In Gallup’s 2015 ‘State of the American Manager ‘report, one out of two professionals said they had quit a job to “get away” from their boss at some point in their career…
— from an article by Heather R. Huhman on Entrepreneur.com, December 2015.
I sometimes imagine myself as the head of a large corporation, pulling down a multi-million-dollar annual salary and making hefty donations to my favorite politicians. Not exactly a ‘regular’ fantasy. But it happens on occasion.
I also sometimes imagine myself as a rock, looking down from the top of a Colorado mountain and surveying the vanity of human beings as they live their brief, meaningless lives. This is not a frequent daydream either, but it pops into my head, now and then.
Both reveries reflect an equally ridiculous situation, I suspect.
When I imagine myself being a mountaintop rock surveying the pretentious pride of the people in the town down below, there’s a certain level of arrogance involved, on my part. Like I’m smarter than the foolish humans. (As all rocks are, of course.) It’s easy to be smug, when you’re a rock.
But when I imagine myself as head of a big corporation with a multi-million-dollar salary, it feels completely different… and actually, pretty uncomfortable. Because I would probably be a toxic boss.
I got interested in the problem of ‘toxic people’ during an accidental visit to the INC. magazine website, where you can find literally dozens of articles explaining which people in a business organization are toxic, how they became toxic, how to survive their toxic behaviors, and how a toxic person can become less toxic.
Based on all those article, you would be tempted to think that ‘toxic people’ is the primary problem in American organizations.
This research is all theoretical, for my own part, because I’m not a boss, of anyone. I live alone with my cat Roscoe, and work at home as a lonely, underpaid writer for a relatively obscure news website. While I might have a toxic personality (which I admit is completely possible) the only one who who would know, is Roscoe, and he’s not talking. And no one, toxic or not, is the boss of Roscoe.
But when I picture myself as CEO of a large organization, I might be toxic, based on what I’ve been reading. There appear to be as many ways to be toxic as there are bosses. Like, for example:
I would definitely not be a toxic optimist. But research suggests that it’s almost as bad to be a toxic pessimist. Apparently, you just can’t win, if you’re toxic.
The most obvious problem that my whining underlings would have, with a toxic CEO like myself (I am imagining), would be their tendency to blame their job dissatisfaction on my toxic personality, when in fact it’s their own endless moaning and groaning that’s making me toxic in the first place. Who wants to work around a bunch of cry-babies?
Put on your big boy pants, for heaven’s sake, and do the work you’re being paid to do. And that goes for the women in the office, as well, since a lot of them are wearing pants these days. (“Put on your big boy skirt” doesn’t paint the right kind of picture.)
It wasn’t until I had skimmed a dozen online articles that I realized how lopsided this whole conversation has become.
A Toxic Boss – the Main Characteristics
5 Signs of a Toxic Boss
How to Spot a Toxic Boss
6 Effective Tactics for Handling a Toxic Boss
The 10 Habits of Highly Toxic Bosses
Where are the articles about toxic employees? The way I look at this issue… (in my imagination)… if I would probably be a toxic boss, then it’s just as likely that I would be a toxic employee. Right?
Once again, Roscoe is not talking, although he’s the closest thing I have, right now, to an employee… or rather, a boss.
At least he’s not complaining.