Trump Your Boss, Trip-up Your Career?
You would think your boss would want you to be all that you can be so you can make an even greater contribution to the organization, but when it comes to doing as well or better than your boss—an achievement a good boss would relish (think Oprah and Phil)—beware of bosses who are insecure, spiteful little kids at heart.
When Carolyn Kepcher leveraged her TV personality platform as Donald Trump's "Apprentice" co-star to branch out with a book, she got fired. Trump trumped up some silly-sounding reasons for the termination, such as saying: “… she didn’t know the price of the merchandise in the golf course pro shop…" I'd worry about an executive who had that level of detail on the tip of her tongue when the people who handle merchandise could provide it for her at any moment.
Becoming a whole person not only threatens an insecure boss, but it also threatens corporate co-workers who have become so depleted of initiative by corporate life that they defend their boss's irrational decisions, as if they are in a trance. Like the automatons their boss wants them to be and they come to believe they are, they will fight against personal growth within the ranks and turn against anyone who tries it. A 25-year Trump Vice President offers an example: "He took Carolyn when she was a young girl and brought her up through the ranks…She knew who she was." Sounds an awful lot like ante-bellum talk, doesn't it?
Even outsiders can get caught up in the trance. A Yale Professor, whose Chief Executive Leadership Institute could get a financial boost from his affiliation with Trump, joins in saying, "…You’re at a hard point when you are working in the footlights of a charismatic person and begin to think the reflective glow is your own." As if this executive couldn't possibly have had her own glow.
This is an example of corporate brainwashing that keeps people in the square hole into which they've been plugged and have come to believe they fit. Your mind is a terrible thing to sacrifice, especially to an employer who has no loyalty to you. You may wake up on my count of 3…
If you're caught in the web of this bad-boss type and feel yourself slipping away, download the Propagator Boss chapter of the book "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Boss?"
When Carolyn Kepcher leveraged her TV personality platform as Donald Trump's "Apprentice" co-star to branch out with a book, she got fired. Trump trumped up some silly-sounding reasons for the termination, such as saying: “… she didn’t know the price of the merchandise in the golf course pro shop…" I'd worry about an executive who had that level of detail on the tip of her tongue when the people who handle merchandise could provide it for her at any moment.
Becoming a whole person not only threatens an insecure boss, but it also threatens corporate co-workers who have become so depleted of initiative by corporate life that they defend their boss's irrational decisions, as if they are in a trance. Like the automatons their boss wants them to be and they come to believe they are, they will fight against personal growth within the ranks and turn against anyone who tries it. A 25-year Trump Vice President offers an example: "He took Carolyn when she was a young girl and brought her up through the ranks…She knew who she was." Sounds an awful lot like ante-bellum talk, doesn't it?
Even outsiders can get caught up in the trance. A Yale Professor, whose Chief Executive Leadership Institute could get a financial boost from his affiliation with Trump, joins in saying, "…You’re at a hard point when you are working in the footlights of a charismatic person and begin to think the reflective glow is your own." As if this executive couldn't possibly have had her own glow.
This is an example of corporate brainwashing that keeps people in the square hole into which they've been plugged and have come to believe they fit. Your mind is a terrible thing to sacrifice, especially to an employer who has no loyalty to you. You may wake up on my count of 3…
If you're caught in the web of this bad-boss type and feel yourself slipping away, download the Propagator Boss chapter of the book "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Boss?"
