Coping with Toxic Managers, Subordinates ... and Other Difficult People: Using Emotional Intelligence to Survive and Prosper (Financial Times Prentice Hall Books) (Paperback)

by Roy H. Lubit (Author)
Key Phrases: behavior affect productivity, narcissistic managers, behavior affect communication, Other Difficult People, Further Reading, Morrison Knudsen (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Lubit, an academic, psychiatrist, and management consultant, explains how our ability to work effectively with difficult or "toxic" managers will have a significant impact on our careers. By improving this ability, he claims, we will learn to better understand and manage ourselves. The first order is to increase our emotional intelligence, comprising personal and social competence. These competencies are our abilities to understand our own feelings, strengths, and weaknesses, and to control our emotions while also understanding the feelings of others and developing skills to form positive relationships with them. Lubit delineates the behaviors of five types of toxic managers--narcissistic, unethical, aggressive, rigid, and impaired--saying that these behaviors are manifestations of depression and fear. By understanding them, we will be able to design strategies to protect ourselves. While this reads like a textbook, the author has valuable insight to share with those in today's business world who are dealing with--or who may someday deal with--a toxic manager. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description

Some people are toxic: narcissistic, aggressive, inflexible, unethical, ready to scapegoat, capable of transforming any workplace into an unending nightmare. How do you cope with such individuals, while protecting both your career AND your sanity? Simplistic, cookie-cutter solutions don't work. In Coping with Toxic Managers, world-renowned psychiatrist and organizational consultant Roy Lubit shows you techniques that will. Drawing on his extensive experience as both a mental health professional and an organizational consultant for PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Lubit offers concrete, proven advice for subordinates, colleagues and superiors alike. You learn what's really driving your toxic manager or subordinate... how to cope with the emotional stress of dealing with them... and how to create a strategy that reflects their individual personality, while drawing on today's powerful new insights into emotional intelligence. The technicques Lubit teaches apply to personal relationships with toxic individuals as well.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: FT Press; illustrated edition edition (November 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131409956
• ISBN-13: 978-0131409958
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,741 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Toxic costs: heal the pain., December 14, 2003

By	M. Skaff "mskaff" (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This author offers clear, concise writing on a classic business problem: how to work with difficult people. Who doesn't work with at least 1 difficult person? What organization does not suffer productivity or financial loss from at least 1 toxic manager?

As I read the well-defined descriptions of Toxic Managers, I couldn't help but recall the many faces of those difficult people that have crossed my own work path over the past 24 years, and how I might have dealt with them differently under Roy Lubit's construct. Surely you'll experience similar learning and benefit, as you hear what the author has to say about how to deal with the difficult people that you encounter in your work life.

This book does a tremendous service by reminding us that work IS personal after all; that organizations are organic systems made up of human beings with personalities, traits, and problems that we cannot simply turn off or leave at home, like robots. These toxic behaviors and managers, as defined by the author, represent the hard HARD work that organizations must do to fix the illusive and, often substantially, costly problems.

I am delighted to add a practical approach and book to my toolbox to help executives and managers take compassionate, actionable steps toward solving issues that typically impede business performance and progress. This book, I project, will help heal the hearts and performance of many organizations and professionals who seek a cure for whatever ails them.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and practical, January 14, 2005

By	Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I wasn't sure I would like this book. The topic of workplace psychology can be done wrong in so many ways. You can present it too clinically and thus lack any practicality. And you can slide the other way and shower the user with pop psychology check-lists and acronyms.

This book walks the ideal path deftly and presents practical workplace issues with the right blend of psychology background and practical wisdom on how to handle individuals with personality issues.

The book is organized by disorder. Each type of personality is presented in it's own chapter with what to look for. As well as how to handle that individual as a boss, a coworker and as a subordinate.

A fascinating read on it's own, and practical advice for people stuck in tough jobs where they have to contend with coworkers who have personality problems.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Toxic Managers" good for your health, December 14, 2003

By	ronala "ronala" (Princeton, New Jersey) - See all my reviews

Beginning with its title, a real "grabber," Dr. Roy Lubit's new book "Coping with Toxic Managers, ..." holds your interest as it exhaustively and brilliantly organizes, classifies, describes and analyzes the entire spectrum of toxic behaviors to be found in the workplace. Any workplace. The book deals comprehensively with toxic behaviors from peers and subordinates as well as superiors. I think it will be recognized and appreciated as an invaluable contribution to the literature. The references alone are worth the price.

If that were all Dr. Lubit did that would be enough to distinguish this book, but he also gives detailed prescriptions for dealing with every type of behavior discussed in the book. These are often presented in the context of case studies and examples that make fascinating and satisfying narratives in themselves and allow Dr. Lubit's insights to really sink in.

Dr. Lubit, an experienced and recognized forensic psychiatrist and holder of an MD and a Ph.D. from Harvard, does an outstanding job of marshalling an array of toxic behaviors and codifying it in a manner that is understandable enough to be mastered by a college student yet profound enough and broad enough to be of great value to other professionals and to his peers. This book is scientific yet should prove of practical value to anyone who needs to manage, understand or otherwise deal with any business organization or, indeed, almost any human group in modern America. It does so in terms that anyone can understand and put to use. "Coping with Toxic Managers . . ." is one of those truly rare books which combines accessibility with depth, and I recommend it highly. Ronald Blum, Ph.D.