Leadership Behaviours That Hold You & Others Back
It’s something we’ve all experienced at some point—a bad boss. Whether it’s the Micromanager who stifles your creativity, the Avoider who’s never there when you need them, or the Unappreciator who doesn’t acknowledge your hard work, the impact of bad leadership can be profound. But what if we’re not as immune as we think? What if, despite our best intentions, we’ve all exhibited some of these damaging behaviours as leaders?
In this eye-opening episode of Sticky From The Inside, I sit down with Debra Corey, an award-winning HR leader and the author of Bad Bosses Ruin Lives, to dig deep into the bad leadership behaviours that could be holding you—and your team—back. You might think you’re doing everything right, but as Debra shares, the gap between leadership intention and impact can often be far wider than we realize.
Do You Recognise These Bad Boss Traits in Yourself?
Research shows that a staggering 99.6% of employees have had a bad boss at some point in their careers. But here’s the kicker: the majority of these bad bosses don’t even realize they’re doing anything wrong. Could you unknowingly be falling into the same traps?
Debra Corey’s research highlights ten common bad boss behaviours, ranging from the Unappreciator to the Micromanager. But what’s even more surprising is that most leaders don’t set out to be bad. In fact, they’re often well-intentioned, striving to drive performance and maintain control, only to find that their actions are having the opposite effect.
This episode challenges us to look in the mirror and ask tough questions:
Are your efforts to "help" your team actually stifling their creativity and causing disengagement?
Do you think your leadership style is fostering trust, or is it inadvertently pushing people away?
How can you strike the right balance between empathy and accountability?
The Power of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action
Debra introduces the powerful "Three A's" framework—Awareness, Acceptance, and Action—as a way for leaders to identify and address their damaging habits. We dive into the importance of self-awareness and how essential it is to understand the impact of your behaviours on those around you. Through honest reflection and practical steps, this episode shows how you can start making changes that lead to more positive and productive leadership.
We also touch on topics like:
The importance of trust and respect in leadership
Why micromanagement can do more harm than good
How empathy and compassion, when used effectively, can transform your leadership style
Why appreciation isn’t just a “nice-to-have” but a critical part of fostering team engagement and morale
Are You Ready to Take a Closer Look at Your Leadership Style?
This episode is more than just a conversation about bad bosses—it’s a call to action for anyone in a leadership role. Whether you’ve been managing people for years or are just starting out, the insights shared in this episode will help you rethink how you lead.
So, are you ready to uncover the leadership behaviours that might be holding you and others back? Click the player below to listen to the full episode and get actionable advice on how to be a better boss. If reading along is more your style, the full transcript is available right below that, so you can engage with the episode in whatever way suits you best.
Bad Bosses Ruin Lives (Full Episode Transcript)
Andy Goram (0:10 - 3:17)
Hello and welcome to Sticky from the Inside, the employee engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier, competition-smashing, consistently successful organisations from the inside out. I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn the lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tons more success for everyone. This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that.
Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it. So if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on. Okay then, I read a terrifying stat the other day.
99.6% of us have had a bad boss at one time or another. I mean, wow! But here's the question.
How many of us genuinely believe we could be that bad boss? Not many, I bet. But what if the very behaviours we think are helping, driving performance and keeping things on track are actually having the opposite effect?
What if they are causing harm, frustration, a lack of confidence, stifling creativity and innovation or just plain causing good people to up and leave and we just don't realise it? In today's episode, we're talking about the disconnect between the intention and impact and how even well-meaning leaders can unknowingly fall into damaging habits. I'm excited to say that joining me today is Debra Corey, the award-winning HR leader and author of multiple books including the eye-opening Bad Bosses Ruin Lives.
Today, Debra is going to be our guide through the possibly, I'm sure, uncomfortable but in my view entirely necessary journey of discovering why we might be blind to our own bad boss behaviours. We'll be exploring the traits that can show up in even the most well-intentioned leaders and of course, we'll explore the actual steps we can take to put some sound foundations in place and start to truly turn things around. So, whether you're a seasoned leader just starting out or even if you've ever thought, well, I'm definitely not one of those bosses, this episode just might be right up your street and make you rethink it all.
It's not about pointing fingers though, it's about holding up a mirror and you might just see something you didn't expect and then have a chance of fixing it. Welcome to the show, Debra.
Debra Corey (3:18 - 3:28)
Thank you very much. Can I just say next time I write a book, I'm going to have you write the introduction. That was brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant. I loved it. You really just pulled it all together so well.
Andy Goram (3:29 - 4:08)
This is a topic I have really been chomping at the bit to get into. I am working my way through your book. As we've discussed previously, it takes me a while to read books but I love this book and it is like holding up a mirror.
I'm ashamed to say there are things in this book I realise, oh no, that was probably a little bit of me. Totally unintentional but there you go. Here I go already gassing.
Before we get started, Debra, do me a favour will you for the listeners, just give us a brief introduction to you, a bit of your background and what you're up to today.
Debra Corey (4:09 - 5:05)
Sure. I am an HR professional. I've been in HR my entire career.
I've had different types of roles, different organisations and I fell into writing. I wrote my first book when I was on gardening leave and it was a book on communications because I thought I've made so many mistakes in communications, I want to pay it forward and help people and I just got the bug. Since then, this book that you just mentioned is my sixth book.
Now I spend more of my time, my title is Chief Pay It Forward Officer. I'm all about writing books, doing talks, doing consulting, everything and anything so that people don't make the mistakes that I've made. I feel my role as a researcher.
When you said that you loved reading the book, you learned so much. I learned so much writing it because I interviewed over 24 thought leaders. For me, I love writing books not just to get it out there but it's like me going on a training class.
The Disconnect Between Leadership Intentions and Impact
Andy Goram (5:06 - 5:50)
Brilliant. I love that. I got that sense as the narrative of the book continues. You do get that sense that something builds on something that builds on something that builds on something and some fabulous stories in there as well that highlight the stuff.
That's when I come from behind the sofa and go, okay, I'm not alone in some of those behaviours. There's so much to talk about. Let's crack on.
Let's do a bit of set up maybe. That's that. 99.6% of people have had a bad boss. Why do you think this problem is so widespread when surely most people don't set out to be that kind of boss?
Debra Corey (5:51 - 7:12)
Absolutely. We did two surveys when we were writing the book. One was a global survey asking people if they've had a bad boss.
Like you, I was a bit surprised. I knew it was going to be high but I never ever thought it was going to be 99.6%. What was really interesting is that we created 10 types of bad bosses. This was through our research.
Again, we didn't expect everybody to have all of these to be prevalent but every single one of the 10 had at least 51% of people saying they've had those. On average, people said they've had at least six of those, possibly at the same time. Most of them were somewhere around 70% of people said that they've had them, which is just huge.
The good thing is the other survey we did was for people who are bosses and 80% of people held up the mirror and said, you know what, or raised their hand and said, I'm a bad boss. The mirror wasn't there yet though because on average, only 10% to 15% of the bad bosses people said they were. There's a bit of a gap.
People are admitting that they've got it wrong but they're just not sure what it looks like. That's another reason I'm passionate about this book. We can hold the mirror up so that they can then say, okay, this is what I'm doing wrong.
That's fine. Accept it and then move into action.
Andy Goram (7:13 - 7:32)
That's what I thought was really interesting, that gap between the two sets of stats. Oh yeah, I've had all these kind of bad bosses but maybe the honesty factor wasn't, I don't know, whether it wasn't really coming through or whether people just didn't necessarily recognise all those behaviours in themselves. I thought that was really interesting at the start of the book, that sort of gap.
Common Bad Leadership Behaviours: What Leaders Often Overlook
Debra Corey (7:32 - 8:15)
Yeah, do you know, I think it's a combination. I think it's lack of self-awareness but also understanding what it looks to be good. For example, the one that was the highest percentage was the Unappreciator.
81% of people said they've had an Unappreciator and only 14% of bosses admitted it. To me that says that maybe they just think what they're doing is the right thing to do, that they are thanking their people, showing appreciation but that it's just not working. I think it's partly self-awareness but also we're not mind readers.
We don't know what our people think so maybe we need to spend some more time talking to them as well.
Andy Goram (8:15 - 8:54)
I think that's such a good point. In a lot of the management or leadership development work that I am lucky enough to get to do, the appreciation thing is often a bit of a light bulb for people because they're so, I guess, pre-wired to go where the problems are and spend time sorting out problems and problem people that if someone is performing well and doing good work, they're almost blind to them because they're not causing them an issue and therefore they just let them get on with stuff. But that's what we need at that point. We need a bit of thank you and a bit of validation to keep us going and move us on up.
I just think it's a fascinating thing.
Debra Corey (8:54 - 9:33)
It's interesting because the book I wrote before this book was on appreciation and I wrote two books. My first one was for HR on how to design recognition and appreciation programs but the second one was for managers on how they can, to your point, look for what's called see it, say it, appreciate it. How you can look for appreciation, how you can say it, how you can deliver it because you're right, it's just so important and it's just so misunderstood and used so inappropriately.
When I saw 81% I'm like, oh my gosh. More people not just read my book but other people write brilliant books on it as well.
Andy Goram (9:33 - 10:16)
I know and it feels so simple. I remember reading some work by Professor Paul Zak, his work on oxytocin and all that kind of great stuff about trust and one of the lowest performing methods that he recommended to help build trust was recognising excellence. In all of his surveys the CEOs or other leaders in the company just weren't very good at all at recognising excellence, a real shame.
You talked about misunderstanding. I think misconceptions is an interesting thing to look at. When you've now written this book and you step back, what's the biggest misconception about bad bosses you think this book actually challenges?
How Leadership Development Can Prevent Bad Boss Behaviours
Debra Corey (10:17 - 11:40)
Well, in the book we talk about the three A's which are awareness, acceptance and action and I think one of the things that we, and I hold my hand up, I've done it myself in HR, is we just throw people into action. We just make this assumption that everybody needs the same type of development and we throw them into development programs without really, going back to the mirror idea, helping people understand what are the key areas that they need to focus on. If we could spend more quality time focusing on the ones that are going to make the biggest difference to us, I think that'll make sense and also even in action, just making sure that what we're doing fits in this new world of work.
That's why in our, we've got a model called the Great Boss Building Block Model and we've got two types of building blocks. One are the traditional things like how to communicate, how to listen, how to recognise but then the other, the foundational ones, the six-pack are behaviours because we all know this. As leaders, as bosses, whatever level you are, you need to have those behaviours like empathy, compassion, trust, respect, vulnerability, authenticity and those aren't things that a lot of companies traditionally train their bosses on and I think that's a gap, again, why we're getting it wrong because if you don't show appreciation with empathy and compassion, it's not going to work.
All the building blocks work together.
Andy Goram (11:41 - 12:25)
Yeah, I want to come back to those building blocks towards the end of this show because I think they're great. I absolutely love that stack of the foundation and the connecting blocks. I really, really like those and I think they'll sum up nicely where we get to at the end of this conversation, I think, because they're brilliant.
But just to continue this kind of, I mean, you've used the words awareness, acceptance and action. In that awareness piece, we've said, or I've said in the intro, you certainly say in the book that most bad bosses are genuinely well-intentioned. So, how does someone with such good intentions end up causing so much harm, do you think?
Why Awareness and Acceptance are Key to Leadership Improvement
Debra Corey (12:27 - 14:29)
First of all, I'm glad you said that bit about unintentional because, and you said it at the beginning, this is not pointing fingers. My co-author who is my husband does it much better than me when we do talks and he says that people don't wake up in the morning and say that they're going to ruin someone's lives. He does it very evilly.
He goes, I'm going to ruin my life. But anyway, yeah. And I genuinely think that's the case.
But we don't understand that we're doing it wrong. We don't understand the impact. And probably the best way, and I share this story in the book, it's a quite embarrassing story.
But when I moved from the US to the UK, I was managing how I had been taught in the US. And this was 20 years ago. The world has changed, but it was very much in your face.
Say it as it is. Don't beat around the bush type of thing. And I thought I was doing a great job.
My team seemed happy. We were getting work done. We'd go out to eat together.
All those things that make you think you're a great boss. And then all of a sudden, a very brave employee came to me and said, Deb, I just want you to know we have a Debra Corey support group that meets every Friday and compares stories of how you upset us and made us cry. To me, we need more of that.
Because I did not do it on purpose. I felt horrible. But I needed someone to hold that mirror in my face so that I could have the conversation and say, OK, what can I do to be a better boss?
I didn't know what the building blocks were back then. But what are the building blocks? What are the tools that I need to be a better boss?
And it's interesting when you said when you read the you're like, oh, my gosh, I was this. I was that. Every time we wrote on a different bad boss, I started thinking, oh, that wasn't me.
And then as I'd write it, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I've done that before. And my co-author said the same thing. But you know what?
I want to be honest about that. Because I just think at the end of the day, we're humans managing humans. You can be a great boss to one person and a horrible boss to another person.
And it's not an easy job. So this book is going to help us be better. It's not going to make us be perfect.
Andy Goram (14:29 - 15:24)
No, I think that perfection thing is a point very well made. And I think this is where that good intention thing comes. I have to say, when I was reading what I started to read the book on a train journey, and that is the first point I laughed out loud when I read the Debra Corey support.
Oh, my God. How many of those with different people's names exist around the globe? I thought that was really, really funny.
So let's think about this. Because most, I think, look, I think leadership is a tough thing. I think it's one of the most rewarding jobs you can possibly have.
And when you get it right, I think there's nothing like it. But how does seemingly competent leaders, do you think, become so unaware of their own bad behaviours? Do you reckon there is just an individual blind spot?
Or in all the research and stuff that you've worked on, is there some sort of systemic issue within leadership that causes this stuff?
Debra Corey (15:25 - 16:29)
I don't think it's something that we encourage with our leaders. You know, I think we've taken some steps, you know, most companies do engagement surveys, for example. And we, you know, we as bosses get that data.
But it's such a high level, you know, like you could find, okay, well, 50% of my people are engaged. But I don't really know what that is. Again, that's why we wrote the book.
That's why we're creating a 360 feedback tool, because it's all well and good to say that your people aren't engaged, or you're doing things wrong. But unless we dig deep, we're never going to get better at it. So I think it's we, you know, as bosses, whether we have the tools, and we don't have the tools, it's almost like we need to become detectives, and spend some more time listening to our people talking to our people understanding what we need, and spend just as much time on awareness and acceptance as on action, we spend so much time on action.
And if there's anything I could change, it would be for people to start doing the first two ways. I just did a disrupt HR talk on the first day, just to like, let's just talk about one of them. Let's talk about awareness.
Andy Goram (16:30 - 17:22)
I think that awareness thing is so important. I think when you're in a room with a bunch of people, whether you're doing colour profiling, or something as kind of different as Sparky type, or whatever it might be, I do think genuinely, it's lovely to see the reaction of people when they look inside and find something, or even just validating something. I think that taking the time or having the advantage to do that sort of stuff is so beneficial for development going forward.
And yet still so many people don't get that opportunity. And I think everybody should I mean, I believe that every 16 year old coming out of school should go through some kind of union colour profile stuff to try and understand why they're like this on one day and why they feel different on a different day. You know, I think that would breed so much more understanding and just better communication around.
The Role of Empathy and Compassion in Good Leadership
Debra Corey (17:22 - 18:11)
Absolutely, yeah. I think we need a mindset shift. That was a word hard to say that word.
And seeing it as a gift and not a punishment. So I think too often, and I'm going to hold my hand up. As a boss, I was told I needed to be perfect.
And I needed to be expert on everything, have all the answers. Don't go to your people, don't talk to your people or anything like that. And I think that if we as bosses, just sort of changed our mindset and said,
“Do you know what, I'm going to talk to my people, I'm going to understand my people, and I'm going to see it as a gift”,
like The Debra Corey support group, I saw that as a gift.
I didn't see it as punishment, because you know what, 20 years later, I'd still be making the same mistakes. So I think that as bosses, we need to intentionally go out and seek awareness so that we can then move to acceptance.
Andy Goram (18:12 - 18:55)
I think that's great advice for everybody. And your impression of your husband, rubbing his hands together and going, Yes, I'm going to ruin someone's life. That's just tweak something in me, in all of the research that you've done.
And when you and we will talk about the characters in a sec. But what are I'm interested, what are some of the most surprising or perhaps insidious behaviours that that you've, you've seen in some leaders that they were just completely unaware of, that ended up being really quite harmful? Was there some particular stories that stand out for you within that that you were really surprised by?
The Most Common Bad Boss Behaviours
Debra Corey (18:56 - 20:01)
Yeah, I think a lot of the story. So the first most common bad boss type was the Unappreciator. And the second was the Micromanager.
And I had a lot of actually bosses share stories with me about how they did Micromanagers. And I am a recovering Micromanager, I get it myself. But just some really funny stories.
One person told me about how she found out that her team, like would bet on how many times they'd like, make, change emails, or, you know, get the red pen out and things like that. And, and how, you know, how negatively it would impact people. And I think Micromanager is a perfect example of somebody who unintentionally is not doing it.
So like, I was a Micromanager, because I just thought that's what my people needed. They needed me to come in with the answers, the way to do things. You know, when I was reviewing their work, they wanted me to get the red pen out.
And I didn't realise that I was sucking the living soul out of my people. And I had lots of people share stories with me about that. And I think a Micromanager is a perfect example of an unintentional one.
The coercer is that we try not to have evil bosses.
Andy Goram (20:01 - 20:02)
No.
Debra Corey (20:02 - 21:48)
And we did it for a couple reasons. First of all, because let's be real, they're never going to change. That's like 5% of people that I just genuinely think don't really care, they're never going to change.
So we wanted to make them things that were, you know, more acceptable, things that we can raise our hands, even the emojis we came up with them are sort of cute little emojis, names aren't evil. But the one that was probably leaning more towards the more negative side was the coercer. And that is someone who uses power in the wrong way.
A Micromanager is a form of a Coercer, they're using power in the wrong way. But again, I think it's I genuinely think that most of the coercers, they just don't know how to use power. No one has taught them how you can use power in the right way.
And I, you know, I have a perfect example. I was, I was in a meeting with my team, and I had never managed such a big team. I think there were 14 of them.
And I, I knew that, you know, my job was to bring new ideas together. And that together, we come up with these great things. We were not getting anywhere.
We were like, we had half the group who wanted one thing, the other half, and I kept trying to be diplomatic and all the things that I was told to do. And it didn't work. So finally, I'm like, we're doing this.
And they're like, why? I said, because I'm the boss. And that's why we're doing it.
But that's a perfect example. Because they knew me, they trusted me, they all bust out laughing. And they're like, yeah, right, dad.
So nobody was scared by my power. But I can imagine that's because I had a strong relationship with them, which is a perfect example of you don't have to be perfect. As long as you build that relationship, your people are going to cut you some slack.
So I could have been a coercer, but they wouldn't let me be it. Like, yeah, forget it, Deb, we're not afraid of you.
Andy Goram (21:48 - 22:42)
I think that's such a good point about not understanding how to use power. Because I think some of the transition from going to be from being a colleague to making the transition to manager, and then manager to leader, each time you're kind of leaving a cohort away, you're sort of taking a step away from a cohort you were sort of part of. And that transition of then, I don't know, trying to establish some kind of boundary between what you were and what you are trying to be, without any real instruction, if you don't get any real instruction from people, can be a quite confusing place.
And I think people will end up going into, I don't know if this is the right phrase, but abrupt behaviour, as in, right, I'm going to draw a real thick line here, and you can't cross it, because I'm now up the chain. And I wonder whether that's got something to do with it.
Debra Corey (22:43 - 23:15)
Well, but if I think about how power was used when I was growing up, you know, people in the senior levels would raise their voice, they would bully people. You know, we didn't use the word bully, because I didn't want to address them. But a lot of people, that's what we were taught to be.
That was how you used power. And again, the world is a different place. I don't think the younger generation is going to put up with that.
And do you know what? They shouldn't have to put up with it. That's not what power is, you know.
We all know the new servant leadership and such. That, to me, is what we should all be trying to strive for.
Andy Goram (23:16 - 23:34)
Yeah, it feels like we're moving away from hierarchy and far more into meritocracy now, in that, you know, prove that I should follow you, and why I should follow you, and show me why I should do the things that we want to do as a team. And if you do that, I'm with you. I'm with you 100%.
But don't just bark at me. That's not going to work.
Debra Corey (23:34 - 24:39)
But I also think, and I know we don't have time to get into this, and I don't want to open a can of worms, but I do think that some of our practices actually drives power in the wrong way. Perfect example is what some companies are doing when it comes to hybrid working, working from home. And I'm sorry, my personal opinion is sometimes when you don't let people work from home, it's because you want to have power over them and control.
You know, first time I had someone work from home for me was about 15 years ago, before anybody would do it. And the first couple of weeks, I definitely got it wrong with them. Absolutely.
I was trying to use my power in the wrong way. Like, you have to call me every day, tell me what you're doing, because I can't see you. And it was that loss of power because I couldn't see them.
And finally, I realised, hey, you're being a micromanager. You don't have to use power just because they're working from home doesn't mean they're not getting work done. So I do think as HR professionals, we need to think about how are we building some of these negative bad boss types into how we run our business.
Hadn't thought about it until you started talking to me about this. That could be a new chapter in the book. New edition
The Ten Bad Boss Types
Andy Goram (24:40 - 25:34)
Here we go. New edition. Debra came here.
You've just… you have referenced, you've just referenced the 10 types. I think it would be absolutely ridiculous on this episode if we didn't have a quick, a quick squizz at these 10 types. So you've identified these 10 types, if you like, of bad bosses.
You've characterized them in the book. You talk about the traps and things that they could fall into. You talk about some of the behaviours and what have you.
You tell some great stories. I guess my question is, how did you come to identify these specific types? Was it really obvious from the research?
Did some emerge from others where there's sort of amalgams of lots of different micro types? And when you look at all those types, and we may have already answered it, to be fair, but which one do you think tends to be the hardest for leaders to actually fess up to?
Debra Corey (25:36 - 26:35)
Yeah. So as far as how we came up with them, at the beginning, we started out with what we thought from our experience, either having bad bosses or being bad bosses. So we had like all of our post-its.
We had this one wall in the house where we put them. But then we interviewed people about themselves as bosses. We interviewed people about their bosses.
We interviewed these 24 thought leaders. And they completely changed. And they ended up being what the common themes were.
And then we validated it through the survey because we said, if we're the only ones who think that these are bad bosses, we're not going to waste anybody's brain space. I'm a big believer that you don't write things if it's not going to add value. And we did the same thing with the building blocks, I have to say.
We're like, if we have nothing new to add, we're not going to do it. So that's how we ended up with these 10. There is a lot of crossover because there's a domino effect for a lot of these.
But the reason we want to highlight them is just to be, again, as specific and granular as possible, just to be able to help people get better.
Andy Goram (26:35 - 26:48)
Yeah, because I think they're really nuanced, right? Really nuanced. Would you do me the favor of just giving us a rundown for the Debra Corey whistle stop of the 10 bad bosses?
Debra Corey (26:48 - 27:04)
Yeah, I'll read them. But I just posted it. I did a Disrupt HR in Birmingham, where I did limericks of all the bad bosses.
So if you want to hear it in limericks, just look me up and you can hear what they are.
Andy Goram (27:04 - 27:07)
Hey, I'll put that in the show notes. No question. I'll find that.
Debra Corey (27:07 - 28:00)
It was really fun because I didn't want to bore people with definitions and everything of it. So let me just pull up the statistics on all of those. So again, there's the 10 types of bad bosses.
The highest is the Unappreciator. I said 81%. Then comes the Micromanager at 80%.
Then the Avoider, and they make sense. I don't need to, you know what those are. The avoider is like the ghost.
They don't give you their time and space and feedback. That's 80%. The Ignorer, they don't listen to you.
That's 78%. And the emojis sort of match. So like the Ignorer is a ghost.
I'm sorry, the Avoider. The Ignorer has headphones on. The Firefighter is 77%.
One of my best bosses I ever had was a Firefighter. They throw you from fire, no strategy. We probably all had those as well.
Andy Goram (28:00 - 28:01)
All that reactive stuff, yeah.
Debra Corey (28:02 - 28:32)
Yep. And then the rest of them are, sorry, what have I not listed? I haven't listed the Pretender.
They wear a mask. So Susan Sunshine, Rainbows. The Blocker, they get in the way of people's development.
Again, not intentionally. They sometimes don't know what people need and what they, where to send them. The Blamer, we call that the Teflon one.
You know, nothing sticks to them. It's always someone else's fault. And then the Coercer I had mentioned before.
Andy Goram (28:32 - 28:48)
Yeah. And do you think it is the Coercer that people struggle the most with to identify or fess up to, do you think? Because it maybe has that kind of slightly darker appearance to it.
Debra Corey (28:48 - 29:42)
It does. But again, I know I've been a Coercer. And I think the coercer is one that probably many of us do also, because it's almost an amalgamation of the others.
So we left it last in the book to explain for that reason, because it is a combination. They're a hoarder quite often. They're not sharing information.
They're a Blocker. They're a Micromanager. They're a Blamer.
So they are doing it. And to me, it's that fundamental use of power. Or sometimes using power maybe to have people afraid of them, or they think that they're going to get respect by using the power in the wrong way.
And I do think that this one is, and I can say this for myself, it's probably because it's what I learned. I think the coercer was what we were trained to be almost. So it didn't used to be a bad boss.
It was a good boss. So it's this mindset shift that actually this is not what our people in our businesses need.
Andy Goram (29:42 - 30:48)
Oh, I even remember, I'm pretty sure before I went on any kind of proper learning and development sort of leadership course, I remember being taught how to manipulate my team. That's just terrible when you look back. The language that we were using in those days was crazy.
But I do like the list. And I think the great thing about the list is, as you've just outlined, for me at least when I was reading it, it wasn't about a single type that you are. I think a bit like we talk about behavioural kind of psychology.
In the old days, there were types. You fit in a box. That's what you were.
Therefore, you're an introvert or an extrovert. That's what you are. Whereas modern thinking is, well, today, I'm a bit extrovert.
Tomorrow, I might be a bit introvert. And I read the 10 types. And I was like, there are times when I've seen these things in the same people across the different types.
And there's times I know when I have myself exhibited different behaviours from the different characters. It's not just sort of saying, you're one of these, you're one of those. There's a whole bunch of things here, right?
Debra Corey (30:48 - 31:25)
Absolutely. And I was just going to mention that on our website, there's an absolutely free, absolutely confidential survey that bosses can take. We can put it in the show notes where you can answer questions, and it'll tell you which are the ones that you need to develop, work, and focus and develop on the most.
And I encourage you to take it more than one time as things change. Because again, you could get it right one day with one person, and then someone else, another person get it wrong. Which is why we're developing this 360, because I want to hear from my people, what they think about it.
It's all well and good for me to say what I think, but they need to tell me.
The Role Of Empathy & Compassion In Leadership
Andy Goram (31:25 - 32:11)
That's brilliant. We will definitely put that in the show notes, Debra. No question.
I think one of the underlying currents that I felt reading the book, and look, they are two words, I think, maybe fitting into some of the mindset stuff, which we'll get to in a second, that are important to me. I think they form a bit of a core about whether I'm working on stuff or working with clients. But I do think people can struggle with striking a genuine balance between being empathetic, or showing empathy, and then holding people accountable.
And was there anything in the research that came out to confirm or challenge that perspective?
Debra Corey (32:12 - 32:55)
No, no, we didn't. We didn't do anything. But that being said, I've got some strong opinions when it comes to that myself, because I think that being empathetic and compassionate is holding people accountable.
So if you think about empathy and compassion is doing your best to support your people, to understand your people and such. So if you're treating them with kid gloves, saying, you know, you're going through a hard time right now, I'm just going to take all your responsibilities away from you. Actually, in talking to that person, the best thing in the world might be for them to keep those responsibilities, or it might be to tweak them so that they can get through this rough patch.
So I do think that it is a fine balance when it comes to empathy and compassion.
Andy Goram (32:56 - 33:01)
Because those two words are still astoundingly, for me, are seen as sort of soft and fluffy things.
Debra Corey (33:01 - 33:37)
And they're so not. It's like, you know, part of being a great boss is understanding what your people are going through what they need. That's empathy and compassion.
So forget about those soft, fluffy words. Maybe we need to use more, you know, business type words or something. But it is I mean, if I think about most of the mistakes I made, you know, my Debra Corey support group, it was absolutely empathy and compassion.
I did not under the understand the cultural needs of my people. I was treating them like my people back in San Francisco, thinking in London that they were the same type of people. And they weren't.
Andy Goram (33:37 - 34:05)
I think that's so true. For me, it almost worked the other way. At times, though, I think I was too empathetic.
And, and actually, that probably resulted in me not holding people accountable enough, because I was trying, I think, in some ridiculous notion to try and protect rather than lead. And I don't think they needed a dad at that point. I think they needed a leader.
And that's certainly where I fell over, I think.
Debra Corey (34:05 - 34:54)
And I get it. I've done it myself sometimes. Also, you think that, you know, being and being you can be empathetic and kind and all of those things and still be a great leader.
It's like, I encourage someone on my team to leave once, because they just were having a really hard time. They were struggling. It was just the wrong company and the wrong job for them.
And, you know, some people that I told about it, they're like, oh, my God, that's not very compassionate of you. I'm like, actually, to me, that's the epitome of compassion. I'm helping somebody move from a very frustrating situation to one that works for them.
And they thanked me at the end. They did. I didn't throw them out the door.
You know, I worked with them, helped them find, figure out what they wanted to do, help them find a new job. And to me, again, that was the epitome of being a compassionate leader.
Andy Goram (34:55 - 35:12)
Absolutely. I love a lot of things that James Timpson says and all of his stuff on happiness. But the phrase of, listen, I'll help people find their happiness elsewhere if it's not here, I think it's just a wonderful statement.
I really enjoy that.
Debra Corey (35:12 - 35:49)
I was going to say, I learned it early in my career because my very first job I had, I worked at a university in HR. And after five years, my boss fired me. But she fired me because she said, every other person in our team is here for life.
And I know you've got so much more to offer. And I know you will not leave on your own. So I'm going to politely fire you.
So after I stopped crying and listened to her and realised she was doing it for my good, for my, you know, my benefit. Again, I realised, actually, do you know what? I want to be like her when I grow up.
I want to be that type of leader that takes the tough decisions, but the right decisions.
Andy Goram (35:50 - 36:30)
I think that's so true. I think that's so true. I definitely, at some tough times in my career, you know, whether it's redundancies or other bits and pieces, you know, I have seen and probably exhibited some of those bad boss behaviours, particularly in the tough stuff.
Sometimes the Avoider just went missing. You know, it was a tough conversation, sort of went missing. And I think the example that you had, what a great example to get right from the get go, though, of someone being that clear, that compassionate, that it's like,
“This is not for you. You need to sort of go somewhere.”
I mean, that's a great, great thing to follow.
Debra Corey (36:31 - 36:57)
I was going to say, and that's why under awareness, we spend so much time talking about the impact, because, you know, like the avoider is someone who doesn't give feedback. And I teach lots of courses on feedback. And the first thing we talk about is what happens if you don't give feedback.
And I think if we can, as bosses, see the impact up front, light bulbs are going to go off. It's like, oh, my God, I hadn't realised if I do this, this is the impact of it.
The Foundations Of Good Boss Behaviour
Andy Goram (36:57 - 37:31)
Yeah, 100%. And I want to come back around to the building blocks. I love the phrase in the book, and you've used it today already, the six pack.
I really love those foundation blocks. And the connecting blocks, the eight connecting blocks, too. When I look at those two sets of blocks in your mind, are there any more important than the others?
Are they all of equal importance to your mind, Debra?
Debra Corey (37:32 - 38:08)
Well, like my children, I don't have any favourites. I don't. And it's interesting because, you know, when you asked me about like, where did the great or where did the bad bosses come from?
Same thing with the building blocks. I swore I was not going to have this many. So if anybody's read in my other books, I always have models.
And I've got an engagement model that has 10. And I'm like, oh, 10's a lot to remember. How am I ever going to remember 14?
But as we wrote each section, we're like, oh, my gosh, these are all so, so important. Because we thought, if it doesn't stand on its own, we'll weave it into another one.
Andy Goram (38:08 - 38:09)
Yeah.
Debra Corey (38:09 - 38:42)
You know, like empowerment, does it really need to be its own building block? Actually, yes. With so many of us as micromanagers, we really need to help people understand it.
Inspiration. Again, I thought, oh, can I weave that in? Absolutely not.
And funnily enough, I just came back from the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, doing a workshop on the building blocks. We spent so much time talking about inspiration because that's what got their people to come back to work in the middle of volcanoes and earthquakes and all those types of things. So, yeah, I think they're all important.
I love different times.
Andy Goram (38:42 - 38:47)
I would absolutely agree with that. I love the way they connect themselves as well.
Debra Corey (38:47 - 38:52)
They all have partners. They all have partners. So, there's really only seven, if you think of it that way.
Andy Goram (38:52 - 39:14)
Yeah. So, in the sixth pack, we've got empathy and compassion, which we've talked about. We've got authenticity and vulnerability and respect and trust.
Some really strong partnerships here. And for you, the foundation blocks, these are our leadership behaviours, a mindset you bring to work and to your team, that they underpin everything, right?
Debra Corey (39:15 - 39:36)
Absolutely. I mean, when I talked before about my silly story about me being a Coercer, the only reason why they didn't all just leave right then and there was because of trust. They trusted me.
They respected me. They knew that, yes, I was being a coercer for a minute, but normally my other behaviours were the ones that I brought out to play.
Andy Goram (39:37 - 40:10)
And then when we look at the connecting blocks, and I think you, if I get this wrong, please correct me, but I think from the book, this is where we are looking to connect the people to the company. You know, in a lot of stuff that I try and do, it's trying to understand what drives the business and drives the people within it. And you can find the connection between those things.
Great, great things happen. It's sort of how I looked at your eight connecting blocks or the four pairs. So, we had listening and communication.
Debra Corey (40:10 - 40:12)
Yep. Both sides of it. Yeah.
Andy Goram (40:12 - 40:24)
So, we had, and this is the point, I think, we had feedback and appreciation, a bit like we talked about earlier, development and coaching and empowerment and inspiration. Just give us a kind of your Debra view of those eight.
Debra Corey (40:25 - 41:51)
Yeah. And these are the tools. These are some of the traditional things that we know as bosses are important.
So, to me, these were less, you know, like innovative, like, wow, I've never heard these, but instead what we wanted to focus more on, how do we need to do it in this new world? Because although, yes, we all know we need to listen. We all need to communicate.
We have so many Hoarders. We have so many Ignorers. We probably are not doing it right.
You know, same thing. You know, we know feedback's important and appreciation is important, but we've got these bad bosses. Originally, we wanted to have the bad bosses relate specifically to the building blocks, like one-to-one, but then we realised, actually, we then assigned like three to each of them.
So, three building blocks to one type of bad boss. Development and coaching are interesting because we only wanted to have one building block, but the more people we interviewed and spoke to, we realised that as bosses, we need to understand the difference between the two of them. You know, development is when you've got a map, you've got a roadmap.
Coaching is more like when I did gymnastics, my person just working with me, helping me. You know, I'm out there doing it. I'm on the sidelines making sure you don't fall off the balance beam.
So, again, we thought we needed both of them. And then empowerment was more about, well, we all know what empowerment is and inspiration, inspiring, and that's where we bring in things like values and purpose and those aspects as well.
Andy Goram (41:51 - 42:27)
Yeah, I think it's such a lovely framework. It's so well-rounded and covers, I think, just about everything. The only thing, I guess, I looked at this list and thought was, based on all the things that you've seen, and I think I know what your answer is going to be already, but based on all the characters that we've talked about, the work you've done, the experiences you had, are there any two connections here or particular blocks that you think have the potential to create perhaps the most lasting transformation if they were adopted by somebody?
Debra Corey (42:29 - 42:46)
I think the problem with that is each, I mean, we all know this, each person needs different things from us. So one person, respect and trust might be the most important thing in the world. Another person, empathy and compassion.
So I don't think so. I don't think so.
Andy Goram (42:46 - 42:48)
I think it's just interesting.
Debra Corey (42:49 - 43:09)
It's a really good question. It is. And do you know what might be interesting is once we start doing a 360 survey, we might get a better idea from people, what are the building blocks that they value more?
I mean, I guess I'll just turn it to you and then I'll answer for myself. For you, what motivates and engages you the most as an employee, which are the ones most important to you?
The Importance of Trust in Leadership Development
Andy Goram (43:09 - 43:43)
I think the trust thing for me, but I worry that I'm just overly biased with my opinion on this with a lot of the work that I do. And that's what's been great about these building blocks is because I harp on about trust being the absolute foundation of stuff. You know, I'm a big, I'm a big sort of fire dysfunctions of a team fan and what have you.
And the lessons about trust in there are so strong for me. I can maybe bring a bit too much unintentional bias to my thoughts, but it's still a very, very powerful thing, I think.
Debra Corey (43:43 - 44:33)
Yeah. And do you know what I agree with you? If I think about, you know, the whole idea of the book and the title came from actually my second book that I wrote, we were writing a chapter on management and I told my coauthor a story about a bad boss.
And I said, this bad boss ruined my life. And the phrase just took off. That's where the phrase came from.
And if I think about, to your point, fundamentally what was wrong in our relationship, it was respect and trust. Absolutely. So I do agree.
I do believe that it push comes to shove. I think that you can't have anything else without respect and trust. You have it, but you're tiptoeing around it.
It's never actually genuine. It's not done in the right way. But if you don't have trust, you're not going to trust the feedback.
You're not going to trust them coaching. So yeah, I think, yeah, good point.
Andy Goram (44:34 - 44:35)
I don't know if it's right.
Debra Corey (44:35 - 44:56)
Yeah, it is. And in the book, we do talk about the importance of trust. There's some great books about trust and things like the trust credit account.
I love that idea that if you've got enough trust, it's like having a bank account so that when things go wrong, like my situation with me being a coercer, they trusted me. I had money in my trust account. So yeah.
Andy Goram (44:57 - 45:00)
Okay. Well, we'll agree to sort of agree, I guess. Love it.
Debra Corey (45:01 - 45:01)
Love it. There you go.
Andy Goram (45:03 - 45:35)
This conversation has gone by so quickly, Debra, and I just knew it would. I don't want it to end, but I have come to the part of the show that I call sticky notes, Debra, which is where I'm looking for you to try and summarise the conversation for us in, I guess, three pearls of wisdom that you could stick on a little sticky note. And so when it comes to giving advice to someone to perhaps be a better boss than they are today, what three sticky notes would you leave behind?
How To Take Action To Be A Better Leader
Debra Corey (45:36 - 46:39)
Yeah. And I'm a big believer in three, which is why I have the three A's. So I'm going to stick up the three A's.
So the first A is awareness. So awareness that there's a problem, awareness of the impact, and it's all at a high level. Acceptance is when you personalise it and you look in the mirror.
So accept, genuinely, genuinely accept it. See it as a gift and not a punishment. And then Action is to take the appropriate actions.
Think about which of the different building blocks that will make you your best boss that you can be. Because one of the things that we say every time we do a talk, we always end saying the same thing, which is that every employee deserves to have a great boss and every boss deserves to be great. And to me, that's what the three A's are all about.
That is the goal that you're trying to reach, not just for your people, but you said it at the very beginning, how amazing as a boss, how wonderful it is when you get it right. There's nothing ever that replaces that feeling. It's like being a parent.
When you do something right as a parent, it's just magical. And all bosses deserve that magical feeling too.
Andy Goram (46:40 - 46:51)
Well, I've had a bit of a magical feeling listening and chatting with you today, Debra. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Before I let you go, if people want to find out a bit more about you and about the book, where can they go?
Debra Corey (46:53 - 47:24)
So I'm on LinkedIn. By all means, go to LinkedIn. Our website is changing.
So I'm going to give you two names of the website because I'm not sure where we are right now. Badbossesruinlives.com. We're trying to move it more towards the positive because all the things we're doing now is about step up your greatness.
So you can also go to stepupyourgreatness.com. You get to the same place. And there's lots of free tools, the free assessment.
We're all here to help as many bosses be great as possible. So yeah, by all means, use whatever we have out there.
Andy Goram (47:25 - 47:35)
Brilliant. Debra, I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting you and speaking with you and reading your works. You're prolific anyway.
So I'm sure there's going to be more. So I look forward to reading that. Thanks so much for your time today.
Debra Corey (47:35 - 47:37)
Thanks. It was a great conversation. Loved it.
Andy Goram (47:37 - 48:17)
Okay, Debra, you take care. Okay, everybody, that was Debra Corey. And if you'd like to find out a bit more about her or any of the things we've talked about in today's show, please check out the show notes.
So that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting, and heard something maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forward. If you have, please like, comment, and subscribe.
It really helps. I'm Andy Goram, and you've been listening to the Sticky from the Inside Podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.
Andy Goram is the owner of Bizjuicer, an employee engagement and workplace culture consultancy that's on a mission to help people have more fulfilling work lives. He's also the host of the Sticky From The Inside Podcast, which talks to experts on these topics from around the world.
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