Five Bad Bosses and How To Manage Them

You can’t always pick your boss, but you will have to work with all kinds of managers if you want to thrive professionally. Unfortunately, all the business or technical know-how in the world can’t prepare you for the full assortment of dysfunctional supervisors. A new book, Managing Your Manager: How to Get Ahead with Any Type of Boss (McGraw Hill/Available now), presents guidelines for dealing with a broad range of leadership, or, more accurately, “leadership.” Author Gonzague Dufour says many workers wind up at some point under the wing of a bully, a con artist, a socially challenged geek, or a full-throttle egotist. But your career doesn’t have to stagnate, as long as you make these difficult bosses work for your interests, Dufour contends. The first step is recognizing some common traits of various bad-boss types. The next is strategically plotting your countermoves. Dufour is a senior HR exec who has worked for top companies such as Kraft and, currently, Bacardi. For more about the book, click here.