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Stanley Bing

How to deal with your crazy boss

Fortune's Stanley Bing shares his take on the five types of crazy bosses, and some strategies for dealing with one, from "Crazy Bosses" (Harper Collins).

The narcissist
Keep his show on the road.
Rationale: Narcissists are all about appearances. They want to look like they are managing. They want other people to see that they look like they're managing. Your job, as you go about assimilating his work and his operational power, is to keep up that front. Absolutely everyone in the organization will thank you for it. Those above the narcissist want their management structure to look like it's functional, not insane. Those below the narcissist will appreciate the way you keep him basically restricted to figurehead duties. And you'll be happy, too, because he will consider you, after a time, a critical beam in his interior support system.

Effectiveness: Bodacious.


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