{"id":2767,"date":"2009-01-23T18:16:24","date_gmt":"2009-01-24T02:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/?p=2767"},"modified":"2015-06-12T18:39:52","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T02:39:52","slug":"corporate-bullies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/corporate-bullies\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Bullies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0\u00a0Nicole Perlroth, Forbes Staff\"\"<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/hgroup>\n<\/div>\n
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We all know our fair share of corporate bullies\u2013the managers who abuse power, yell, harass and micromanage their way through life. Usually their office antics breed resentment, sabotage, \u201cmental health days\u201d and costly turnover.<\/p>\n

But some executives notorious for their abrasive styles\u2013the Steve Jobs, Harvey Weinsteins and Barry Dillers of the world\u2013are hailed as luminaries, breaths of fresh air for stale industries.<\/p>\n

So what separates the sadists from the wunderkinds? In short, the silver-backed gorilla.<\/p>\n

In Pictures: Bully Bosses Hall Of Fame<\/a><\/h4>\n

Sadists throw their weight around gratuitously, and relish the chance to watch underlings squirm. In contrast, the silver-backed gorilla will beat his chest, break branches, flash his teeth and charge\u2013but all in the interest of protecting his troop. He secures food, mediates conflicts and provides safety, so lesser gorillas put up with his antics. His fictional counterpart is Don Corleone. In corporate America, it may be Martha Stewart.<\/p>\n

Of course, Stewart spent five months in prison, and Don Corleone got gunned down in the street. These power players may find an aggressive style helps them claw to the top, but they often can\u2019t sustain their reign.<\/p>\n

Bullying leaders rise in part because they are unwilling to compromise. They are committed to\u2013and unremittingly protective of\u2013their vision, and make large companies move with the speed of small ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people who are very brusque in fighting for their vision,\u201d says Stanford Business School professor Roderick Kramer. \u201cThey push people aside who are too conservative or \u2018just don\u2019t get it.\u2019 But they also attract\u2013and are very protective of\u2013their followers.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia employee told Kramer, \u201c[Stewart] was tough to work with, but she had a really strong vision. She drew out the best in you. If you could meet her high standards and withstand her perfectionism, it was very gratifying to be in her inner circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Film producer and studio chairman Harvey Weinstein\u2013whose tantrums are now regularly satirized on HBO\u2019s Entourage\u2013<\/em>is notorious for intimidating both friend and foe. Once, Weinstein allegedly confronted former Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider at a cocktail party, believing she had spread rumors that he was behind a campaign to discredit Universal\u2019s A Beautiful Mind<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The New Yorker<\/em>\u2018s Ken Auletta described their altercation this way: \u201cTo the petite Snider, [Weinstein] was a fearsome sight\u2013his eyes dark and glowering, his fleshy face unshaved, his belly jutting forward half a foot or so ahead of his body. He jabbed a finger at Snider\u2019s face and screamed, \u2018You\u2019re going to go down for this!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

But by most accounts, Weinstein\u2019s coarse style proved critical to shaking up Hollywood. His antics are often indulged as a necessary function of his all-consuming drive to make independent films succeed in a market that favors blockbusters.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil [Weinstein] came along and beat his way down doors, there was no place for indie producers in the Hollywood studio system,\u201d says Kramer. \u201cHe singlehandedly pulled the independent film industry out of the doldrums and made Miramax one of the few indie-production brand names that people associate with quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weinstein\u2019s chest beating helped acclaimed films like The Thin Blue Line<\/em> andThe Crying Game<\/em> get made and has earned his work more than 200 Academy Award nominations and over 60 awards.<\/p>\n

Still, history shows that leaders like Stewart and Weinstein have a tendency to go too far. Stewart endured prison time on charges related to an insider trading scandal. Weinstein was recently accused of harassing Sydney Pollack on his deathbed about a film release. InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller is routinely criticized for his bloated compensation package. Even New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the \u201cpopulist avenger,\u201d was caught with his pants down. Every week, it seems another \u201cvisionary\u201d is caught exerting inappropriate influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, those we consider \u2018visionaries\u2019 become puffed-up creations of their own imagination,\u201d says management consultant Gary Namie. \u201cWhen business executives stop looking beyond quarterly reports and stockholder dividends, they start ignoring internal stakeholders. We\u2019re seeing that unravel now.\u201d<\/p>\n

American tolerance for bullying leaders may be waning. \u201cThere has been a real sea change in what\u2019s conceptualized as good leadership,\u201d says Kramer. \u201cAmericans have become disenchanted with power. Almost daily, they watch as leaders\u2013in government, in business\u2013fail to exercise appropriate restraint.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a recent survey conducted by Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School, 80% of Americans believe we have a leadership crisis. Only 45% of respondents say they have confidence in our business executives. Only Congress and former President Bush fared worse. The highest ranked group in the survey? The military, which has the confidence of 71% of people surveyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe difference is that in boot camp, the military breaks you down and then builds you back up,\u201d says Namie. \u201cThese so-called \u2018visionary\u2019 narcissistic nut cases wouldn\u2019t dare arm their subordinates. They couldn\u2019t afford to turn their back.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may be better for a prince to be feared than loved. But, says Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Nye, \u201cwe sometimes forget that the opposite of love is not fear but hatred. And Machiavelli made it clear that hatred is something a prince should carefully avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service \u2013 if this is your content and you\u2019re reading it on someone else\u2019s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source::\u00a0 http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/2009\/01\/23\/power-bullies-managers-biz-power08-cx_np_0123bully.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0\u00a0Nicole Perlroth, Forbes Staff We all know our fair share of corporate bullies\u2013the managers who abuse power, yell, harass and micromanage their way through life. Usually their office antics breed resentment, sabotage, \u201cmental health days\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1292],"class_list":["post-2767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-2","category-featured-news","tag-corporate-bullies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2767"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2775,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions\/2775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}