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"If you&amp;#39;ve spent any time working under a boss you&amp;#39;d politely term as &amp;quot;tough,&amp;quot; wondering how this could possibly make sense for your team, for the company, for anything, a new study out of Northwestern University is confirming your suspicions. The &amp;quot;power-hungry&amp;quot; boss is one who actively tries to cause stress and consternation among underlings in an attempt to cement their status as leader, sabotaging communication, putting stellar employees on the back-burner, and purposefully misassigning tasks within the team.\n&amp;quot;It can cause the group to fall apart at a basic level,&amp;quot; explained Jon Maner, a professor at the university&amp;#39;s Kellogg School of Management. &amp;quot;If you have people who don&amp;#39;t like each other and aren&amp;#39;t allowed to communicate effectively with one another, then really, you don&amp;#39;t have a group at all anymore.&amp;quot;\n__MORE: Is Being Ruthless the Key to Career Success? __\nPinterestFacebookThe study examined whether a leader would utilize a team member who was skilled at a particular assigned task when told that their position as leader was flexible, with the group being allowed to select a new chief. The findings? Subjects who had scored high marks for a test assessing desire for power were the most likely to put up roadblocks, pairing the skilled person with someone they knew they wouldn&amp;#39;t gel with or making them work alone (even though told teamwork wold help the group&amp;#39;s performance).\n&amp;quot;It&amp;#39;s surprising to me just how willing leaders are to really undermine group success in favor of their own power. These talented, highly skilled group members are in one of the best positions to help the group succeed. But rather than being seen as a valuable ally, they&amp;#39;re instead seen as a threat by leaders who are afraid of losing their power,&amp;quot; Maner said.\nThose working on the study also said that, sadly, there&amp;#39;s a high probability workers will come across this type of bad boss at some point&amp;#8212;they&amp;#39;re the ones most often interested in the status that comes with a corner office (whereas people driven by respect are typically happy to stick with a title they love, even if it&amp;#39;s not at an executive level).\nDealing with a nightmare boss? Study up on the individual types and strategies to take with each.\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/story/what-makes-a-boss-bad>