The Google-sifting for this post started innocently enough by turning over the web rocks of a relatively benign topic, “employee disengagement.” My intent was to present counterpoint to my post about the business model and employee-centric culture at Southwest Airlines, but my searching quickly devolved into a torrent of depressing content about concepts like “bully bosses” and “desk rage.”

If that’s not bad enough, there is now a cottage industry of authors who specialize in survival manuals for various kinds of workplace “toxicity.” Toxic people, toxic work, toxic emotions at work; toxic coworkers, managers, leaders, subordinates and toxic criticism are apparently timely concerns, because the books are selling well. Patrick Lencioni’s parable-izing of workplace depression, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, caps things off quite nicely.

The common thread in all of this is the deteriorating nature of relationships between bosses and subordinates. A much-quoted resource in this area is a recent Gallup survey of more than 1 million U.S. workers which concluded that the number 1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor.

This blog intends to be a road map to personal best practices in the workplace; i.e. personally-applied, continuous improvement that leads to continuous (re-)engagement. Clearly, the future avoidance of workplace toxicity is important to anyone, whether you’re struggling to stay, or itching to leave.

In my opinion, Chetan Dhruve provides the best guidance in either case.

I stumbled across a 44-page, PDF summary of his book, Why Your Boss Is Programmed To Be A Dictator. Upon seeing the length I was ready to move on, but the introductory material was so compelling that I read the whole thing and determined that I would share it with all of you immediately.