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What to Read When Your Boss Is the Problem
10
items Books for the point where the problem at work is a person rather than the workload. Workplace psychology, manipulation tactics, boundaries and burnout, chosen because they name specific behaviour rather than telling you to communicate better. Written...
Full disclosure, I wrote this one. It came out of 25 years across IT, banking, healthcare and childcare, and it is built for the specific situation where leaving is not financially available to you yet. Eleven workplace archetypes, fourteen tactics r...
Corporate Hostage: I Can't Quit, I Have a Mortgage
A Stanford professor making the business case that one toxic person costs an organisation more than they contribute. Useful less as self help and more as ammunition, because it gives you the vocabulary and the research to describe the problem to some...
The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton
The clearest writing on narcissistic behaviour outside of romantic relationships. The chapters on workplace dynamics explain why the usual advice fails, and why the person everyone likes in meetings can still be the problem.
It's Not You by Ramani Durvasula
Practical rather than inspirational, which is rare in this category. Scripts you can actually say out loud at work without it becoming an incident. The chapter on boundaries with people who have power over you is the one to read first.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab
Slightly corporate in tone and genuinely useful when a conversation matters and you can feel it going wrong in real time. Better for peers than for a hostile manager, where the power imbalance makes most of it harder to apply.
Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking
Written before the word was everywhere and still the most precise treatment of it. Worth reading specifically to check whether what is happening to you actually is gaslighting, because the term gets used loosely and that vagueness helps nobody.
The Gaslight Effect by Robin Stern
Fear, obligation and guilt, and how people use all three to get compliance. Written about families and relationships, and it maps onto a manipulative manager almost without translation.
Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward
For the physical half of the problem. It explains why finishing the stressful thing does not finish the stress, which is the reason you can leave a bad meeting and still feel it in your body three hours later.
Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
The counterweight to everything else on this list. It is about the people at work who are genuinely generous and how they end up either at the top or at the bottom. Useful for not becoming cynical about everyone.
Give and Take by Adam Grant
Dated in places and the taxonomy still works. It sorts difficult people into recognisable types and gives a different approach for each, which beats the usual one-size advice.
Dealing with People You Can't Stand - Brinkman & Kirschner