You Stupid %&#@**!

When downsizing mania swept through corporate America this last decade, a special breed of manager gained media attention. He was fixated like a bloodhound on the bottom line. He was tough, rolling over competitors like road kill. He practiced what one observer calls “rubber band management”--stretching employees until they break, then tossing them away and finding replacements. And he had a flair for the dramatic: Why write a memo when he could simply throw a phone at an errant staff member?

Tantrums, bullying and narcissistic chest-pounding were--and often still are--tolerated from this oversized toddler by boards, shareholders and sometimes even fearful subordinates because he could help produce spectacular short-term results.

But his days may be numbered, say strategic business futurists. Life at Camp Wackybossee is going to have to change. The message to this Infant Terrible character is clear: “Grow up or get out.”

Contributing to the Infant Terrible’s decline is the squeaky-tight labor market--the jobless rate is at its lowest since the 1960s. Highly talented employees have little reason to put up with childish bullies. They can go elsewhere. And they do.

“It’s like ‘Network’ when people said, ‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,”’ says Roger Herman, principal of the Herman Group, a Greensboro, N.C.-based consulting firm. “The behaviors considered dysfunctional today weren’t thought of like that in the past. People aren’t putting up with them any longer.”

Those who remain subject to the Infant Terrible’s volatile reign sometimes turn passive-aggressive, forming what one expert calls “aero-porcine societies.” Their motto is, “We’ll do more when pigs fly,” explains consultant Eileen Shapiro of Massachusetts, author of “The Seven Deadly Sins of Business” (Capstone, 1998). They reduce their work output. Quality declines. A few disgruntled souls even resort to outright sabotage.

“I think we’re going to see effective ways of [employees] fighting back,” she says. “And it’s almost impossible to stop.” Employees make an average of 100 unsupervised decisions a day, she notes. The message? Power is not absolute. As in chess, kings can be toppled by pawns.

In the Infant Terrible’s drag-race for short-term gains, he forgets one thing: He can’t do it alone. Treat employees like widgets, keep them in a state of psychological emergency, and their productivity declines, says Shapiro.

Slumping productivity sooner or later translates to lost market share, points out psychologist Jim Osterhaus of the Armstrong Group, a consulting firm based in Washington. And so tyrants, at whatever organizational level, eventually become the cause of their own undoing. And especially in this period of high performance expectations, lost market share is a fast ticket to the unemployment line.

“If you try to follow up on these [juvenile managers], most are gone,” says Stuart Schmidt, professor of Human Resource Administration at Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management in Philadelphia. “They’ve been fired by their boards, or their companies are in decline.”

The antics of Infants Terrible receive lots of print--both in newspapers and in legal documents. Some of the lore reaches epic proportions, often to the great embarrassment of their corporations: the drunken executive who publicly defecated during a flight, to show his rage at the plane’s attendants; the ex-Marine banking magnate who pulled the pin of a dummy hand grenade at a meeting, to see who’d flinch; the boss who asked his secretary to help assemble his new mail-order “penis enlarger,” are three cases in point.

Other colorful, tabloid-worthy examples of managerial melodrama include:

- A few weeks ago, angered that a music video called “Hate Me Now” hadn’t been edited as ordered, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment, allegedly punched an Interscope Records executive in the face and beat him with a telephone. Combs’ bodyguards then allegedly kicked the man, struck him with a chair, overturned his desk and hit him with a champagne bottle. Combs was charged with assault and has yet to enter a plea.

- A branch manager, now retired, in Smith Barney Inc.’s Garden City, N.Y. office allegedly set up a “Boom Boom Room” in the firm’s basement where male brokers drank Bloody Marys from an oversized garbage pail, below a toilet seat hanging from the ceiling. The manager also allegedly brandished a gun at a female stockbroker trainee, and referred to women in the firm as body parts. His company got hit with a multimillion-dollar class-action sexual discrimination lawsuit. Although they did not admit guilt, the manager’s firm settled the suit last year.

- In April 1993, a family shoving match reportedly broke out at a Dart Group board meeting, when the company’s president, Robert Haft, informed his father, CEO Herbert Haft, that the firm’s liquor store business was operating at a loss. Mother Gloria and daughter Linda sided with son Robert, which led to a physical struggle among the four.

Two months later, the senior Haft fired his son and wife, and threatened to use security guards and electronic surveillance to keep them out of the office. Herbert Haft left the firm himself, albeit $50 million richer. His successor, Richard B. Stone, declared, “We can now look forward to a period of corporate peace.”

Infants Terrible can be found in almost any type of company, of course. But, business analysts say, they tend to be attracted to environments that will reward aggressive personalities.

“Adventurers” in the bunch “who can hang by their nails at the edge of a cliff and love it” often are found launching start-ups and romancing venture capitalists, says Larraine Segil, co-founder of the Lared Group, a strategic business consultant firm based in Los Angeles. As bosses, however, they can be taxing. Their obsession with the big picture and a heightened sense of urgency can intimidate employees.

Infant Terrible “warriors” exude a certain joie de combat , reveling in corporate competition. They’re drawn to get-rich-quick industries such as high technology, where their boundless energy and adversarial skills are in hot demand, says Segil. But when it comes to relations within the office, warriors can be hellish to work for, for many are short-fused, controlling and abrasive.

Napoleonic autocrats find themselves most appreciated at declining companies that are hemorrhaging cash and about to capsize. These firms desperately need saviors willing to employ “command and control” tactics to effect turnarounds. Autocrats often thrive in such chaotic environments because they can call the shots, be perceived as heroes, and in many cases reap piles of cash in the process. But when the companies are afloat again, subordinates of strong-arm despots often wish them swift exiles to Elba.

Then there are the lonely geniuses, the rarest breed of all. These are the people whose visions revolutionize industries, foster pivotal inventions and propel garage-based operations into billion-dollar publicly traded companies.

Such individuals can be remarkable assets, Segil says--if they don’t alienate all those around them.

According to Dean Simonton, professor of psychology at UC Davis, geniuses generally are notoriously poor in the people skills department. “They tend to have a lot of psychological disabilities and emotional problems--it’s the baggage they carry for being geniuses,” he says. “Sometimes it makes it difficult for them to work within organizations.”

The trick, says Segil, is to insulate these “brainiacs.”

“Create a very attractive sandbox for them, and let them play in it,” she says. “Don’t force them to manage. You’ll Peter Principle them into a level of incompetence within a few weeks.”

Age and generational population trends also are factors in tyrannical behavior, experts say. But they disagree about which age group boasts of the greatest number of Infants Terrible.

Management consultant Larry Liberty of Sacramento says members of Generation X, or those born between 1969 and 1979, haven’t yet amassed much corporate experience, and it sometimes shows.

“On the surface, these new managers look and act like adults, but they often harbor basic adolescent mentalities and emotions,” he says. Under stress, they may become self-preoccupied, putting their needs before those of their company and customers.

John Bremen, partner at the Center for Workforce Effectiveness in Northbrook, Ill., has noticed that “age-reversed” management (in which, say, 25-year-olds are supervising 40- and 50-year-olds) becomes even more of a challenge if a young whippersnapper gets too full of himself: “When a hot Young Turk is put in charge of older people and behaves arrogantly, the best 30% of workers will leave in weeks, the worst 30% will get fired, and the company is left with the remaining mediocre 30%,” he says. “They quit but they stay, if you know what I mean.”

However, Segil points out that Gen-X’s newly minted MBA’s are well-versed in global management skills and have consensus-building proficiencies that can make them superior managers. “It’s the senior executives in their 40s and 50s that will have to get with the program now,” she says.

Intense stress can cause virtually any adult to revert to puerile behavior. Baby boomers and members of the so-called silent generation before them, for example, may become angry and controlling or exhibit other inappropriate behavior “because they fear they’re going to be pushed out of their jobs due to their age,” says Los Angeles psychologist Marion Solomon, who counsels clients about such issues.

Gen-Xers have an undisputed technological edge over these groups. They’re landing good jobs in sales, marketing, entertainment, fashion and other vocations in which energy, trend awareness, creativity, risk-taking and speed are emphasized. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that young people have the advantage,” says Bremen.

To remain competitive in today’s market, older executives may have to abandon the “hierarchical and authoritarian” management style they know best, says Man Jit Singh, chief executive of Sherman Oaks-based Futurestep, an executive recruitment firm, and instead embrace the idea of managing as part of a team.

In a study Singh conducted of 3,000 clients worldwide, 61% of respondents said they believed they’d be managed by leadership teams instead of individuals in the 21st century. These team environments will be less receptive to the Infant Terrible’s solipsism. The study reinforces the findings of a recent yearlong Korn/Ferry International survey that showed the authoritarian style may be on its way out within the next 10 years.

However, as many beleaguered employees throughout corporate America will attest, some Infants Terrible act immaturely every day, whether under stress or not. Screaming, mood swings, pouting, bragging and mind games are frequent occurrences. Stress just exacerbates these managers’ melodramatic tendencies.

“Basically, they’re prisoners of their personalities,” says Schmidt. “They bring their emotional issues to the workplace and act them out with subordinates.”

Such narcissistic managers often have a strong sense of entitlement, says Rodney Lowman, professor of organizational psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego. They feel they’re special and that rules don’t apply to them. They may have grandiose senses of self-importance and demand constant admiration and attention from those around them.

As managers, they can be very exploitative of subordinates “because they have a remarkable ability to read people, to get what they want from them,” says Solomon, who added that such individuals are more likely to succeed “anyplace where goals are more important than relationships.”

What can subordinates of a full-time Infant Terrible do to stop the madness if they are intent on keeping their jobs? “Make them look good, make them feel that they need you,” Solomon advises. “If they rise, they’ll take you with them because they know they depend on you for success.”

But if the Infant Terrible’s behavior is beyond endurance, corporate heads should think about finding a replacement, and employees should consider parachuting out. The sanity they save may be their own.