Human resources: bad bosses are not a good thing.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey

It's no secret that bad bosses prompt a lot of managers to consider greener pastures. How serious is the situation? According to the Web site, Badboss ology.com, 71 percent of people completing a survey on its site this past spring said they were looking for a new job in response to a problem with their boss.

Obviously, you wouldn't want to extrapolate that number to the general workforce; people responding at the site were presumably self-selecting. But the lesson bears repeating, says site co-founder Gary Lahey: "In view of the significant costs of turnover to both companies and the people who leave, this result should remind all executives to be vigilant in building and maintaining a culture that protects people from bad bosses and rewards good bosses."

More generally, other surveys indicate that some 40 percent of...