Workaholism: Work Addiction Threatening Businesses

Work intoxication or work addiction syndrome is a neuro-psychiatric disease discovered in America in the early 1970s.

In this article we will not deal with the medical aspect, that is, the mutations that this disease inflicts on the sick person, but we will illustrate the repercussions it can have within the company.

Over the years it has often been confused, perhaps for convenience, the difference between a workaholic and a worker suffering from chronic work addiction.

What is the difference seen from the point of view of business activities?

The workaholic, who has managerial roles, we can see him as a responsible, reliable, ambitious and trustworthy person who drives his team to reach company objectives or budgets entrusted, through the construction of a competitive and satisfying climate in which each participant in the project feels inserted in a driving chain, with the common purpose of running the engine at the right level to reach the common goal.

Collegiality of objectives, efforts and gratifications are the key to obtaining the best results leaving, in the leader, but also all the subjects of the team, the pleasure commitment and recognition of the qualities of individuals, each in the right measure.

The enhancement of the efforts of individuals and of the team, at all levels, gives a sort of protection to the herd and a self-regenerating charge for everyday challenges.

The leader who leads the group, to stimulate everyone's energy, must be inclusive, reassuring, sincere in illustrating risks and objectives, but above all he must get dirty hands on the front line, in the same trench and sharing strategies in the field.

In case of achievement of the objectives the group will be compact and stronger, satisfied, gratified, sure of the fact that unity is strength and that, selfishness or internal prevarications, are deleterious for each of the participants.

If we look instead at the leader of a group affected by work addiction, we are faced with a person who lives to collect adrenaline with which to feed his day.

Corporate goals are an excuse to apply this addiction to your life, dragging the whole team into a constant cyclone of stress.

Those who experience this dependence mobilize sterile competition, aimed at increasing the volume of work in a negative way, putting pressure on collaborators without understanding the limits and needs of people.

He is not able to work as a team because he lives the activity in an egocentric way, so he relates to colleagues as if they were a piece of his project aimed at the result.

The corporate objectives are a propellant that feeds the spiral of commitment, the gasoline that ignites an engine that has to run at maximum and the human component is not considered as part of the match.

People suffering from work addiction cannot disconnect, lose touch with real life and expect employees to work according to their scheme and interests.

Easily puts those who don't follow him in a bad light, creates zizania to increase mutual competitiveness, and doesn't talk to the team.

It does not conceive of those who disagree or those who have a more balanced attitude towards work, where every component of their life must have a weighted weight.

Being directed by a subject suffering from work addiction has the negative effect of working in an environment in constant tension, where the fear of making mistakes reduces the results , where the risk of outbursts from the team leader are on the agenda, with possible consequences on the job position.

The fear of making mistakes or being betrayed by fellow workers creates internal currents, factions more or less close to the leader, whose purpose is no longer the achievement of business goal but that of the survival of the employment relationship.

Team members tend to retreat into protective shells, do what they are told to do, even if they deem it unproductive or even wrong.

They do not expose themselves with ideas or proposals so as not to expose themselves to non-calculable reactions, knowing how much a subject affected by this disease can be short-tempered, unfriendly in mood and taking risks to put yourself in a bad light.

An environment like the one described focused on a person who believes he is running a race alone, humiliates everyone's work, sometimes even people, transforming the thrust proactive of a team in working passivity, leaving every decision and every consequence to the leader.

The spiral leads the top figure to have to take care of everything, no longer having a team to rely on, with the tightening of the workload and the reduction of clarity in decisions and neglect of the general quality of the results.

A disconnect is created that fosters resentment between the leader and the team, a general disinterest in the company and its future, creating the construction of evidence that can defend the individual positions awaiting the impending catastrophe.

In fact, the working days pass not aimed at improving company performance, but waiting for the day of the failure of their team, with the hope that their behavior minimal and obsequious can save his job.

If we start from a paradigm used many times, but real, which says that the successes of companies are made up of people led by capable leaders, we must therefore monitor excessive behavior both lax and hyper work.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.