The Psychopathy of Bad Bosses

               Who's Running Your Service Organization?

Stanley Bing, the nom de plume of a writer for Fortune, has recently updated his book "Crazy Bosses" and it made this old services executive sit back and reminisce about some prior superiors and the number these individuals worked over a lot of us.

Bing spends much of his book exploring the makeup and actions of five types of really bad bosses: The Bully, the Paranoid, the Narcissist, the Wimp and the Disaster Hunter. Thankfully, he also provides some guidance for dealing with each of these at the end of each chapter.

Whether these people are in your firm or in your client, you would do well to page through this piece on your next trans-continental flight.

Personally, I flew through this book. Maybe, that was because I could distinctly recall working for several bullies and narcissists. I've also encountered the wimp from time to time, too.

While I could write reams about some of my prior bosses, I doubt it would be therapeutic. I did have one exceptionally bad one who was paranoid, a bully and a narcissist. He was an absolute piece of work. This individual single-handedly fired everyone around him. Average tenure of anyone working with this fellow rarely exceeded 10-12 months.

Please read this book to make sure:

• you're not becoming one of these bosses
• you don't have someone in a position of responsibility who possesses these traits

Bad, toxic bosses are more than just a danger to the people who work for them, they usually cause great hardship to their employers, too. Bad bosses are a cancer that must be excised or the company could fail or falter badly.