Time for detox

Lately, I’ve seen several posts on here by Linkedin influencers talking about toxic bosses and toxic work environments. It’s actually a subject I have a lot of emotions about. I started my corporate career in 1991. Since that time, I have worked for more toxic bosses than not. One day, I’ll finish writing my corporate memoir. I started writing it in the 90’s while traveling with PriceWaterhouse. I already have several “toxic boss” stories documented in there.

I read some of these linkedin posts about how “unfair” things are and part of me thinks “suck it up” and part of me wonders “has the time finally come to flush all this toxic sludge down the toilet once and for all?”

I sound like an “old timer” sitting here saying “suck it up”. But then again, I have a whole library of stories to share. There’s that time when the billionaire owner fired the entire management team overnight, moved several hundred employs to the most atrocious, demeaning office environment, and left a little paper on everyone’s desk with the “rules of engagement”. One of the rules shown in bold was “no complaining for 28 days”. I wish I had kept that card. It would have been a great museum piece. Meanwhile, the co-owner was in the back room snorting cocaine.

How about the place where one guy in management was sleeping with half the female staff members. Why wasn’t HR doing something about it? Oh wait, it’s because she too was sleeping with him.

Or how about that total whack job CEO who brought a little plastic toy violin to work one day, put all the C-suite into a room and proceeded to say “if anyone has any complains about how I do things, I’m gonna play you a song on this little violin.” He then proceeded to press a button and a cheesy digital rendition of Vivaldi played on the little toy. He let the whole song play out while the whole executive team watched in disbelief.

Oh, how I wish these stories were made up. They are not. They are real and these people run a lot of companies. And if you think this is just one man’s opinion, perhaps you should read such great books as:

Link to book: https://amzn.to/3YG1ynh

I only read the original edition. As I went to get the link, I noticed there was an updated edition. That’s definitely not because there are fewer of these people than before! The authors are probably inundated with new material.

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?Link to book: https://amzn.to/3YpVFt3

The above book has an unfairly low number of reviews. This is an important subject.

There are many other books on this subject. Actually, I must point out that “psychopath” is not the right word. Many of these people who rise to power are very charming, charismatic leaders. The term “sociopath” is more appropriate from a clinical perspective. And these people mostly have very low empathy and score very low on EQ tests. Guess who else scores very low on EQ tests? Most CEOs.

This is a great book on this subject: https://amzn.to/40lB5N4

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As you can tell by the tone of my writing, this is subject I have a lot of passion for.

It’s time we stopped responding to these people. It’s time we stopped working for them, listening to their crazy directions, and being slaves to their narcissistic behaviors. Their mental condition is part of what are called Cluster B disorders in the DSM. Here are some aspects of this cluster of disorders that many of you will be able to pick out in many “leaders”:

• Lack of remorse
• Deceitfulness
• Impulsivity
• Aggressiveness and irritability
• Chronic patters of lying and manipulation
• Disregard for others’ well-being
• Seductive behavior

Sound familiar? Can you think of a boss you’ve had in the past who checks some, if not all, of these boxes? I don’t know about you but I can easily name a dozen.

And I will leave you with this other little story from my memoirs. Back when I was young, I looked up to this super charismatic executive. He went on to be the CEO of a Fortune 50 company. He is now serving life in prison for attempting to kill his wife.

Ahh… what a corporate journey it has been!