When the going gets tough...

A study published by the University of Chicago GSB this week suggests that tougher is better when it comes to making it as a CEO. A survey of more than 300 US private equity firm CEOs shows that speedy, aggressive, persistent CEO candidates are more likely to be hired than their good-at-listening, open-to-criticism, team-playing counterparts.

This is bad, says the Chartered Management Institute. Its Quality of Working Life report, which surveyed 1,511 managers, found the most common British management styles are bureaucratic (40 per cent), reactive (37 per cent) and authoritarian (30 per cent). This tendency towards "overbearing and controlling" team leaders, says the CMI, is stifling British workplaces, resulting in higher levels of absence and lower levels of productivity.

So the next time the boss tells you what to do, do us all a favour: tell them what they can do. You can console yourself, when you receive your P45, that as one business leader recently told me, most talented individuals spend most of their careers working for managers who are not as talented as them.