It is not uncommon to hear folks describe their supervisors as dysfunctional, but that is somewhat vague for describing behavior. Are they manic? Do they expect too much? Do they take credit for your work? The Washington Post brought these interesting considerations to our attention in their article, “How dysfunctional is your boss?”

Researchers at the University of Louisville published a paper in which they addressed that question by creating a “taxonomy” of bad leadership. I use the term taxonomy loosely, but the classification is very interesting. The result was a four-square chart that plots where your boss’s behavior actually lies on a scale from annoying to traumatic, and low to high dysfunction. The takeaway is helping employees form a response or action based on the behaviors that a manager exhibits.

True taxonomies can help manage big data by providing a solid standards-based taxonomy to index against. The results are comprehensive and consistent search results. Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ANSI/ISO/W3C-compliant taxonomies because of consistency.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.