How to deal with a difficult or bullying boss is one of the most perplexing of workplace dilemmas. Workforce Management‘s Q&A feature recently considered how a human resources director might deal with a morale-killing CEO:
Dear Workforce:
I am the HR director at a small company. I have been asked by the head of our small company to counsel my boss, who is the company CEO, about his tendency for insulting employees and making racist comments in e-mail messages. The same CEO has made derogatory comments about me, and retaliated against some employees (including firing) who have brought his defects to light. Morale is extremely low, from district managers to the corporate office, yet our company has never done better financially. As a result, our company’s directors don’t want to change CEOs.
How do I handle his request for me to counsel my own boss?
According to Workforce Management, the first step is to have “a serious sit-down with the company head” to talk about the situation and get that individual’s support for any further action. A three-way meeting including the company head and the offending CEO is one possible intervention strategy.
Okay, that may work, at least if the CEO’s boss is fair and reasonable. But organizational cultures are often defined from the top, and that company head may be as difficult as the CEO. It could lead to the HR Director’s job being at risk. After all, studies of workplace bullying tell us that when workers report bullying to their employers, a frequent organizational response is either to ignore the complant or to make the situation worse.
This is why it is very, very hard to give reliable stock advice, Ann Landers-style, on dealing with the difficult, interpersonal aspects of the workplace. Each situation requires an understanding of the individual players and the organizational dynamics.
For the full Workforce Management article: http://www.workforce.com/section/16/feature/26/41/89/
Minding the Workplace 
I completely agree that each situation is unique and no one answer fits all, but I wanted to share that I found the article “Dealing with the Untrustworthy Boss” by Lynn Friedman, PhD very helpful: http://www.drlynnfriedman.com/corpturncoat.html.
I hope others find the advice useful as well.
Jessica, thanks for sharing that very interesting piece by Lynn Friedman, who beautifully captures a certain type of untrustworthy boss. It reminded me of someone I know (minus the smoothness — this guy can’t pull off the act).