Happiness and the Workplace

I believe that when you say you love your work, what you really mean is that you love the environment, you love the people you work with, you love the vibe and excitement of the workplace. You don’t necessarily love the actual process of “the work” itself.

I am hearing stories at the moment of happy work environments going belly up – bully bosses and bully clients seem to be thriving in the current economic climate; their victims having to bite the bullet and unfortunately this provides a Petri dish for unacceptable behaviour to thrive.

Understanding why people behave the way they do helps. Hopefully this list, compiled by Scott Berkun, of 11 reasons why bosses become assholes will make you feel a whole lot better if you have to deal with asshole bosses and clients.

1. A boss they admired was an asshole.
2. They are insecure in their roles
3. They prefer intimidation to leadership
4. Their life sucks
5. They lose their way
6. Promotion chasing
7. Their management chain is toxic
8. The Peter Principle
9. They're not assholes, they're just insensitive or oblivious
10. Madly in love with themselves
11. They always were assholes

Scott’s explanation for point 2. is extremely insightful:

"They are insecure in their role. The psychology of opposites goes a long way in
understanding human nature. Overly aggressive people are often quite scared, and
their aggression is a pre-emptive attack driven by fear: they attack first
because they believe an attack from you is inevitable. Management makes many
people nervous since it’s defined by having have less direct control, but more
broad influence. A huge percentage of managers never get over this, and
micromanage: a clear sign of insecurity and confusion over their role and yours."

He expands on each point so go and have a look: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/top-ten-reasons-managers-become-assholes/