Why some bosses weaponize abuse—and feel nothing

There’s a version of leadership that quietly gets rewarded. The boss who yells but “gets results.” The founder who tears into the team but ships fast. The manager who humiliates in front of others, then calls it “setting the tone.” We tell ourselves it’s just personality. Or stress. Or pressure. But what if it’s not?

A study out of the University of Georgia recently confirmed what many team members already feel but can’t always name: some abusive management behaviors aren’t outbursts—they’re strategies. And that’s what makes them dangerous. Let’s unpack how this shows up in early-stage teams, why it keeps happening, and what founders can do to lead with clarity instead of control.

In the early days of a startup, speed matters. So does accountability. Founders need to make decisions quickly, fix mistakes fast, and keep the team aligned with minimal bureaucracy.

That urgency creates a tempting shortcut: dominance. A raised voice gets immediate attention. A public scolding signals seriousness. A cutting remark shuts down dissent. It all “works”—until it doesn’t.

When abusive behavior is seen as effective, it creates a false system:

• Authority = aggression
• Compliance = alignment
• Fear = focus

But these links don’t hold under pressure. Fear doesn’t scale. It stalls. What looks like decisive leadership is often reactive control. And what’s worse—it’s often reinforced. Teams move quickly to avoid conflict. Results happen. But the culture starts eroding underneath. If your team only performs to avoid being yelled at, you don’t have alignment. You have tension management.

According to the UGA study, some supervisors actively use abuse—yelling, shaming, mocking—as a tool to assert leadership or trigger performance. It’s not just a lack of emotional regulation. It’s a playbook.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: the startup environment makes it easy to excuse.

• “He’s just intense.”
• “She’s under a lot of pressure.”
• “That’s just how founders are.”

When verbal abuse is rationalized as drive or passion, it becomes embedded. Founders start believing that if they’re not hard on their team, the team won’t respect them. That if they don’t dominate, they’ll be undermined. So they use tone instead of process. Intimidation instead of structure.

And if the company survives early chaos, that behavior gets grandfathered into culture. A new hire joins and watches a senior engineer get dressed down in a standup. A junior PM hesitates to raise a concern after seeing someone else humiliated for doing so.

What started as a one-time flare-up becomes a default leadership style.

Here’s what doesn’t show up in sprint reports: morale loss, psychological retreat, and creative shutoff. But they’re there. Abusive management tactics break more than feelings—they break systems:

• Trust erosion: People stop telling the truth. They sand off the edges in retros. They hide early-stage mistakes to avoid backlash.
• Velocity drop: Teams become cautious, not committed. Execution slows—not from laziness, but self-protection.
• Ownership dilution: No one wants to own a thing that might get them yelled at. So they defer. Or escalate. Or ghost.

Eventually, founders start wondering why people aren’t “taking initiative” anymore. Why motivation is low. Why hiring doesn’t fix the culture. The answer is simple: If every decision becomes a risk to personal dignity, people will stop deciding.

If you suspect abusive patterns are creeping into your team culture—or you’re worried your own behavior may be reinforcing them—here’s a system you can reset.

(1) Clarity = Shared Expectations

• Define what “good” looks like in plain terms. Not “be proactive”—but “raise blockers within 24 hours and propose one next step.”
• Replace personality-based performance reviews with outcome-based ones.
• Don’t make your mood the weather system the team works under. Define the climate.

(2) Containment = Private, Timely Feedback

• Correct in private, even when the mistake is public.
• Give feedback close to the moment—but with calm, not charge.
• Ask permission before offering critique: “Can I share a reflection on how that landed?” frames the conversation better than “That was unacceptable.”

(3) Consequence = Consistent Boundaries

• Don’t excuse your own bad behavior just because you’re the founder.
• If you lose your temper, name it. Apologize. Model repair.
• Create a norm where abusive behavior from anyone—peer, founder, or lead—gets addressed, not avoided.

This isn’t about being “soft.” It’s about making sure your systems aren’t dependent on fear to function.

Before your next one-on-one or team sync, ask yourself: “Would this person still perform if I wasn’t watching?”

If the answer is no—not because of skill, but because they fear your reaction—that’s a system issue, not a talent issue. You haven’t built a team. You’ve built a stage. And the applause will stop.

Startups attract urgency, ambition, and intensity. That’s not bad. But when those traits are mixed with unclear roles, under-resourced teams, and founder emotional centrality, the result is fragile power dynamics. It’s easy to fall into abusive patterns—especially if you think leadership means being the loudest or most unrelenting person in the room.

But the strongest founders I know aren’t intimidating. They’re consistent. They don’t raise their voice. They raise clarity. And they don’t need fear to lead. They need trust to scale. If your team moves only when you snap, you don’t have momentum—you have dependency. And that breaks long before your product does.