A Climate of Aggression, From All Corners

You can feel it in customers’ pushback against company policies. You can see it in posts from employees on social media. And you can hear it in attacks from activist investors.

Whether it’s customers boycotting retailers that charge for returns or employees openly questioning business decisions (and more) on social media, people are mad as hell, to paraphrase Howard Beale’s famous quote, and letting everyone from store associates to managers to CEOs know it. While displeasure with corporations and their leaders is nothing new, experts say the level of aggression has risen noticeably this year, and is likely to make headlines in 2025. “People today have more divergent views, which means less common ground and more tension and conflict,” explains Dennis Baltzley, a senior client partner and global head of leadership development solutions at Korn Ferry.

To be sure, data shows that more than half of retail workers have experienced customer aggression or harassment. Viral videos with hashtags like #badbosses and #actyourwage—showing employees calling out managers who’ve asked them to work on their day off or outside of business hours—have racked up hundreds of millions of comments on social media, most of them supportive of the employee. This combativeness has spilled over to the business side. Activists have mounted campaigns at a record-setting pace this year, and they’re winning more quickly and more frequently, in part because boards want to avoid an ugly public fight. Recently, for instance, one activist described a target company’s business plan as “throwing spaghetti against a wall.”

James Bywater, a business psychologist and senior client partner at Korn Ferry, says companies and leaders have brought much of this anger on themselves. For example, he notes, firms have been pushing customers to use chatbots that aren’t capable of fulfilling their requests. Indeed, nearly half of people view customer service chatbots unfavorably and assess their experience with them negatively. At the same time, inconsistent policies around remote work, widespread layoffs, and other labor issues are raising tensions internally, says Bywater. “Organizations have become so complex and unaccountable that some of the anger may be a completely understandable reaction,” he says.

One way leaders can defuse the tension is by “reintroducing the human touch into their organizations,” says Bywater. He advises leaders to distill and clarify lines of communication so customers and employees can get to the people and information they need. For Baltzley, it’s an issue of trust, which is now at historically low levels across society. More than 60% of employees feel their employers don’t trust them, for instance, and that they purposely try to mislead them. Leaders can rebuild trust with customers and employees through authenticity, transparency, and a willingness to listen, learn, and adapt, he says.

It may get worse before it gets better, however. Tensions rise when there is uncertainty, says Tierney Remick, a vice chairman and co-leader of Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO Services practice, and people can become very judgmental very quickly. She says the most important thing leaders and stakeholders can do is find ways to enable each other to succeed. “How can both sides create a space for that?”

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s Leadership and Professional Development capabilities.

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