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).
By Stanley Bing
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Richard III, King of England: Killed little princes in the tower; welched on promises of long term compensation to senior management.
The paranoid
Symptoms
Default emotion: fear.
May at times appear "normal," but is always perched on the verge of an explosive display of hyperhysteria.
Capable of great, intense emotion but virtually no actual feeling.
Highly mistrustful of others, always looking for motivations and intentions detrimental to his interests.
Convinced others are talking, plotting, or conspiring against him; acutely attuned to insults and slights of any kind.
Delusional, able to construct vast mountains of conjecture out of molehill of evidence.
Cannot stand to be contradicted.
Vengeful, has memory of an elephant for people who have hurt him and is intent on meting out retribution.
Very organized in the face of the ostensible forces against him.
Demands great loyalty while giving very little him- or herself.
Contagion factor: 74.
Level of difficulty: 69. Unlike bullies, who are often highly lethal to those around them, the paranoid's symptoms make him easier to manage than might at first be expected.
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