That's bad, boss

B for boss, b for bully. the workplace is divided between two kinds of bosses - the good guys and the bad guys. If your boss's toxic tactics are making life difficult for you, you need to address the problem effectively, says Amy Joyce

The boss got the job done. There was no question about that. But while getting it done, he allegedly threw a tape dispenser at a contractor who complained about a lack of funds. He is said to have made nasty remarks about her weight and figure.

He is accused of trying to fire people who disagreed with him. A high-up official called this boss a "serial abuser'' of low-level employees.

As many know, the boss being so described is John Bolton, currently the US ambassador to the United Nations. Tales of his management style came out of Senate testimony during recent confirmation hearings in April 2005.

Bolton, if one is to believe the testimony, some of which has been denied by his colleagues, is the ultimate Bully Boss. But he is certainly not the only one.

So, what is a bully boss? He or she is someone who threatens, intimidates and makes workers feel they have no power. This behaviour can manifest itself in many ways - some of them entertaining, but only long after the fact and mostly for the kind of rubberneckers drawn to highway accidents.

Of course, that's from the viewpoint of underlings. Bosses, like other people, have personality conflicts, and sometimes may find their dislike for an ineffectual or lazy employee hard to hide. Bosses who have to give out bad news - bad evaluations, downsizing, firing - may also find themselves painted as bullies by those on the receiving end.

The bully boss phenomenon has come under the spotlight in the past couple of years as executives in America have faced juries in the backwash of corporate scandals.

Many of the big bosses who have been on trial have had to sit in the courtroom as former employees give testimony illustrating the seamy side of power. For if power corrupts, the bullying behaviour it often triggers does not engender endless loyalty.

And once the cards start going the other way, employees formerly cowed by the company's leaders can finally speak up.

The enacted scenes in recent history haven't been pretty. Most prominently, perhaps, TV
and print personality Martha Stewart was imprisoned for lying to federal investigators about a personal sale of shares in a biotechnology company. She was brought down, in part, by a Merrill Lynch broker's assistant who earned $45,000 a year.

He testified against her and had e-mailed friends after run-ins with the housekeeping diva. After one encounter, the assistant wrote to a friend that "I have never, ever been treated more rudely by a stranger on the telephone.

She actually hung up on me!'' He also noted that Stewart had referred to "people like that idiot'' who answered the phones - the assistant's job - as the reason Merrill Lynch "is laying off ten thousand employees.''

To many people, the word "boss'' brings to mind other four-letter words. It was the boss' fault Dad came home late.

Mom's boss won't give her the day off.

Mr Dithers always refuses to give Dagwood a raise, always blows his top and constantly fires (then rehires) him. Donald Trump is now famous for his grim "You're fired!'' on his television show, The Apprentice.

In real life, recent corporate scandals in the US have exposed the behaviour of executives who ruled with an iron fist.

"It's kind of funny when these people (the bosses) get on the stand, they don't have many people come and speak up for them,'' says Aubrey Daniels, founder of a management company in America that works with corporations such as DaimlerChrysler and Blue Cross Blue Shield to "rid them of management by fear.''

"If they were really good bosses,'' there would be "an uprising that would say, 'Wait a minute, this guy would never do that,'" Daniels says.

The woods are full of bully bosses ...
... of course, but a few have contributed to everyone's store of what amounts to corporate comedy, titillating to readers and laced liberally with schadenfreude, that delicious sense of pleasure in someone else's bad fortune.

John Bolton did not have a lot of support from former subordinates and co-workers when it came time for testimony.

"Mr Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel - throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman,'' said Melody Townsel, the businesswoman who was working on a government contract in Moscow in 1994 when she had the tape dispenser thrown at her.

"For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from USAID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.''

As colourful and entertaining as that testimony was, another side of the story was presented. One of Bolton's former aides had told the Foreign Relations Committee that Townsel was "very creative'' and "very good'' but that she had a tendency to "exaggerate and use language that was inflammatory''.

Whether Bolton qualifies or not, the bully boss as a type is rather common, according to researchers who have studied the type.

About 90 per cent of all workers have dealt with one, according to Jane Middelton-Moz, clinical psychologist and author of Bullies: From the Playground to the Boardroom. And most bully bosses get away with their intimidating practices, at least for a time.

Symptom 1: Often bullying bosses look really good, they make a lot of money and they do well in terms of what an organisation thinks it wants,'' Middelton-Moz says. That is because bullies can be charming and funny, she says. But they also use power tactics, such as bragging, arrogance and sarcasm, to build themselves up while bringing others down.

Sometimes the highest of the higher-ups don't know what's going on. US Air Force procurement officer Darleen Druyun pleaded guilty in April 2004 to a conspiracy charge for negotiating for a job with Boeing Co. while still supervising the company's work for the US Air Force.

Court papers and interviews with former colleagues painted a portrait of a woman who bullied subordinates, skewered industry executives and sought personal advantage at government expense.

Marvin Sambur, who was appointed Air Force acquisition chief in late 2001, said he was surprised to learn that Druyun, not her subordinates, was deciding the outcome of competitions and contract bonuses.

Symptom 2: When someone disagrees with the bully boss, the latter takes it as an attack, Middelton-Moz says. The bully then gets even more fired up and in top bully mode.

The spillover effect, in which intimidation of one person makes everyone else cow in the boss' presence, is common in America's workplaces. And such scare tactics eventually cause low morale.

"Nature pulls a dirty trick on us, because if you yell at someone, you can see them move immediately,'' Daniels says. "The boss doesn't get nearly as much immediate feedback using positive reinforcement. Bosses who keep (bullying) do this because they are reinforced for it.''

Bullying bosses "end up with enough power that if you resist them, it will hurt your career'', says Steven Katz, former senior adviser in the personnel office of the Clinton White House.

He took his experiences from that position, and from his time as chief counsel with the agency where federal employees take grievances related to personnel actions, and wrote a book called Lion Taming: Working Successfully With Leaders, Bosses and Other Tough Customers.

"While bullying bosses hired through the political appointments process is the exception rather than the rule, the very behaviours that are ultimately seen as bullying behaviour are initially tolerated, if not admired, as intellectual arrogance,'' Katz says.

Symptom 3: "When you're a bully leader, you tell people what you want them to do,'' says Clay Parcells, regional managing director with a management consultant firm in the US.

"When (Enron Corp. Chief Financial Officer Andrew) Fastow wanted things done a certain way, his lieutenants marched that way. Only those who were in the club and did what they wanted done'' got incentives, bonuses and were taken on trips with the big bosses.

***

Not all bully bosses are highly recognisable figures. Parcells shivers when he hears the term. He had a boss eight years ago who, among other things, once demanded that his employees contribute to a non-profit organisation on whose board he served.

At a weekly meeting a short time later, the boss announced to the group that he wanted to thank them all for contributing, "except for you, Clay'', Parcells recalls.

This was just one instance of many where the boss berated Parcells in front of other
employees and otherwise tried to intimidate him. "I left the company because of him,'' Parcells says.

Victims of workplace bullying may soon have recourse in some states in the US against their aggressive bosses.

In what is considered the first workplace bully case of its kind, a jury ordered an Indiana surgeon in March 2005 to pay a former hospital employee $325,000 in lost wages after a 2001 incident in which the doctor screamed and lunged at the worker.

Anti-bullying laws already exist in Australia, Canada and Britain. Just like in the schoolyard, however, it may be tough to make those bully bosses turn to more mentorly ways.

Middelton-Moz has interviewed many people who had been treated for their bullying behaviours. "They said they had been doing this since grade school,'' she says. Until somebody more powerful than they are stops them, "they won't stop".