Work Matters

Tag: bad bosses

  • A Perfect Example of a Bad Boss: A Middle School Principal

    Last year, I wrote a post about how Justin Snider, who teaches education at Columbia, asserted that "the best principals are PRESENT, constantly interacting with teachers, students, and parents."  I was especially interested in his comment about an intriguing if rough measure of how well a principal is doing the presence thing:

    "[A] great back-of-the-envelope measure of whether a principal is generally doing a good job is how many students' names he or she knows.  In my experience, there's a strong correlation between principals who know almost all students by name and those who are respected (and seen as effective) by students, parents and teachers."

    I thought of Jason's assertions about the power of presence after getting this depressing email from a middle school teacher about her horrible principal.  This boss defines lack of presence.  I have reprinted most of the story below in this teacher's words, as I found it most compelling.  But note the key point: "She never comes out of her office, and never spends time in the building, seeing how it functions.  I can literally go weeks without catching sight of her."  Scary, huh?

    Please read the rest. If you are a boss, you might use this description as a bit of a self-test.  Do you do this kind of stuff? Is this how the people you lead see you? 

    Also, this teacher is asking for advice about how to deal with this situation. What would you suggest?

    Here is her story. Note she has taught at this school for over a decade:

    I teach at a middle school. We have had a superintendent for five years.  He’s no good, but largely did not touch the staff at my school because we had an excellent principal who did as you suggest – she insulated us from nonsense from above her.  When she left for greener pastures, our super installed our current principal.  (No interview process, no panel discussion.  Hooray!)  She’s probably a nice lady: shy, socially awkward, and apparently a “yes-man” for upper management.  She reads books about “ideal” middle schools and then plans how to make ours match her vision.  Alas, her vision after the first nine months was to transfer numerous successful people out of our building.  She then changed the schedule, the teams, the grades we are teaching – essentially, she disassembled the school and rebuilt it from the ground up.

    She never comes out of her office, and never spends time in the building, seeing how it functions.  I can literally go weeks without catching sight of her – this in a smallish middle school of 540 kids and maybe 45 staff.  She’s never taught above grade five, and we work with hormonal 7th and 8th graders. She is very uncomfortable talking to more than one person at a time, so doesn’t get “into it” at staff meetings with us.  She has essentially disbanded team leaders, which was the democratic body in our school that used to hash out ideas and plan new strategies, with staff input.  She has no one with feet on the ground feeding her information – consequently, her “ideal” visions and new structures are theoretical only – they are never held up to the light for discussion or dissection, to see if they’re workable or not. 

    One example:  we no longer retain students who flunk more than two major classes in grades 7 or 8.  Her rule. No staff input.  Something about self-esteem?  We’re not really sure – she’s never officially discussed or even informed us of this policy change.  We have heard it through the grapevine.  Meanwhile… A student of mine who flunked third quarter was informed by her that he can’t stay back no matter how little work he does for the rest of the year.  Now, Bob,  you’re not officially an educator – but imagine being a lazy 14-year-old boy and being told there will be no consequences for lack of effort in school.  How much time are you going to spend studying or working on homework from April through June?

    We, her staff, have seen the ebb and flow of parent concerns, scheduling glitches, social promotion, and poorly-constructed teams. We are long-term and short-term experts in our fields, with decades of experience among us.  She doesn’t ask for our input in how to implement plans – and many of hers hit the ground like lead weights.  People have tried to approach her in a variety of ways, but it’s clear from her reaction to us that any disagreement is seen as a dire threat to her.  She has no confidence, and completely shuts down if she proposes an idea and the staff offers logistical questions or pushback.  We literally do not know how to talk to her about what is not working, because she is so hypersensitive and easily flummoxed that we fear she can’t process it – and we fear more greatly that she will try to “get us” for expressing concerns.

    We live in such a well of fear and distrust now, it’s hard for us to function. New superintendent is coming in July.  We are crossing our fingers.  In the meantime, I guess I’m hoping you’ll have some advice.  What can underlings do  to salvage things when the boss is fully incompetent to do the job – and is bringing the walls down around her as she pursues her incompetence?

    What do you think? Any advice for this teacher other than to lay low and hope that her crummy boss gets canned by the new superintendent?

  • Five Signs You Are a Bad Boss in Today’s Wall Street Journal

    I was interviewed last week about bosses by the Wall Street Journal's Diana Middleton. Her story "Five Signs You're a Bad Boss" came out today.  The five signs are:

    1. Most of your emails are one-word long

    2. You rarely talk to your employees face-to-face

    3. Your employees are out sick–a lot.

    4. Your team's working overtime, but still missing deadlines.

    5. You yell.

    I was especially taken with point 4 in Diane's list, as it is a sign of bosses who lack both competence and consideration for their people:

    New bosses are particularly prone to giving unmanageable deadlines to staffers, says Gini Graham Scott, author of "A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses."

    A human resources executive at a New York firm who declined to be named because she's currently looking for a new position, says that she began working 15-hour days after her new boss came on board. Her boss' first order of business: Promising more aggressive deadlines to clients. "She would tell the client, 'We can have this for you in three days,' which was impossible," says this woman.

    I have not thought about this one enough, but it really strikes me as diagnostic.  Yes, there are always emergencies that a boss cannot control, but when the boss does not have the skill to prevent such relentless hours from becoming a way of life or the backbone to protect his or people from such exploitation, it is a pretty good sign of a bad boss.

    Clearly, this is not as complete or detailed list. Creating one would be impossible in such a short space.  I would also caution that yelling is complicated, and is sometimes a sign of an over-passionate boss that might otherwise be good.  And even the best bosses — as with all human-beings — may succeed despite these and other flaws.  Certainly, to pick some famous bosses who were sometimes given to yelling, Vince Lombardi and Steve Jobs certainly both were given to screaming now and then.  I am not defending their actions, but there are times that people with flaws are worth the trouble, especially if they are embedded in teams that can dampen their flaws.

  • Lessons from Nightmare Bosses and a Blurb for “High-Performance Teaming for Douche Bags”

    That is the title of an interview that Leigh Buchanan did with me on Good Boss, Bad Boss, which just appeared in the October INC. I have know Leigh for some years, since she was at Harvard Business Review. She is a great writer and editor.  Check out this piece she did about two entrepreneurs who spent five years building "eco adventure lodge" called Tranquilo Bay in the rain forest in Panama.   Leigh also did one of the best, and probably the funniest, interview about The No Asshole Rule, which was called "The Bully Rule Book." 

    The new interview similarly reflects Leigh's great skill at taking my disorganized babbling and making me sound coherent.  Here is a taste of the interview, two of the questions and answers:

    Is it harder for bosses whose reports range from the highest- to the lowest-level employees?

    It is harder. Because the people you oversee will have different motivations. With all due respect, this is where Jim Collins is full of shit. I have a friend whose family bought a chain of movie theaters. Maybe all that get-the-right-people-on-the-bus stuff applies to the managers of those multiplexes. But a couple levels down, you're dealing with teenagers who are going to be in the job for a year or less. My friend said there are four things you want those people to do: show up to work, look decent, not make out or get stoned while they're on the job, and not steal. If you can find people like that, you have a successful business.

    Work may be the most important thing in your value system, but that may not be true for those around you. Especially if you have all the equity, and to the people around you, it is just a job.

    Also, Leigh ended the interview with a pretty funny twist… I guess I was saying the s-word a lot during this intervew:

    So can I count on you to write a blurb for my forthcoming book, High-Performance Teaming for Douche Bags?

    Sure. I can do it now. "This is good shit."

    You can read the rest here; it provides a pretty good summary of the main ideas in Good Boss, Bad Boss — not just the lessons from nightmare bosses:

    P.S. A couple of other media things have hit including this short interview in Newsweek, which apparently accompanies a gallery of CEOs Behaving Badly.  Also this nice review of Good Boss, Bad Boss just appeared in Risk Management.  These are also nice, but Leigh's interview is the most fun and goes into the most depth.

  • Boss Poop: A Morality Tale From Author Jonathan Littman

    I have talked about author Jon Littman here before, as he has written a lot of books.  He co-authored gems including The Art of Innovation, Ten Faces of Innovation, and most recently "I Hate People." Jon has many talents, including writing in-depth stories about performance-enhancing drugs in sports on athletes including Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong.  His current adventure is Snowballnarrative.com where he works with entrepreneurs and corporations to help them with branding and storytelling. 

    I ran into Jon at the speech I gave on Good Boss, Bad Boss at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco last Monday night.  His reaction to the speech was to write a "morality tale" called "Boss Poop" for this blog — a true story that will definitely make my "top 11" list of the comic, clueless, and cruel acts of crappy bosses, along with examples from other Work Matters readers. Here is Jon's guest post.  I hope you love it as much as I do — I think his writing is beautiful.

    Boss
    Poop

    By
    Jonathan Littman

    We
    can learn from tales of bad bosses, and the most revealing of these stories
    have the resonance of classic Grimm’s fairy tales. They pack a moral within the
    framework of a frightening narrative. Sometimes they can be almost comical. At
    least for those who don’t have to suffer under a nightmare of a boss.

    Consider
    the long-time president and founder of a successful small Los Angeles
    advertising firm. Premiere Fortune 500 clients valued his company’s services.
    But the boss tended to treat his staff somewhere below his dog.

    Literally.

    The
    Boss’s wife used to occasionally visit the office. She was friendly and
    invariably brought the family dog, a cute spaniel.     

    The
    staff dreaded these visits. Spot, as they nicknamed the dog, made clear this
    was his territory. He’d knock over things, mess up papers, generally wreak
    havoc, and interrupt work. And that wasn’t all. As if on cue, the dog always
    went potty during his visit. It was always a number 2. And Spot always left his
    present in front of someone’s door.

    This
    disgusted employees.  They saw it for what it was – a stinking metaphor
    for their predicament.  It screamed a direct and demeaning message about
    their lowly status. The boss’s wife never cleaned up her dog’s crap. That was a
    job for the employees.

    Then
    Spot did something exceptional, something that for one day made him a hero in
    the eyes of the downtrodden staff.  He padded right by all the employees
    and left a big present by the door of his owner, the boss.

    The
    wife left. The dog left. The present remained.

    Then
    the boss hopped on the office intercom. Taking command, he issued a general
    directive for the prompt removal of Spot’s present.  But this was
    like no other incident before. Not a single employee moved.

    The
    present remained in front of the boss’s door.

    The
    boss tried again and again.  Finally, he switched tactics.  One by
    one, over the speakerphone, for all to hear, he called upon virtually every
    staff member, encouraging them as individuals to rise to the challenge.

    This
    went too far. No one wanted to get fired, but there is a limit to how much
    humiliation most people will suffer at the office.  Not a single staff
    member responded to the boss’s insulting call for personal humiliation.
    Finally, the message got through.  Upon hearing her name, a shy, recently
    hired immigrant, rose obediently from her desk, bent before her boss, and
    scooped up the poop before her boss’s door.

    It
    sounds too bizarre to be true, like a modern day parable. But it gets worse. To
    further rub it in, so to speak, the boss cheerily got back on his speakerphone,
    and sang his praise of the poor woman’s good deed. She had delivered a lesson,
    he said, in “the value of dedication and teamwork.”

    Of
    course, this bizarre, company-wide degradation only served to ensure that the
    boss was even more roundly hated. Key employees soon quit. Sagging morale
    plummeted farther.     

    The
    moral of this bad boss tale?
    Clean
    up your own messes. Especially, if you are the boss. 

  • “Name two great bosses and two bossholes Pink Blog readers might recognize. Don’t be shy.”

    My last post was about the review and interview with me that
    Dan Pink posted earlier in the week about Good Boss, Bad Boss.  I thought it would be fun to
    repeat the last question that he asked me and my answ    er. 

    Here is my answer to the question in the title. Do you agree or disagree?  Who would you add to lists of bossholes and great bosses?

    Let’s start with the bossholes.  My least favorite CEO in recent
    years was Carly Fiorina because I witnessed her lead changes that helped
    destroy one of the most constructive organizational cultures I have
    ever encountered.   I worked closely with a couple HP insiders during
    much her reign (and before that) and saw the spirit of that wonderful
    place die under her leadership – it wasn’t all her fault, other forces
    were in place.  But a CEO who does massive layoffs and then buys
    (actually leases) a very fancy new corporate jet for herself ought to be
    ashamed.  She was infamous for “shooting the messenger” and for being
    impatient with implementation – for example (very similar to President
    Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech) Carly announced that the
    merger integration with Compaq was complete and successful to the horror
    of people on her senior team who still believed that it wasn’t nearly
    done. (Indeed, for example, Mark Hurd took out millions and millions of
    IT costs when he took charge that were created by the unfinished
    merger.)  Carly’s unfortunate experience shows that, to be an effective
    leader, you not only need some wisdom, you also need the right
    experience.  Note that she never had profit and loss responsibility in
    any prior job before coming to work at HP (this was reported by Fortune
    and I have confirmed it from other sources).  Right around the Compaq
    merger, a very knowledgeable Silicon Valley insider who knew Carly well
    said something I thought was a joke, something like “Carly ought to go
    into politics; she gives great speeches and there really aren’t any
    tangible deliverables.”   As most readers know, now Carly is running for
    Senate in California.

    To pick a second bosshole, I believe the current champion here might be Dov Charney, founder
    and CEO of the American Apparel clothing empire, which is the largest
    clothing manufacturer operating in the U.S.  He has done good things
    like paying employees high wages and providing them and their families
    health insurance, and sells hip clothing and developed a great brand. 
    They operate 260 stores in 19 countries.  But piles of evidence  of
    strange boss behavior and bad financial performance now hound him and
    the company.  Although several sexual harassment law suits against
    Charney were dropped, he admits holding a staff meeting naked except for
    the sock on his penis, walking around the office in just underpants and
    referring to fashion models as “sluts.”  The tales of such antics in
    combination with deepening financial losses,
    plummeting stock price, and Deloitte’s concerns about accounting
    irregularities have this once high flying firm in an apparent death
    spiral.   Apparently, among other flaws, Mr. Charney suffered from – or
    perhaps enjoyed – one of the most severe cases of power poisoning in
    recent times – especially the lack of inhibition and impulsiveness that
    are often part of the syndrome.

    To turn to the good bosses, I am a huge fan Pixar’s Brad Bird, Academy Award winning Director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille.  I was part of a group that interviewed him for the McKinsey Quarterly
    a couple years back, and was taken with him.  But I am in even bigger
    fan after talking to multiple people at Pixar and Disney studios about
    him last week.  They love him and love how he encourages open argument
    and makes it so fun – and as one executive who worked with Brad through
    these two films told me “Everyone who works with him once can’t wait to
    do it again.”  And people who work with him are simply blown away by his
    technical skill: John Walker, who was a Producer on both films, went on
    and on with examples of Bard’s amazing technical expertise.

    Finally, my favorite CEO of a large U.S. company in recent years was
    AG Lafley, who led Procter & Gamble for decade.  He is polite,
    persistent, and instilled constructive values throughout the company.
    Like Brad Bird, people loved working with him because he was so smart,
    supportive, and honorable.  And I love his management philosophy: “Keep
    thing Sesame Street simple,” especially in light of the contrast to the
    deeply complex business practices used by Wall Street firms that led to
    the meltdown.

    Again, please let me know your reactions — especially who should be added to the two lists.

  • The Top 10 Worst Fictional Bosses

    6a00d83451b75569e2010536fe7398970c-800wi
    I was reading the Rypple blog this morning in anticipation of the Good Boss, Bad Boss webinar they are hosting at 2 Eastern today.  There is a great new post there by Alanah Throop on The Top 10 Worst Fictional Bosses.  Check it out.  I don't want to ruin the fun, but in looking at the list and thinking of the worst bosses, I would argue that to be really awful, a boss needs to be both an asshole and incompetent at getting things done.  So I would say, for example that some of the folks on their list like Darth Vader and Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada definitely qualify as certified assholes, but I would not rate them as the worst of the worst because they are good at getting things done.  And both did show a modicum of compassion eventually. So that leaves me with bosses who are both certified assholes and incompetent.  For me, the winner is Bill Lumbergh from Office Space.  His veneer of consideration combined with incessant nagging for TPS reports and other acts cruelty and incompetence are tough to beat.  Also, for bonus points, above he is pictured wearing the infamous asshole collar.

    Who would top your list? 


  • Mass Exodus at Gorilla Coffee: Employees flee from “perpetually malicious, hostile, and demeaning work environment”

    One of the last posts I wrote before taking a couple weeks off warned that, since the economy seems to be finally coming back and job opportunities are on the rise,it just might be the last chance for many incompetent and nasty bosses and organizations to finally start treating their people right — otherwise employees may start running for the exits.

    Well, although I am not sure the economic upturn played a role, the story of Gorilla Coffee in New York City provides a cautionary tale for every asshole boss.  The New York Times "Diner's Journal" reported on April 11th that nearly all the employees resigned, that the coffee shop "isn't going to open anytime soon," and the allegedly abused employees who quit are seeking jobs elsewhere.  The story in The Times (it looks like a blog post) reveals staggering differences between the employee's and owner's perspective:  The owners said things like:

    “It’s a complete surprise." 

    And they portrayed Gorilla as a workplace that "is mostly happy if
    often busy,"     but:

    When one employee started expressing her dissatisfaction,
    “it got out of hand.”

    In contrast, the long letter (see the story) from employees explaining why the mass resignation occurred tells a much different tale:

    The issues brought up with the owners of Gorilla Coffee yesterday are
    issues that they have been aware of for some time. These issues which
    have repeatedly been brushed aside and ignored have created a
    perpetually malicious, hostile, and demeaning work environment that was
    not only unhealthy, but also, as our actions have clearly shown,
    unworkable.

    The Times also reported that employees felt especially abused by:

    Carol McLaughlin, one of
    the two owners, and demanded that she withdraw from daily operations at
    the coffee bar.

    And that:

    When both owners refused, seven baristas quit. (Another barista
    resigned, but the owners say that person wasn’t an employee.)

    Of course, I can't know all the facts here because the stories are so different and the 87 comments from Times readers further muddy the picture — although there is a pretty strong hint that the asshole poisoning also was evident in how employees treated customers.  And if you look at research on power dynamics, odds are that those in power — the owners — were oblivious and insensitive to their underlings. 

    Regardless, this story, along with my earlier post, suggests that it is a good time for all bosses to ask themselves what their followers really think of them — a lot of leaders out there are living in a fool's paradise.  As this story shows, the costs of being seen by your people as an asshole (or simply incompetent, I would add) can be mighty high regardless of what YOU believe about yourself as a boss.  Remember, if you are the boss, the test of the quality of your leadership is what your followers think of you, NOT what you think of yourself.

    This story also reminds me of a saying by Jim Goodnight , CEO and co-founder of SAS software, which is currently #1 on Fortune's best place to work rankings.  He often says something like, " When my people go home at night, I just hope that they come back in the morning, otherwise I am out of business."   The Gorilla Coffee case reveals the truth of Goodnight's wise words. 

    P.S. Thanks to Johanna for sending this story my way. 

  • If Your Boss is an Asshole, Don’t Give Him or Her the Book

    One of the strange things about The No Asshole Rule that took me at least a year after publication to understand is that just owning, displaying, and — in particular — giving someone the book as a present (or even suggesting they read it) can have strong effects.  And they are not all good. On the positive side, a senior executive at a large professional service firm told me that at a meeting of the firm's partners, the CEO waved around a copy of the book and told them that whether or not they followed the rule would be factored into compensation decisions.  Most of them had not read the book, and didn't read it after that, but just the act of waiving around the book and suggesting something like "and if you are a chronic asshole, we are going to push the delete button pictured on the cover" was enough to get their attention and, I am told, did help a few of the most recalcitrant jerks tone down their nastiness. 

    A number of people have also explained to me that the book is a useful "defensive tool" or "protective device." An
    attorney reported that although she had not read it yet, she bought a copy and
    displayed it prominently in her office – and pointed to it when one of her
    colleagues started turning nasty.  A senior executive from a large
    technology company told me a similar story just a few weeks ago    .  He did
    claim to have liked and read the book, but argued it was even more useful as a
    protective device.  People saw it on his desk, which reminded them to be
    civil, and “When they do lose it, I hold it up in front of my face like a
    shield – they usually get the message and turn down venom immediately.     

    But there are also dangers to simply owning the book, as people are
    sometimes offended by it — especially when they are concerned that they are the
    asshole in question.  In the fast few
    years, several people have told me that when they brought the book to work,
    they were ordered to hide it, bring it home, and never bring it to work again
    because the title was in such bad taste.  An office assistant wrote me
    that her boss put a negative note in her personnel file because the book upset
    several coworkers.  This assistant added that the only person it really
    upset was her boss, because she was a certified asshole and she and everyone
    else knew it.  In a more troubling case, a woman berated me on the phone
    and over email because her sister was fired for bringing the book to work
    because her boss found the title offensive.  This cold-hearted act
    provided further evidence he was a bosshole, but that was little consolation as
    she needed the job.

    Unfortunately,
    I learned of a new example of the dangers of using the book (regardless of its
    actual contents) yesterday in a rather heartbreaking comment that “Regan” made
    in response to my question “What’s the worst advice you have ever received:”  

    The
    only management book I have ever bought was the "No Asshole Rule"
    because it was about time someone put it in writing. It was a great book, my
    whole department loved it – they advised me give it to my boss to read – he did
    not see the humour in it, and he must have seen himself clearly fit the
    definitions of "asshole" because I lost my job shortly after giving
    him the book. So, although I think The No Asshole Rule is the best management
    book ever written – I think the advice about giving it to your boss if he/she is
    a tyrant is pretty bad advice – didn't work out too well for me anyway…    ..

    I
    found it quite painful to read how much Regan liked my book and how much it
    ended-up hurting him — I didn't advise him to give to his boss, but I hope others can learn from this incident .  Although I hope
    you find the ideas in the book to be helpful, but I also hope that – especially
    if you are in a place where paranoia and mistrust run high and psychological
    safety is low – you will learn from these cautionary tales, and be careful
    where you bring the book and who you give it to as a "present." 

    A broader lesson is that – ironically – telling a person that he or she is an asshole can be an insulting thing to do, and can
    sometimes turn even a civilized person into an asshole. 
    And apparently, this is especially true if that
    person really is a certified asshole (and especially dangerous to you if he or she wields power over
    you).

  • Quote of the Day: Roaches and Assholes

    I want to thank everyone for the great comments on my last post, which raises the question: Is the only effective way to deal with an impossible boss to suffer in silence until you can escape? 
    Every comment so far is extremely thoughtful. I was especially taken taken with how John described how he had learned to deal with impossible bosses as he traveled through his career.   My favorite line, however, comes from Jason, who comments:

    "Since I
    read your book I've been watching at my firm and my observation is that
    asshole bosses are like roaches–there is never just one."

    As I've written here many times, being an workplace asshole is often a malady that you catch from other people.  But the roaches analogy is a lovely way to out it.

  • Working for an “Impossible Boss:” Is the Only Option to Suffer in Silence Until You Can Escape?

    I was just reading a compelling and heavily research based by psychologist Robert Hogan called Personality and the Fate of Organizations.  In Hogan's chapter on "The Psychology of Managerial Incompetence," he cites an interesting study by by McCall and Lomdardo (see this book for a summary of much of it) where they had interviewed a large number of managers about "career defining events."  Every manager reported that they had spent a long stretch "working for an impossible boss, not difficult, cranky, or abusive, but impossible."  So their first conclusion is that just about every adult will have to work for an impossible boss at some point.  The researchers reached a second conclusion that troubles me, "when working for an intolerable boss, if a  person sticks up for him or herself and refuses to bullied,  his or her career will be irreparably damaged.  When working for an awful boss, a person's only option is to suffer in silence."  

    I was taken aback by this advice. It certainly isn't always wrong, as I suggest on my list of tips, there are times where the best option when working for a bad boss is to suck it up and take it — and get out as fast as you can. But there are just too many examples — and research too — about how trampled underlings have successfully fought back against abusive and incompetent bosses.  A couple famous cases come to mind right away — Brad Bird now of Pixar fame and Robert Townsend, the author of the classic Up The Organization — indeed, Bird's case, he was hired by Pixar in part because he had no tolerance for incompetent authority figures; indeed, his past firing from Disney was career enhancing move. 

    These guys ultimately succeeded, in part, because they fought back against bosses they did not think were competent.  I also have had several longstanding email exchanges with people who are now CEOs because they fought back against and ousted their incompetent and mean-spirited predecessors.   In The No Asshole Rule,  I do emphasize that if you have an asshole boss, sometimes the best thing to do it is become emotionally detached and not let it touch your soul. But I also argue that there are times you can fight back, and when underlings band together and fight back — and practice some skilled politics — they can win against a bad boss, and help rather than damage their careers too.

    I should also add that, although the typical person stuck with an impossible boss might be better off riding out the storm in silence and turning the other cheek, if everyone followed this advice, bad bosses would never be punished, reformed, and fired and terrible decisions would never be stopped.  If you haven't read Michael Lewis' story about AIG, this might be a good time to do it.  He presents well-researched evidence that one reason that AIG messed up so badly was they had an "impossible" boss named Joe Cassano running their Financial Products unit, who was intolerant of dissent, and those who tried to stand-up to him learned it was better not to and left, leaving only people who didn't fight back, suffered his tirades in silence, and said things like "Joe, you are right."  The article estimates this unit lost about 45 billion dollars, and suggests that the fear that Cassano instilled in his followers was a large contributing factor.  I wonder, are those underlings who suffered in silence really better off now — not to mention U.S. taxpayers who have loaned AIG nearly 200 billion bucks.

    That's my reaction. What do you think?

    1. Is this advice right?  If you have an impossible boss, is it usually is a career-limiting move to fight back?

    2. How do you know when to fight versus when to keep your head down and escape as fast as you can?

    3. What is the best way to fight back?