some people look to rock start for their emotional leadership; i look to this man and his colleagues. thank you guys/gals.

that said, taking the suggested approach above really took a toll on my career and financial life (but home life is great!), so if you guys have a job for me, i’d be stoked!

Coming from a military family, I see where you are going with Special Forces. It IS a badge of honor to prove you are the best of the best and can handle anything war can throw at you.

However, in the business world, it’s not as cut-and-dry. Once upon a time I went to work for a company that I went into thinking it would be a great experience for me with a potential for growth. I was coming off of battling breast cancer and had to find a way to make ends meet after my ex abandoned me and our three children (he had issues dealing with the ill). Everyone kept telling me how awful the woman was that I had been hired under. They all warned me that I should keep looking for another job. Well, not many companies are looking to hire you when you have been out fo the work force over a year, regardless of the reason why.

For the first six months that I worked alongside her every day, she appeared to be a good natured woman who had a heart for helping people in hard times. But all that changed overnight. I went in to work the next business day after that six-month period and was greeted by a completely different person. She was suddenly very crass, rude, and began to show her true colors. I did my best to keep it together while working for her, leaving work each day to make the bank run, telling the facility manager on the way out the door that I may not return. Before heading to the bank, I would drive into a shaded little-used parking area to scream and cry out my frustrations. I had a family to support and was living paycheck to paycheck. Finding another job was proving nearly impossible as the town we lived in didn’t have a lot to offer, and taking a job anywhere else meant being nearly an hour away from my children or paying huge tolls to cross the bridge. None of these options were likely. All I could do was make the most of a bad situation.

Eventually, I was offered a job with a different department, which I jumped on! It meant she no longer had any kind of hold on me. Once I was out from under her clutches, I gathered all the information I knew about her and the way she conducted business. Her new assistant quickly learned she was toxic as she didn’t give her the courtesy of a six-month act. Together we met with one of the families who were joint owners. We presented everything we had to them, proving that she was losing the company business, money, and credibility in the community (not to mention the thousands of dollars she blatantly stole from the company). These same owners had been looking for a reason to fire her for a number of years. They took all the documentation, employee and customer complaints to the board with the intent of getting rid of her. The board shot them down. We never knew why, but speculation is that their businesses overseas were doing so well that they needed a tax write-off. She definitely gave them one!

Moral of the story, it is not necessarily that someone “made an error” in their choice of companies to work for. And she certainly couldn’t be classified as a quirky “genius”. She was just someone who fit an agenda, so rather than get rid of the toxicity they used it to their advantage, regardless of her treatment of not only the other employees, but the clients as well.

I know the military does not compare to the business world, but I wonder if the people who join the notorious companies you mentioned see it as an initiation. You see, before they even joined the companies, they were aware of the companies’ quirky cultures and leaders. The reason people don’t leave the culture is because they went in knowing full well what to expect. In fact, their personality is aligned to it. (Only psychologists can explain why people are attracted to these cultures.)

The problem is that a lot of businesses place their value on talent at all cost. I recall reading that the breakout star of “Risky Business” was already quirky BEFORE he became famous. Yet, his manager chose to keep him and even let him live with her for a while. The point you make in the article makes more sense when a stable and sane business has a leader or “talent” that suddenly or gradually goes rogue.

The answer is to align your career with your personal values. If it’s a one-off, address it with CC. But if it’s a valued part of the culture, don’t join the company in the first place or get out as soon as you realize you made an error.

There are two more options: 1) ineffectively fight the toxicity and lose bigger, and 2) focus with others WHAT MATTERS MORE, for which the toxicity is merely one barrier.

NOT focusing on the toxic person diminishes the power of the toxicity rather than fighting it in ways that fuel it. We can use the power of positives to surround the negatives, instead of always focusing and empowering the negatives.

What the general public need to understand about “genius” is that they will use their genius as an excuse to act as they please. Who’s going to stop them? They are geniuses and people tend to idolize them, even if it contributes to more/worse bad behavior. Regardless of how high up the food chain they are, bad behavior needs to be addressed and dealt with. Sometimes, that bad behavior tends to be a cry for help, not a means of gaining attention or a following. The behavior tends to grow worse the more they are idolized because they are still not getting out of society what they truly seek.