Washington Post Recommends Bad Boss Book

Peoria, AZ (PRWEB) December 5, 2005

So you think you can manage your boss, eh? You must’ve read advice that tells you bosses really want to do the right thing but they have a million excuses about why they’re not doing it, right? Advice that tells you your boss just needs to be made aware of the effect her or his behavior is having on you and then it will stop? Well, it may work that way in the movies, but in real life there are bosses who want to be bad, bosses who would eat you alive like the Big Bad Wolf who swallowed Red Riding Hood’s sweet little Grandma. What if your boss is one of those? Then what do you do?

According to Mary Ellen Slayter, a career columnist at The Washington Post, the book “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Boss? 13 Types and How to Survive Them” can help. In her November 27th article titled “Bad Breeds of Bosses,” Slayter says this book not only offers advice about how to cope, but it also saves you time by telling you what not to try with each of the 13 types it describes. Slayter recommends the book especially for people “who haven’t mastered the basics of office politics.” Read her entire article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600341.html.

In preparation for writing the book, author Marilyn Haight, an organization development consultant and writer in Arizona, conducted a five-year, undercover research project working as an employee in eleven organizations, secretly spying on bad bosses. Haight’s 13 bad-boss types include the Wannabe, Suppressor, Pretender, Confounder, Dumbfounder, Propagator, Player, Bully, Manipulator, Cult Maker, Pilferer, Saboteur and Combination Type.

Haight set up a Web site for “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Boss? 13 Types and How to Survive Them” at http://www.bigbadboss.com, where she posts stories submitted by readers about their own bad bosses. The December story is from a reader describing a “Christian Taliban boss.” Haight explains this type as a combination of the Propagator and the Cult-Maker. She says bosses who violate Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws “are smart enough to know not to leave an incriminating trail. Instead, they attack you emotionally and then claim that you, the victim, are making up problems that don’t really exist. That’s how they get rid of people they’re uncomfortable being around or just don’t like.”

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