Bad Bosses
The leadership failures we keep promoting — and how to stop.
Every organization has them. Most organizations made them. An unsentimental look at how companies systematically produce the leaders they later complain about — and a practical case for building the opposite.
OUT OCTOBER 27, 2026Bosses
The leadership failures we keep promoting — and how to stop.
Every organization has them.
Most organizations made them.
An unsentimental look at how organizations systematically produce the leaders they later complain about — and a practical case for building the opposite.
Drawn from fifteen years inside leadership development, 125+ leaders developed, and research into what people actually trust.
BAD BOSSES · SHEILA VANCEDRAG TO ROTATE · HOVER TO PAUSE
Every organization has them. Most organizations made them.
Bad bosses are not an accident of hiring. They are the predictable output of systems that promote the wrong behavior, reward the wrong results, and then act surprised when good people leave.
Bad Bosses is an unsentimental look at how organizations systematically produce the leaders they later complain about — and a practical case for building the opposite. Drawn from fifteen years inside leadership development, 125+ leaders developed, and research into what people actually trust.
You cannot fix leadership one manager at a time. You have to fix what you keep promoting.
Everyone can name them. Almost no organization stops making them.
The Micromanager
Trust replaced by surveillance — and the slow erosion of everyone's judgment but their own.
The Ghost
Absent when it matters. Decisions stall, and somehow that becomes the team's problem.
The Blamer
Failure flows downhill. Accountability is something that happens to other people.
The Credit Stealer
Your work, their name, their promotion. Repeat until people stop raising their hands.
Stop treating bad leadership as bad luck.
How organizations manufacture the bosses they later complain about
What promotion criteria reward — and what they quietly destroy
The measurable cost of leadership people cannot trust
A practical case for building the opposite
Out October 27, 2026.
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