Quotes from Robert I. Sutton

If you are a boss, ask yourself: When you look back at how you've treated followers, peers, and superiors, in their eyes, will you have earned the right to be proud of yourself? Or will they believe that you ought to be ashamed of yourself and embarrassed by how you have trampled on others' dignity day after day?

the difference between how a person treats the powerless versus the powerful is as good a measure of human character as I know.

As much as I believe in tolerance and fairness, I have never lost a wink of sleep about being unapologetically intolerant of anyone who refuses to show respect for those around them.

Bosses shape how people spend their days and whether they experience joy or despair, perform well or badly, or are healthy or sick. Unfortunately, there are hoards of mediocre and downright rotten bosses out there, and big gaps between the best and the worst.

two tests that I use for spotting whether a person is acting like an asshole: • Test One: After talking to the alleged asshole, does the "target" feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled by the person? In particular, does the target feel worse about him or herself? • Test Two: Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than at those people who are more powerful?

Winning is a wonderful thing if you can help and respect others along the way. But if you stomp on others as you climb the ladder and treat them like losers once you reach the top, my opinion is that you debase your own humanity and undermine your team or organization.

at the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.

Fight as if you are right, listen as if you are wrong.

The University of Michigan's Karl Weick advises, "Fight as if you are right; listen as if you are wrong.

A huge body of research—hundreds of studies—shows that when people are put in positions of power, they start talking more, taking what they want for themselves, ignoring what other people say or want, ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior, acting more rudely, and generally treating any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs—and that being put in positions of power blinds them to the fact that they are acting like jerks.

At the places where I want to work, even if people do other things well (even extraordinary well) but routinely demean others, they are seen as incompetent.

Listen to those under your supervision. Really listen. Don't act as if you're listening and let it go in one ear and out the other. Faking it is worse than not doing it at all.

People also have a greater capacity when they aren't worn down by work and worry. When people get enough sleep, they are more adept at difficult tasks, are more interpersonally sensitive, make better decisions, and are less likely to turn nasty.

The best management is sometimes less management or no management at all. William Coyne, who led 3M's Research and Development efforts for over a decade, believed a big part of his job was to leave his people alone and protect them from other curious executives. As he put it: 'After you plant a seed in the ground, you don't dig it up every week to see how it is doing.

The best bosses do more than charge up people, and recruit and breed energizers. They eliminate the negative, because even a few bad apples and destructive acts can undermine many good people and constructive acts.

Bullies drive witnesses and bystanders out of their jobs, just as they do to "firsthand" victims. Research

Life is too short to put up with assholes.

Everyone deserves to be treated fairly. If leaders are the problem, we ask those being served by leaders to let them know or go up the chain of command—without the threat of retaliation." "Store

It means constantly seeking and implementing better ways of thinking and acting across old and new corners of the system.

It takes numerous encounters with positive people to offset the energy and happiness sapped by a single episode with one asshole.

the impulse to "get even" can provoke a vicious circle of attack and counterattack—where each side views the other as evil and won't accept responsibility for fueling the conflict, and

Third, and finally, if you want people to believe the system is fair and effective, it's essential to be tough on the most powerful, profitable, and well-known jerks. If you enforce the rule only with the weak performers, people who are easily replaceable, or who deliver bad news and have the gumption to disagree with superiors—and you allow powerful assholes to run roughshod over anyone they please—people will smell your hypocritical bullshit from a mile away.

Hundreds of experiments show that encounters with rude, insulting, and demeaning people undermine others' performance—including their decision-making skills, productivity, creativity, and willingness to work a little harder and stay a little later to finish projects and to help coworkers who need their advice, skills, or emotional support.

Negative interactions (and the bad apples who provoke them) pack such a wallop in close relationships because they are so distracting, emotionally draining, and deflating. When a group does interdependent work, rotten apples drag down and infect everyone else. Unfortunately, grumpiness, nastiness, laziness, and stupidity are remarkably contagious.