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Bosses, who have far more power and influence over their staff than they realize, often fall far short of what is needed or desired. Motivations to become bosses are not always good, and appointing committees are sometimes at fault. Bosses tend to be insecure, isolated and insulated from the views of their staff, and can dominate without realizing it. Types of boss can be represented by caricatures, which are often illuminating. Staff readily identify the qualities that are ideally needed, but understand that they are not often attainable. There are few easy solutions to an inadequate boss, except to remove him or her earlier; but, with an acceptance of their non‐perfection and a real desire to listen and learn, bosses can gradually change. There are signs that the situation is gradually improving.

Many of the situational factors affecting career motivation are under the boss's control. The perception of several bosses of their role in management development in two companies is examined. The cases are derived from interviews with bosses of young first‐line managers. Interviews were also conducted with one subordinate of each boss. Company A did not have a management development programme, company B did. The boss's role in a subordinate's management development should be viewed in relation to the career development policies and programmes of the organisation. He or she can have a positive effect on career motivation even in an environment which is not conducive to career development. Boss training should focus on how to enhance subordinates' career motivation by encouraging individual contribution and personal growth. Bosses should be evaluated on the attention they give to subordinate career development.

Some bosses are difficult — dufficult as people, difficult with subordinates, difficult in terms of the particular organisation. Suggestions to help deal with this situation are offered.

We examine personnel policies and careers in public agencies, particularly how wages and promotion standards can partially offset a fundamental contracting problem: the inability of public-sector workers to contract on performance, and the inability of political masters to contract on forbearance from meddling. Despite the dual contracting problem, properly constructed personnel policies can encourage intrinsically motivated public-sector employees to invest in expertise, seek promotion, remain in the public sector, and work hard. To do so requires internal personnel policies that sort “slackers” from “zealots.” Personnel policies that accomplish this task are quite different in agencies where acquired expertise has little value in the private sector, and agencies where acquired expertise commands a premium in the private sector. Even with well-designed personnel policies, an inescapable trade-off between political control and expertise acquisition remains.

For many of the current leadership theories, models, and approaches, the answer to the question posed in the title, “Is leadership more than ‘I like my boss’?,” is “no,” as there appears to be a hierarchy of leadership concepts with Liking of the leader as the primary dimension or general factor foundation. There are then secondary dimensions or specific sub-factors of liking of Relationship Leadership and Task Leadership; and subsequently, tertiary dimensions or actual sub-sub-factors that comprise the numerous leadership views as well as their operationalizations (e.g., via surveys). There are, however, some leadership views that go beyond simply liking of the leader and liking of relationship leadership and task leadership. For these, which involve explicit levels of analysis formulations, often beyond the leader, or are multi-level in nature, the answer to the title question is “yes.” We clarify and discuss these various “no” and “yes” leadership views and implications of our work for future research and personnel and human resources management practice.

The current study explored the dynamics of sexuality that are embodied in secretaries’ work experiences. The study found that sexuality infused the process for recruitment, selection, and personnel development in organisations, but it made a distinction between junior and senior secretaries. The study also revealed that the boss‐secretary relation was linked to Chinese cultural values and traditions, especially those associated with filial piety and respect for authority. The boss‐secretary relation remained personal, but the Confucian ethic governed and guided the behaviour within the relationships. Secretaries accepted the “patriarchal right” and were deferential and compliant to meet men’s professional and personal demands. In respect to the boss‐secretary relation, the male boss might be a soft father, a demanding master, or a peer‐like friend with some overlapping qualities. Father‐daughter discourse was the most visible aspect of structural domination. Limitations and implications for future study are discussed.

Discusses the importance of feedback to employees and how they can instigate the process. Provides details of a procedure for obtaining feedback from a reluctant boss, and supplies examples of dialogue to initiate conversations.

This prescriptive piece looks at loyalty as an important part of a relationship with an organisational superior. It presents six “steps” in demonstrating loyalty: preparing to recognise loyalty situations; identifying loyalty situations; deciding whether to demonstrate loyalty; preparing to show loyalty; showing loyalty and accepting thanks. Presents a scenario which “talks through” these six steps.

In this study, the impact of boss phubbing, or using a phone during interaction with subordinates, on important employee outcomes — work meaningfulness and employee phubbing behavior — through the mediating role of self-esteem threat was investigated using affective events theory. The moderating role of rejection sensitivity was also examined.

Data were collected in three time lags from head nurses (N = 178) working in public and private hospitals. The hypothesized relationships were tested using variance-based structural equation modeling with partial least squares.

Boss phubbing negatively affected employees' sense of work meaningfulness and had a positive direct and indirect relationship with employee phubbing behavior through self-esteem threat. The hypothesized moderating role of rejection sensitivity was not supported.

The authors recommend that organizations develop policies addressing boss phubbing in the workplace, particularly in contexts in which a high leader–member exchange is desired for organizational effectiveness, such as health-related services. Superiors, such as doctors, should review their mobile phone usage during interactions with subordinates because it is detrimental to employee outcomes.

This study is a nascent attempt to test the hypothesized relationships on the emerging phenomenon of phubbing at work in the human–computer interaction domain in Pakistan, a developing country, particularly in hospital settings where a high leader–member exchange is pivotal.

Argues that very few people know how to show loyalty to their boss in the workplace, yet loyalty is often valued more highly than performance. Sets out basic steps on how to show loyalty and uses brief conversations as an example.