Toxic Bosses

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Career Development  

Toxic bosses are everywhere. Many are accomplished and extremely successful. Some are working for or running well-known companies. Others are geniuses who created breakthrough technology. On your first meeting, they can be well-poised and ingratiating and seem like they'd make great bosses. But that changes quickly once you start working for them. What you thought would be a dream job turns into a nightmare.

Consider yourself lucky if you've never had to endure a toxic boss. But what would you do if you had to report to one?

The term "toxic boss" isn't new. There is even a website called toxicboss.com for employees saddled with toxic bosses. Its definition of toxic boss: "A toxic boss is a bad boss." Profound.

Management consultant and author Robert Bacal says a toxic leader is a "leader who, by virtue of his or her own problems, creates an environment that drives people crazy." Weak, but a little better.

Jean Lipman-Blumen, professor of organizational behavior at Claremont Graduate University in California, has a lot more to say about toxic bosses. "Toxic leadership seems to be an equal-opportunity career path," she observes. Even though we're supposedly smarter and more psychologically tuned in than we were a few decades ago, "we continue to tolerate--even prefer and sometimes seek out--toxic leaders who degrade …

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