Why good people become bad bosses | Jamie Woolf and Christopher Bell
TED Business
TED
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 September 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You’ve probably had a bad boss, but you might not realize how easy it is to become one. Leadership experts Jamie Woolf and Christopher Bell unpack “power blindness” — how authority can warp your perspective — and share smart, practical ways to break the cycle of toxic bosses for good. After the talk, Modupe shares one more exercise to help you become a better boss.
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| 1:26.4 | I often stress the importance of being vulnerable and honest, especially when you're in a |
| 1:32.2 | leadership position. |
| 1:33.4 | So I'm going to take some of my own medicine and admit to something that still breaks my heart. |
| 1:39.2 | I know what bad bosses are like because I've had them, but also because I've been one. In college, I was |
| 1:45.8 | involved in a student-run company. Well, it was actually the largest student-run company in the world. |
| 1:51.8 | I mean, we had a board of directors, the whole deal. And in my sophomore year, I was vice president |
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