Good Boss, Bad Boss Quotes

“If you are a boss, ask yourself: When you look back at how you’ve treated followers, peers, and superiors, in their eyes, will you have earned the right to be proud of yourself? Or will they believe that you ought to be ashamed of yourself and embarrassed by how you have trampled on others’ dignity day after day?”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Bosses shape how people spend their days and whether they experience joy or despair, perform well or badly, or are healthy or sick. Unfortunately, there are hoards of mediocre and downright rotten bosses out there, and big gaps between the best and the worst.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Listen to those under your supervision. Really listen. Don’t act as if you’re listening and let it go in one ear and out the other. Faking it is worse than not doing it at all.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“The best bosses do more than charge up people, and recruit and breed energizers. They eliminate the negative, because even a few bad apples and destructive acts can undermine many good people and constructive acts.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Fight as if you are right, listen as if you are wrong.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Psychological safety is the key to creating a workplace where people can be confident enough to act without undue fear of being ridiculed, punished, or fired – and be humble enough to openly doubt what is believed and done. As Amy Edmondson’s research shows, psychological safety emerges when those in power persistently praise, reward, and promote people who have the courage to act, talk about their doubts, successes, and failures, and work doggedly to do things better the next time.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“as the research shows, the more time you spend around rotten apples – those lousy, lazy, grumpy, and nasty people – the more damage you will suffer. When people are emotionally depleted, they stop focusing on their jobs and instead work on improving their moods. If you find that there are a few subordinates who are so unpleasant that, day after day, they sap the energy you need to inspire others and feel good about your own job, my advice – if you can’t get rid of them – is to spend as little time around them as possible.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“The best management is sometimes less management or no management at all. William Coyne, who led 3M’s Research and Development efforts for over a decade, believed a big part of his job was to leave his people alone and protect them from other curious executives. As he put it: ‘After you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t dig it up every week to see how it is doing.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“THE 12 COMMANDMENTS OF BOSSES’ DIRTY WORK How to Implement Tough Decisions in Effective and Humane Ways Do not delay painful decisions and actions; hoping the problem will go away or that someone else will do your dirty work rarely is an effective path. Assume that you are clueless, or at least have only a dim understanding, of how people judge you and the dirty work that you do. Implement tough decisions as well as you can – even if they strike you as wrong or misguided. Or get out of the way and let someone else do it. Do everything possible to communicate to all who will be affected how distressing events will unfold, so they can predict when bad things will (and will not) happen to them. Explain early and often why the dirty work is necessary. Look for ways to give employees influence over how painful changes happen to them, even when it is impossible to change what will happen to them. Never humiliate, belittle, or bad-mouth people who are the targets of your dirty work. Ask yourself and fellow bosses to seriously consider if the dirty work is really necessary before implementing it. Just because all your competitors do it, or you have always done it in the past, does not mean it is wise right now. Do not bullshit or lie to employees, as doing so can destroy their loyalty and confidence, along with your reputation. Keep your big mouth shut. Divulging sensitive or confidential information can harm employees, your organization, and you, too. Refrain from doing mean-spirited things to exact personal revenge against employees who resist or object to your dirty work. Do not attempt dirty work if you lack the power to do it right, no matter how necessary it may seem.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Good bosses focus their attention, and their people’s efforts, on the small number of things that matter most. The best bosses learn when they can and should ignore the least important demands from others. But some demands can’t be avoided even though they have little, if any, impact on people or performance. In such cases, it might be wise to do a quick and crummy job so you can ‘check the box’ and quickly move on to more crucial chores.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Interruptions are especially destructive to people who need to concentrate – knowledge workers like hardware engineers, graphic designers, lawyers, writers, architects, accountants, and so on. Research by Gloria Mark and her colleagues shows that it takes people an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from an interruption and return to the task they had been working on – which happens because interruptions destroy their train of thought and divert attention to other tasks. A related study shows that although employees who experience interruptions compensate by working faster when they return to what they were doing, this speed comes at a cost, including feeling frustrated, stressed, and harried. Some interruptions are unavoidable and are part of the work – but as a boss, the more trivial and unnecessary intrusions you can absorb, the more work your people will do and the less their mental health will suffer.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Negative interactions (and the bad apples who provoke them) pack such a wallop in close relationships because they are so distracting, emotionally draining, and deflating. When a group does interdependent work, rotten apples drag down and infect everyone else. Unfortunately, grumpiness, nastiness, laziness, and stupidity are remarkably contagious.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“The worst bosses condemn their people to live in constant fear as they wait for the next wave of bad news, which always seems to hit without warning and at random intervals. The best bosses do everything possible to communicate when and how distressing events will unfold. When the timing of a stressful event can be predicted, so can its absence: Psychologist Martin Seligman called this the safety signal hypothesis. Predictability helps people know when to relax versus when dread and vigilance are warranted – which protects them from the emotional and physical exhaustion that results when people never feel safe from harm for even a moment. Seligman illustrated his hypothesis with air-raid sirens used during the German bombing of London during World War II. The sirens were so reliable that people went about their lives most of the time without fear; they didn’t need to worry about dashing to the shelters unless the sirens sounded.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“The best bosses find the sweet spot between acting like spineless wimps who always do just as they are told (no matter how absurd) versus insubordinate rabble-rousers who challenge and ignore every order and standard operating procedure. Good bosses try to cooperate with superiors and do what is best for their organizations, but they realize that defiance can be required to protect their people and themselves – and sometimes is even ultimately appreciated by superiors.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“talented employees who put their needs ahead of their colleagues and the company are dangerous.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“THE 11 COMMANDMENTS FOR WISE BOSSES Have strong opinions and weakly held beliefs. Do not treat others as if they are idiots. Listen attentively to your people; don’t just pretend to hear what they say. Ask a lot of good questions. Ask others for help and gratefully accept their assistance. Do not hesitate to say, ‘I don’t know’. Forgive people when they fail, remember the lessons, and teach them to everyone. Fight as if you are right, and listen as if you are wrong. Do not hold grudges after losing an argument. Instead, help the victors implement their ideas with all your might. Know your foibles and flaws, and work with people who correct and compensate for your weaknesses. Express gratitude to your people.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“When your boss listens to you carefully, reaches out to help you, and learns from you, it enhances your dignity and pride. Doing so also helps your boss gain empathy for you, to better understand how it feels to be you and what you need to succeed in your job and life.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Psychologist Susan Fiske observes, ‘Attention is directed up the hierarchy. Secretaries know more about their bosses than vice versa; graduate students know more about their advisors than vice versa.’ Fiske explains this happens because, like our fellow primates, ‘people pay attention to those who control their outcomes. In an effort to predict and possibly influence what is going to happen to them, people gather information about those with power.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Numerous lawyers, consultants, and accountants have told me that when a client has treated them badly, they avoid working for them again unless they are desperate, and when they must, they often charge higher rates to make themselves feel better and because assholes consume extra time and emotional energy. A European consultant explained his firm’s evidence-based ‘asshole pricing’ in a comment on my blog: We’ve therefore abandoned the old pricing altogether and simply have a list of difficult customers who get charged more. Before The No Asshole Rule became widely known, we were calling this Asshole Pricing. It isn’t just a tax, a surcharge on the regular price; the entirety of the price quoted is driven by Asshole considerations.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“and supply-chain experts, and get more space. Corey also knew that little things can mean a lot, and as a boss, you can earn credibility with your people by demonstrating that you will go to war for them every now and then—even over fairly trivial things.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“Harry S. Truman said, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“As Max DePree, former CEO of furniture maker Herman Miller, put it, “The first job of a leader is to define reality.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst

“«Discuta como si tuviera razón, escuche como si estuviese equivocado».”
― Robert I. Sutton, Buen jefe, mal jefe

“La indecisión es una particularidad de los malos jefes.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Buen jefe, mal jefe

“«el tiempo se inventó para no tener que hacerlo todo a la vez».”
― Robert I. Sutton, Buen jefe, mal jefe

“los líderes eficaces son «además de competentes, benevolentes».”
― Robert I. Sutton, Buen jefe, mal jefe

“«las personas no se marchan de las organizaciones, sino que huyen de los malos jefes».”
― Robert I. Sutton, Buen jefe, mal jefe

“The truth is that bosses...don't matter as much as most of us believe. They typically account for less than 15 percent of the gap between good and bad organizational performance, although they often get over 50 percent of the blame and credit.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best...And Learn from the Worst

“The best bosses break down problems into bite-sized pieces and talk and act like each little task is something that people can complete without great difficulty.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best...And Learn from the Worst

“Be repetitive and concrete. The things you say over and over have the most impact if they specify what to do and when to do it.”
― Robert I. Sutton, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best...And Learn from the Worst