Supervisors who use an employee appraisal to spring criticism, who think that it s more important to talk about what s going wrong than what s going right, and who become defensive when employees challenge their assessments, also can expect little from a performance appraisal session. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anger that has been bottled up for months on both sides tends to either explode or get buried even more deeply. The good news is that angry, hostile work environments can be changed, just as angry, hostile home environments can be salvaged. Abuse rarely manifests itself as an isolated incident and is rarely perceived that way.
Employees tend to support bosses who are seen as tough, but fair.
They will forgive occasional bad behavior by a boss who is viewed as generally operating in good faith, while they will react differently to one perceived as dishonest, manipulating or self-serving. This is no mystery. The workplace is an extension of the rest of life. We judge others by the impact of their behavior on us, and we generally assume we know what drives other people. Their behavior seems to make it fairly obvious.