Protecting your time can reduce overload. But when work is highly interdependent, creating breathing space for one person can place additional pressure on someone else.

Tenzer et al. (2026) interviewed 81 employees with current or recent experience of working across multiple agile teams in a European automotive organisation. Confronted with various demands, employees adjusted their work in three main ways: by eliminating certain tasks, reducing the effort put into some work, and setting aside uninterrupted time for activities that required focus․ These approaches helped employees manage emotional exhaustion and create room for more important work. However, the pressure did not always disappear. Coworkers sometimes absorbed additional work, waited longer for responses or saw team progress slow.

Individual workload fixes can therefore hide system-level capacity problems. When work is interdependent, setting a boundary may not remove the demand. It may simply delay it, transfer it or leave another team waiting for the same limited expertise. The question is not whether employees should protect their capacity. They should be able to. The harder question is whether the organisation understands what happens to the work afterwards.

1. Make workload dependencies visible

One employee in the study described blocking several hours to concentrate on a single topic. Others postponed lower-priority work or stepped away from tasks altogether. Each decision created capacity for something more important. But teams were often dependent on the same people. Some employees belonged to several teams because their expertise was difficult to replace. Time committed to one project therefore reduced the time available to another.

Before work is reduced, delayed or reorganised, the dependency matters. Who is waiting for the decision, information or expertise? What work cannot continue without it? A sensible individual priority can still create a wider bottleneck.

2. Coordinate boundaries with the people affected

The study found two distinct ways employees handled workload changes. In the self-oriented pathway, employees announced what they would stop or reduce and implemented the decision despite coworkers’ objections. This protected their capacity, but often left colleagues frustrated.

In the prosocial pathway, employees treated the change more as a proposal. They discussed its consequences and adjusted their plans where possible. One participant described providing part of a task first so colleagues could continue working while the remainder followed later. Others renegotiated deadlines or priorities.

The boundary remained. What changed was how its consequences were managed. In interdependent work, workload decisions are rarely private decisions. Coordination gives affected colleagues a chance to adapt before the cost appears elsewhere.

3. Track where the pressure moves

The immediate benefit of a workload change is usually visible. A cancelled meeting creates time. A dropped task reduces workload. A protected block improves concentration. But in interdependent work, the pressure may not disappear. It can move elsewhere.

The study found that job crafting could protect employees while also shifting additional work to coworkers or slowing team progress. The practical question is therefore what happened to the demand. Has the task disappeared, or is somebody else now doing it? Has protected focus created capacity, or left another team waiting for the same specialist? Improvement at the individual level is not necessarily evidence that total pressure has fallen.

4. Treat repeated overload as a system signal

Occasional boundary-setting is normal. But when employees continually postpone work, reduce effort, renegotiate commitments or block out time simply to keep workloads manageable, the issue may no longer be individual time management.

The study’s practical implications point to the wider work system. Organisations may need to reconsider how many teams employees support, limit excessive role overload and create clearer ways of allocating people’s time across projects. Repeated reliance on individual coping strategies can therefore signal a mismatch between the work being demanded and the capacity available to deliver it.

This is where Performance & Culture Diagnostics can add value. Looking across workload, priorities, capacity and team dependencies can help determine whether individual workload improvements are genuinely reducing pressure or simply redistributing it elsewhere.

That does not mean every instance of boundary-setting points to a structural problem. The research is qualitative and focuses on a single organisation, so the results should be viewed with some caution․ However, the ongoing reliance on individual coping mechanisms still warrants attention, as employees might alleviate their own stress while the fundamental capacity issue persists elsewhere in the system

Ultimately, when an employee protects their capacity, has the organisation reduced the pressure or simply moved it somewhere else?

References

Tenzer, H., Hoegl, M., Tims, M., Yang, P. and Wütz, S. (2026) ‘I Can’t Split Myself in Two (or Five): Job Crafting in Highly Demanding and Interdependent Work Environments’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 47(6), 1046–1071. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.70072

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Organisations usually recognise that it will be the most respected employees who will challenge mistreatment from a coworker. They have credibility, large networks, and self-confidence, so they command respect. If anyone is to challenge, it will be them.

Now there is evidence to the contrary. Another recent empirical study by Gencay et al. (2026), published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, indicated that having high status does not guarantee having the willingness to challenge situations; in fact, the key factor is whether or not that high status offers individuals a sense of psychological safety throughout organisations as well as multiple social groups.

What are the hidden barriers?

Those who experience inconsistency across multiple social identities may have the most to risk and, because of this, may be least likely to take psychosocial risk, even if they have the most impactful work. For leaders, this is more than an interesting psychological occurrence. It undermines one of the most pervasive beliefs about organisational culture that “influence automatically creates accountability”. In our minds, we treat the status variable as if it is a static single-point metric of our position in the world. Every leader has a “status portfolio” (a bundle of different kinds of social standings, business networks, social and community roles, family and friends encompassing their whole life).

High “status variance” (again, a highly paid CEO who holds very low social standing with their family and friends) leaves the workplace as the only source of their social standing. If all the status is invested in one basket, then the risk of loss becomes very high. If high-status, high-variance employees are actually uncertain about their status, then this creates a source of volatility for the individual. Now, if a manager makes a mistake that threatens people’s jobs, then employees feel that their greatest concern is their welfare rather than the psychological safety of their team members.

Rethinking the status at work

In that case, the question is not “Who has enough voice to speak out ?” but rather “Who is safe enough to be at risk to speak out?” So how might we enhance psychological safety at the workplace?

What can leaders do to build psychological safety?

The manager’s own concerns about this would include: Are the employees afraid that naysaying will hurt their advancement? Are well-deserved promotions and top honours based too much on one manager’s view? Is the employer’s reward system visibly generous to those who object productively?

Organisations should develop their reporting and decision-making systems so that they minimise the personal risk of retaliation. The steps could involve instituting multi-channel anonymous feedback mechanisms and defining external escalation strategies so that defensive team members do not end up taking one for the team. Traditional talent assessments look exclusively at in-house metrics: performance ratings, titles, and internal influence. However, understanding an individual’s broader risk profile and identity stability requires looking at how they view their overall professional identity.

By using data analytics in talent assessment (Talent Insights & Assessments), organisations can identify uncovered weaknesses, such as anxiety due to status, and provide focused coaching that builds authentic resilience, not defensive feelings. Ultimately, by understanding the underlying causes of employee silence, organizations can move from faulty solutions to solid, detailed systems that protect every employee at every level.

References

Gencay, O., Derfler-Rozin, R. and Arman, G. (2026). ‘Should I stand up for my mistreated colleague? When and why high-status team members stand up for their coworkers’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 192, 104463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2025.104463

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Conventional leadership advice tells rising stars with insecure bosses to either “shrink themselves to protect the manager’s ego” or “avoid contact and wait for executive intervention.” But both approaches are organisational poison. As highlighted by Xu et al. (2026), the withdrawal behaviour displayed by high performers due to fear ends up conveying a message of rejection, thereby contributing to relationship deterioration and talent loss.

The Turning Point: Employee Reaction Over Managerial Envy

When managers feel threatened by high-performing direct reports, it does not automatically destroy workplace relationships or performance. The critical turning point isn’t the manager’s envy itself, but the employee’s emotional and behavioural response.

The Downward Spiral: When star employees withdraw or avoid an envious supervisor, the relationship implodes into hostility, eroding Leader-Member Exchange (LMX).

The Strategic Alignment: As star performers engage in targeted upward citizenship behaviour, the insecure leader shifts towards strategic alignment, and organisational performance improves.

Four Strategic Actions for Leaders

1. Reframe Star Talent as Managerial Multipliers, Not Threatening Rivals

Downward envy flourishes when performance evaluation systems praise managers strictly for individual expertise rather than talent development. Decoupling team performance from the leader’s ego is key for HR professionals. The organisation should develop an incentive system that rewards leaders who manage smarter people than themselves.

2. Institute Upward Citizenship to Counter Relational Anxiety

When high performers sense boss envy, their natural reflex is avoidance—which risks damaging the relationship. Organisations must train high-potential talent to practise upward citizenship: co-authoring deliverables, sharing visibility, and explicitly linking their innovations to their supervisor’s strategic vision.

3. Balance Perceived Power Disparities Using Structural Psychological Safety

Research has revealed that a person who has high levels of perceived power experiences less anxiety when dealing with supervisor envy. HR professional must ensure transparency regarding career paths, matrix responsibility for projects, and executive sponsorship, so that the most talented individuals never face their bosses’ whims.

4. Move from Ego Defence to Elevational Leadership in Management Training

Standard management training does not prepare managers for the psychological experience of managing individuals who have higher levels of technical or strategic skills than they do. Executives must be trained in elevational leadership, which is the ability to orchestrate superior talent without being overshadowed by it.

The True Test of Leadership

Through such a shift from avoidance of conflict to upward alignment and structural safety, organisations transform supervisor envy from a hidden source of inefficiency to one of collaboration.

The more difficult question is whether leadership actually feels safe leading a group that is better at certain things than they are. The greatest organisations do not try to stop envy; they make talking about it normal, cultivate emotionally intelligent leaders, and set up systems whereby managers earn rewards for developing people, not beating them.

It is only when your people excel that you are truly being a leader. The question is whether you help them shine even when their success outshines your own.

References

Xu, H.H., Puranik, H., Wayne, S.J. and Pan, J. (2026). ‘Turning the envious boss into a friend or a foe: The emotional and behavioral reactions to being envied by one’s supervisor and its impact on leader-member exchange’, Journal of Applied Psychology, 111(8), pp. 987–1007.https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001366

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People do not always assess leadership behaviours on their own merits. Similar behaviours can be rated differently depending on what observers already believe about the leader.

Across four experiments, recent research found that ratings of authentic, ethical, and servant leadership were influenced by a leader’s previous success, ethical achievements and alignment with the observer’s values. The effect remained even when the behaviour was held constant or statistically controlled (Fischer, Dietz and Antonakis, 2024).

That leaves organisations with an uncomfortable possibility: they may think they are measuring leadership behaviour when they are partly measuring reputation, approval, or expectation.

The research also describes a possible causal illusion: a higher leadership rating may appear to explain an outcome when in fact both rating and the outcome were influenced by the observer’s evaluation or other factors unrelated to the behaviour (Fischer, Dietz and Antonakis, 2024).

Broad leadership labels are too vague for assessing talent or building capability. Organisations must translate these labels into observable behaviours that assessors can evaluate, leaders can practice and cultures can reinforce. This does not make the values represented by authentic, ethical, or servant leadership unimportant. But unless organisations define what they mean in practice, the labels provide neither reliable evidence nor useful development goals.

Define the behaviour behind the label

Words such as “courage,” “integrity” and “accountability” feel precise until two managers are asked to define them.

One manager may view integrity as speaking honestly when a project is failing. Another might focus on declaring conflicts of interest or treating a high performer like everyone else. The solution is not a rigid checklist, but a shared behavioural language. A direction like “show accountability” becomes useful only when it means acknowledging a mistake, explaining a decision or accepting responsibility for the outcome.

This gives assessors clearer evidence, leaders something practical to develop and coaches something meaningful to observe.

Separate behaviour from reputation and outcomes

Strong commercial results can make any leader look decisive and strategic. But that result may also reflect favourable market conditions or a skilled team, not the leader’s actual skill. None of that removes the leader’s contribution. Nor does it prove leadership quality.

The sharper question is simple: what did the leader actually do?

Did they raise risk early? Invite disagreement? Give the team enough authority to act?

Related research on credible leadership signals adds another layer: A visible action is not automatically reliable evidence of leadership quality. An action is credible only when it reveals a quality that cannot be observed directly and is difficult for an uncommitted leader to fake (Schimmelpfennig, Efferson and Bastardoz, 2026).

Saying that employee wellbeing matters, for example, is easy to copy. Consistently protecting the time and resources needed for employee support is far more informative because it takes genuine commitment to sustain over time.

Observe leadership across different situations

Leadership often looks convincing when conditions are easy. The more revealing moments come later.

A manager may welcome a challenge while a programme is ahead of schedule, then become defensive when costs rise. Another may speak openly about transparency yet delay telling the board about a serious operational risk.

A single interview, survey, or successful project cannot capture that variation. Organisations need evidence across pressure, uncertainty, disagreement, setbacks and failures. Relying on multiple observers also helps separate a genuine pattern of behaviour from one person’s subjective impression.

The goal is not to achieve perfect consistency. People naturally adapt to context. The real test is whether valued behaviours still appear when displaying them carries a real cost.

Develop and measure repeatable actions

“Become a more authentic leader” sounds developmental. It is not especially actionable.

A better coaching goal might be: “In the next four leadership meetings, explain the reasoning behind important decisions, invite challenges before finalising them and state any unresolved risks.”

Now there is something to practise and something to observe.

The coach can ask what happened when the challenge was invited. The leader can review whether they listened or defended the original decision. Colleagues can describe whether risks were genuinely surfaced. Progress becomes visible over time rather than inferred from a broad label. That intersection is critical. Assessments help organisations strip away reputation and pinpoint actual, observable behaviour. From there, coaching takes over, turning those behavioural insights into concrete habits leaders can practise, review and repeat.

Leadership labels still have a place. They give organisations useful language for what matters. But they should never replace behavioural definition, careful observations, or repeated practice.

The distinction matters because it shapes who organisations recognise, reward and develop.

So, are we genuinely building leadership capability, or are we rewarding people who already create a positive leadership impression?

References

Fischer, T., Dietz, J. and Antonakis, J. (2024) ‘A fatal flaw: Positive leadership style research creates causal illusions,’ The Leadership Quarterly, 35(3), p. 101771.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2023.101771

Schimmelpfennig, R., Efferson, C. and Bastardoz, N. (2026) ‘Credible leadership signals,’ The Leadership Quarterly, 37(2), p. 101941.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2025.101941

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