The researchers found that on days when managers feel overwhelmed by their inbox, they felt like they hadn’t made much progress with their job responsibilities.

In turn, this meant they engaged in structure behaviour more than leader behaviour – because when you feel like you’re struggling to keep up with your workload, you’re going to focus on the small tasks you have right in front of you, rather than thinking about the bigger picture.

While this makes sense, it’s not great news if you want to be a good manager. Leader behaviour has a strong correlation to employee performance, Johnson said, suggesting that a manager’s team may be less productive and effective if their boss is regularly distracted by emails.

“The moral of the story is that managers need to set aside specific times to check email,” Johnson said. “This puts the manager in control - rather than reacting whenever a new message appears in the inbox, which wrestles control away from the manager.”

Images: Rawpixel/Unsplash, Getty Images

How your email habits could be making you a worse manager