate.
Manager training should also cultivate empathetic leadership, building relational and emotional skills: active listening, emotion regulation, constructive communication, and workplace conflict resolution.
Among the top five actions requested by victims (Ipsos, 2022, France) is the creation of an effective reporting mechanism.
But such a mechanism only works if it is well-known and used. Communicate clearly about how to report and offer anonymous or confidential channels. This is key to empowering victims and witnesses to speak up without fear of retaliation.
Employees often don’t know whom to contact when they face harassment from their manager. Appointing a workplace well-being point person provides a clear, dedicated contact.
For neutrality and specialist support, companies can also engage an external provider to assess situations, recommend actions, and refer victims to mental health professionals.
Managerial harassment can stem from top-down pressure and a culture over-indexed on performance, at the expense of people. To counter this, include human and relational criteria in evaluating managerial effectiveness.
In addition to financial outcomes, assess managers on indicators such as:
Psychological prevention is another essential lever against managerial harassment.
For managers, it helps reduce stress, develop emotional regulation, and avoid slipping into harmful behaviors.
For team members, prevention helps identify harassment, develop self-protection strategies, strengthen resilience to stress, and express needs and boundaries more clearly.
To roll out such programs, you can rely on the Teale workplace well-being solution. The platform offers individual support (self-guided and with psychologists/coaches), personalized resources on workplace mental health, and helps overcome taboos to build a speak-up culture.
Beyond ethics and economics, prevention is also a legal obligation in many jurisdictions.
This implies taking immediate action to stop harassment, and informing and training employees to prevent it.
Institutional (or systemic) harassment refers to a work organization where management methods, unrealistic targets, or pressure-based practices keep employees in sustained psychological strain.
This harmful framework can foster managerial harassment: leaders under excessive pressure may replicate authoritarian, fear-based, or perpetual competition approaches.
To prevent this, organizations should review HR policies and overall culture to set realistic objectives, cultivate a dialogue-rich environment, and invest in psychological prevention. Training managers in compassionate/healthy leadership and regularly assessing workplace climate are also effective ways to reduce the risk of institutionalizing harassment.
To be effective, anti-harassment efforts should follow a structured action plan with several phases:
For deep change to take root, senior leadership must engage and managers at all levels must be accountable. Building a climate of trust is the priority: victims must always be heard, reports handled promptly and effectively, and misconduct sanctioned appropriately.
Prevention efforts must be continuous: ongoing training, measures adapted to real employee needs, and open communication at every level of the organization.
The goal is to anchor a healthy organizational culture that combats harassment—and more broadly, all psychosocial risks.
Demanding management sets high but attainable goals, with clear rules and open dialogue. Managerial harassment involves repeated, unjustified, or degrading behaviors that harm mental health.
Victims can notify the employer, contact employee representatives, or file a complaint.
Rising sick leave, high turnover, informal complaints, a climate of fear, or widespread disengagement are all signals to monitor closely.
It depends on the measures (training, external tools, psychological support, etc.), but costs are typically far lower than the losses caused by a toxic climate (sick leave, turnover, disengagement, litigation).
