Does swearing at work make a leader seem more relatable… or just more like an a**hole?
In this episode of Significantly Weird, Christine digs into Gruda and colleagues’ wonderfully titled study, STFU and Follow, which examined how employees respond to leaders who use profanity at work. Drawing on data from 5,660 employees across 19 countries, the researchers looked at whether followers’ Dark Triad personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—change how they react to a swearing boss, and whether the broader culture matters too.
As it turns out, the answer is much weirder than “swearing is good” or “swearing is bad.” In countries with lower income inequality, some highly Machiavellian and psychopathic employees actually responded more positively to leader profanity. But in countries with greater inequality, employees tended to respond negatively to swearing leaders regardless of personality, suggesting that culture can overpower individual differences in shaping what feels acceptable from a boss.
We talk about why profanity can sometimes signal authenticity and informality, when it crosses the line into poor leadership, what trait activation theory has to do with all of this, and what the findings mean for leaders trying to figure out whether dropping the occasional swear word makes them approachable… or simply makes everyone want them to shut the hell up.
A note for listeners with littles nearby: despite the paper’s title, there are no F-bombs in this episode. There is some daytime-TV-level swearing; tiny research assistants may proceed accordingly.
Research discussed:
Gruda, D., McCleskey, J. A., Al-Shammari, M., Lisak, A., Psychogios, A., Szamosi, L., Bhavnani-Akowuah, L., Simha, A., Tang, M., Zaharie, M., & Tsai, C.-Y. (2026). STFU and follow: Trait activation of dark triad responses to leader profanity across 19 countries. Personality and Individual Differences, 258, Article 113844. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113844