Robert I. Sutton's Blog, page 24

The new paperback version of The No Asshole Rule came out a few weeks back and it has a fairly long new chapter, as the headline says, called  "On Being The Asshole Guy."  It digs into topics including"  "The Title is Powerful, Useful, and Dangerous," "Be Slow to Label Others as Assholes, But Quick to Label Yourself," "Subtle, Skilled, and Strategic Assholes are Especially Insidious," "Many Leaders and Organizations Use the Rule -- And it Works," "The Book Touched a Nerve About Bad Bosses,&quot...

My publisher put the ad below in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal for the paperback version of The No Asshole Rule.   Calling it The No A****** Rule is better than calling it The No ******* Rule, as The Times did when the book was on their bestseller list in 2007. (I note that they are spelling out the whole title in their "extended" list, as the book is #15 on the paperback "Advice"  list, but they don't publish that in the paper -- the real test will be if it makes it to number...

Good Boss, Bad Boss is a serious book, and certainly there is plenty of evidence that bad bosses do much harm and good bosses do a great deal of good for their followers, customers, and organizations.  But it is nice to take a break now and then and have some fun.  So I thought it might be fun to come up with a top ten list of funny, weird, astounding, and otherwise amusing (if sometimes destructive) things that clueless bosses do.  Research on power poisoning suggests that because...

I have been a huge fan of Kelley Eskridge for awhile now, and have written about her here before and I quote her Good Boss, Bad Boss. I am always especially struck by the power of her writing.  Just yesterday, she wrote a comment in response to my post on authenticity versus the challenge a boss faces of convincing people that he or she is in charge.  Check out a snippet from Kelley's comment:

"Controlling a team is like driving a car. The whole machine can work
wonderfully well, but if no...

As indicated in my post about speeches in September, I have been busy talking to various groups about the main ideas in Good Boss, Bad Boss.  I had a lot fun at Pixar, Disney Studios, IDEO, and Google talking to large groups, and also learned a lot from an interactive two hour session with a dozen or CEOs in Boston last Thursday.  Unfortunately, those talks were not open to the public. But the one I am doing tomorrow at the venerable Commonwealth Club is open.  I think this is my fourth o...

I did an online interview on Good Boss, Bad Boss with Professor Bret Simmons, who is one of my favorite bloggers.  Bret does a lovely job of striking a practical balance between what the best evidence shows about management and other organizational behavior and the practicalities and realities of organizational life (as an example, don't miss his most recent post on the Ten Most Important Leadership Functions).  Bret asked me some mighty hard questions about the book; perhaps the one that c...

A pair of intriguing experiments shows that women are more likely than men to be selected as leaders during times of crisis.  Check out this summary over at BPS research of the "glass cliff" by Susanne Bruckmüller and Nyla Branscombe.  In the first study:

"They presented 119 male and female participants with different versions
of newspaper articles about an organic food company. Participants were
more likely to select a fictitious female candidate to take over the
company if it was...

We're Number 9! That is, Good Boss, Bad Boss is #9 on The New York Times "Advice, How-To, and Miscellaneous" list, which will be published on Sunday, September 26th.  Don't ask me why they release this so far in advance, I don't understand it -- indeed, even after five books, I remain bewildered by the publishing industry. I have a zillion people to thank, but for this post, I will stick to me wife, Marina Park, who the book is dedicated to; Marina was not only was enormously supportive...

A couple months back, I wrote a blog post reporting I had bought an iPad and was trying to love it, but couldn't bring myself to do it.  I am pretty much in the same place with the gizzmo as I write this post.  It sits next to the bed, and I occasionally use it to read The New York Times or do a quick web search -- but I still find it awkward for reading or watching movies as it gets heavy in my hand and the glare is bad enough that I have trouble getting it in the right position.  I also...

My last post was about the review and interview with me that
Dan Pink posted earlier in the week about Good Boss, Bad Boss.  I thought it would be fun to
repeat the last question that he asked me and my answer. 

Here is my answer to the question in the title. Do you agree or disagree?  Who would you add to lists of bossholes and great bosses?

Let's start with the bossholes.  My least favorite CEO in recent
years was Carly Fiorina because I witnessed her lead changes that helped
destroy...