Apr 30, 2026
Toxic bosses wreck their teams.
You'll see it in how they protect their territory. The territory gets defended in small ways (a dismissal here, a reframe there) until people stop bringing things in.
Their behaviour is highly contagious. People stop speaking up and stop challenging ideas. They do just enough to stay safe, having learned that curiosity gets punished.
This is how teams lose their edge.
Control addiction is the thing underneath most of this. And you can't fix someone who has it, not from below them in an org chart, not really. What you can do is notice it early and make a decision about proximity.
Progress just slows down. And ceilings don't move, even if you've noticed them.
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I'm a father of 3 from Sydney, a Product Director and a Product Coach. I write about leadership, product management and the messy reality of making work work.
I'm currently building and experimenting with a mildly alarming number of things.
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