We’ve all experienced a bad boss. And experienced just how frustrating a terrible manager can be. It’s tempting to look at these people and think: If I were in charge, I’d never do that. But this speedy dismissal – the division of people into ‘good bosses’ and ‘bad bosses’ – might not be the right move. As with most things, the reality is more complicated.

“When I announced that I was writing a book on bad bosses my inbox was inundated with people wanting to share with me their stories about bad bosses they’d had,” Debra Corey, an award-winning HR expert and the author of Bad Bosses Ruin Lives: The Building Blocks For Being A Great Boss, tells Stylist. “Story after story told of how a boss had made things uncomfortable or difficult for them, and many had stories of ones that had, as the title of the book says, ruined their lives.

“We’ve heard for years about the negative consequences that bad bosses can have. How people leave bosses and not companies (57% of people said they left their company because of their boss). How people don’t trust their bosses (64% of people said that they’d trust a robot more than they’d trust their boss). How a bad boss can drive disengagement (bosses account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement score). And how a boss can have just as much of an impact on their people’s mental health as their spouse and even more of an impact than their doctor or therapist. Add it all up, and a bad boss can and does have a huge and devastating impact on the lives of their people and, because of this, on the success of their business.

Why managers need to embrace their bad boss traits, not run from them