How do people get ahead in the workplace? One way seems to be by making their subordinates miserable, according to a study. It says almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways. ?The fact that 64.2 percent of the respondents indicated that either nothing at all or something positive happened to the bad leader is rather remarkable,? wrote the study?s authors, Anthony Don Erickson, Ben Shaw and Zha Agabe of Bond University in Australia.

Despite their success in the office, spiteful supervisors can cause serious malaise for their subordinates, the study suggested, citing nightmares, insomnia, depression and exhaustion as symptoms of serving a brutal boss. The study is being presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, from yesterday to Wednesday in Philadelphia.