LinkedIn and the Art of Avoiding an Asshole Boss

Since blogging about Bob Sutton’s notorious book, The No Asshole Rule, I have received a constant flow of emails from readers sharing their own tales of lecherous bosses and indignities suffered.

Mean-spirited morons are still running much of the workplace, and it’s time to take a stand. Most nastiness is directed by superiors to subordinates; so before taking a job, do your homework and screen them out in advance. (After all, avoidance is the easier than curing.)

To do this, I propose that you check your prospective boss’s references just like she’s checking out yours. I’m not suggesting that you ask your prospective boss for a list of references (you can try, but it may mean you don’t get the job).

Instead, do a LinkedIn reference check. First, look her up to determine if you have any common connections. If so, find out more from people you trust. Second, use the LinkedIn reference check tool to find people who overlapped with her in the past.

The beauty of this tool is that she doesn’t even have to be a member of LinkedIn. You simply specify the company and years of employment for her, and LinkedIn will show you people in your network who worked at that company during the same time.

Once you’ve located folks to serve as a reference check, you need to know what to ask. This is where Badass Bob Sutton comes in. He prepared this list of questions for you.

1. Kisses-up and kicks-down: “How does the prospective boss respond to feedback from people higher in rank and lower in rank?” “Can you provide examples from experience?” One characteristic of certified assholes is that they tend to demean those who are less powerful while brown-nosing their superiors.

2. Can’t take it: “Does the prospective boss accept criticism or blame when the going gets tough?” Be wary of people who constantly dish out criticism but can’t take a healthy dose themselves.

3. Short fuse: “In what situations have you seen the prospective boss lose his temper?” Sometimes anger is justified or even effective when used sparingly, but someone who “shoots-the-messenger” too often can breed a climate of fear in the workplace. Are co-workers scared of getting in an elevator with this person?

4. Bad credit: “Which style best describes the prospective boss: gives out gratuitous credit, assigns credit where credit is due, or believes everyone should be their own champion?” This question opens the door to discuss whether or not someone tends to take a lot of credit while not recognizing the work of his or her team.

5. Canker sore: “What do past collaborators say about working with the prospective boss?” Assholes usually have a history of infecting teams with nasty and dysfunctional conflict. The world seems willing to tolerate talented assholes, but that doesn’t mean you have to.

6. Flamer: What kind of email sender is the prospective boss? Most assholes cannot contain themselves when it comes to email: flaming people, carbon-copying the world, blind carbon copying to cover his own buttocks. Email etiquette is a window into one’s soul.

7. Downer: “What types of people find it difficult to work with the prospective boss? What type of people seem to work very well with the prospective boss?” Pay attention to responses that suggest “strong-willed” or “self-motivated” people tend to work best with the prospective boss because assholes tend to leave people around them feeling de-energized and deflated.

8. Card shark: “Does the prospective boss share information for everyone’s benefit?” A tendency to hold cards close to one’s chest—i.e., a reluctance to share information—is a sign that this person treats co-workers as competitors who must be defeated so he or she can get ahead.

9. Army of one: “Would people pick the prospective boss for their team?” Sometimes there is upside to having an asshole on your team, but that won’t matter if the coworkers refuse to work with that person. Use this question to help determine if the benefit of having the prospective boss on your team outweighs any asshole behaviors.

10. Open architecture: “How would the prospective boss respond if a copy of The No Asshole Rule appeared on her desk?” Be careful if the answer is, “Duck!”

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Comments

[Paul Burnstein]

Thanks for sharing this. LinkedIn is becoming a strong resource as more and more people are joining and updating their information. It is great to see new ways of the using the information that is already there.

[Brian Thibault]

This is exactly why you're a sucker if you're not the boss. Strive to be the boss or work for yourself.

[Lynn]

Regarding item number 1. I'm paraphrasing here, but I seem to remember in one of your books a phrase along the lines of "it's ok to suck up, as long as you don't forget to suck across and suck down." Words to live by, and I've tried to ever since my first read of that advice.

[Matt Jones]

It seems to me that the arseholes that invariably make it through the selection process are not subject to real vigourous vetting by reference, from their subordinates perspective. When hiring for managers or any supervisory role, I try to get names of reports or teams that may provide an objective view and solicit via telephone. It may not be ethical to go via unofficial channels but it may help avoiding a messy situation and the recruitment of a "toxic manager".

[Henry Halff]

I hate to say this, Guy, but as you continue this crusade, you're beginning to sound more and more like a, well, like an asshole, yourself. The suggestion in this column, that you run an asshole background check on any potential boss strikes me as being more like a witch hunt than anything else. From all of your postings on the issue, I get the impression that your going-in position with respect to any boss is that she's an asshole, and that kind of attitude is one that's characteristic of assholes. Maybe you should turn yourself around and teach folks how to find great bosses.

[BizCoach]

I think those questions are also useful when hiring someone for a management position. Assuming, of course, that they have management experience. I'm going to recommend them to my clients.

[Mike Johnston]

Though I have been the arsehole in one instance, I look back on the experience and can easily see that the environment created by the ownership fostered this behavior.

Don't get me wrong, I would make no excuses for being my own "arse" but it can quickly and easily be transferred into the culture from the top down. This type of culture is not conducive to anything successful.

The greatest career move I ever made was to get out of that environment!

[Shefaly]

Having worked for not one but two arseholes in my early career - one in my own company and one in a new company I joined - I swore never to work for a client who was one, when I went freelance. The interesting thing was that in one case, I had to see the boss in his 'native' environment to realise how abusive he was towards his wife and his subordinates, and then the wife in front of his subordinates. In both cases, everyone around secretly acknowledged the arseholage (!) of the person but never directly confronted it.

I shall add these tests to my own home-grown list which, since those two arseholes, includes at least one social meeting i.e. coffee or a meal to determine if I will work with a person.