The principles of Bosship™ should be developed by the use of bosship traits. The Bosship™ candidate needs to evaluate himself by using the bosship traits to determine his strengths and weaknesses as well as determine his aptitude for being Boss. Let's face it not everyone is cut out to be Boss... some people were born to be human ciphers.

You need a good understanding of human psychology. With a knowledge of character flaws and the frailties humans experience in group behavior, you can determine the best way to deal with a situation and manipulate it and the people involved to your advantage. With most people, it's important that you appear to be "caring" when you stick it to them. Make people believe they are important and needed -- The-Boss-that-cares-for-others" -- this is true whether it's "increasing shareholder value" or being a "socially responsible corporate citizen." It's important to always act like you care and are empathetic no matter how much you don't give a damn. This will always give you the moral high ground when dealing with people. You can always claim to be "serving others." The "leadership" types are true-believers in the "servant-caring" schtick. They actually believe they are helping people "build a meaningful life" while they underpay them and pump industrial waste into their neighborhood's water supply. Bosship™ eliminates the moral brainwash and doublethink, but makes great use of the tools that support the disproportionate compensation you receive relative to any real work. But don't get me wrong. Good bosship is sincere. Hell even Stalin was sincere.

This brings up another important trait of Bosship™ to measure yourself against. Are you making a thorough study of great tyrants of the past so you can get ahead? Start with ancient Greek tyrants and work you way up to the modern time. Don't skip over the Middle Ages and go right for the "Big 3;" Mao, Hitler, and Stalin. There is a lot that can be learned from Psisatratus of Athens, Caesar of Rome, and don't forget the lesser known eastern potentates. Ask yourself, "Do I find myself saying, "What would Machiavelli do?" I know some of you maybe saying, "Hey I don't have time for this, I know how to be a heartless bastard all by myself!" This is dangerous ground for the Bosship™ candidate because he takes a natural aptitude and proclivity for narcissism, selfishness, greed, and lack of conscience for fully developed Bosship™. Having a natural talent for tyranny is a good start but the aspiring bosship candidate needs to develop and build those natural qualities if he is ever to become an artist of getting ahead at the expense of others.

Now it's important that you don't consider your tyrant studies to be in the same league as self improvement. Self improvement is great -- it's something you want to encourage others to waste time on while you make money, steal budget, and jockey for position in the corporate hierarchy by schmoozing with their boss. While they're at some "caring and sharing" seminar where they create Hallmark sounding mission statements, work on their group hugs, and building teams by doing rope walks, you're back at the office removing their safety net and feathering your nest.

This brings up another bosship trait -- conscience. If you still have one, you need to get rid of it. There's nothing that will drag a good Bosship™ candidate down like the weight of a conscience. Acting like you care is great Bosship™ policy but actually giving a rats behind gets you needlessly bogged down in the insignificant lives of employees, clients, and the public. It's important to act like you care about, say employee benefits, for example but lets be real. There's only x number of dollars available, are you really going to take less so that some sniveling employee whose kid has terminal acne can have more health insurance? Substituting empathy for actual caring allows you to look like you care but without the expense. Empathy is cheap. It doesn't cost anything to "feel someone's pain" when you aren't going to have to foot the bill for it. It's all fine and good to appear empathetic and even make some token publicity gesture that physically expresses it if it helps build your rep in the hierarchy. Just remember that when the pie gets smaller the table manners change. So drop a few pounds off your soul and lose the conscience. Oh you may have annoying pangs of regret from time to time, but that's why they make high grade pharmaceuticals, and double malt whiskey.

Here's a starter list to help you further develop the techniques of Bosship™ :

• 
  Memorize and apply the Principles of Bosship™. These are your 10 Commandments.
• 
  Make an honest evaluation of yourself. Do you still feel bad when you fire people? Do you really have the level of self absorbed, self serving narcissism needed to be Boss? Do you still look at employees as people? Do you still think style and substance are two different things? Do you really work at denigrating others to your advantage or are you just being satisfied with a "bad boy" image?
• 
  Seek the honest opinion of others regarding your strengths and weaknesses. This will make you aware of your soft spots. It will also let you make up an enemies list for future reference, so you'll know who needs a "career malfunction."
• 
  Learn by studying the causes for success or failure of other great tyrants and apply the lessons to your situation. It's certainly true that "hand grenades don't leave fingerprints" but if the collateral damage also takes out the guy who was going to promote you, you need to find a more subtle response more specific to your situation. Maybe some malicious gossip that leads to depression and suicide would be more appropriate.
• 
  Develop a genuine interest in people. Acquire an intimate understanding of their habits and turn them into weaknesses and character flaws in the eyes of others. Does Frank, a possible competitor for a promotion, like to play golf a lot? Great. Make a point of mentioning how much time he spends golfing when you're talking to his boss about a problem with a program he's running -- of course you're there working hard to make things right.

Bosship™ is not tied down by the restrictions of "leadership." Leaders feel they have to be able to do the job before they can lead. The Bosship™ candidate knows he can lead because -- well he's Boss (and it's good to be Boss). People who feel they have to demonstrate their ability are obviously insecure -- they may lead, you know like the way a sheep leads a flock, but they'll never be Boss.. Oh yeah, people say they respect competence and skill but they respond viscerally to acts of raw naked power that instill fear and dread. People are more agreeable when they are worried whether the shadow of your displeasure will fall across their puny existence and reduce their once prosperous lives to the rubble and despair of poverty and homelessness. How can competence and skill match that for getting someone's attention and compliance? Why waste time reading a lot of books about better business practices when all you have to do is wonder out loud if you couldn't better finance your new summer home by outsourcing someone's job, or by putting a "hypothetical question" to an employee about where he'd get health care for his family after his unemployment ran out? But developing fear and dread is another tutorial.

It happens to the best bosship™ candidates. Instead of thinking about yourself your mind drifts and you start thinking about others -- then BOOM!...you forget what it was you were trying to avoid doing yourself, and who you were going to palm off a responsibility to. Altruism can be very unsettling. You need to get back in the "bosship zone. The fastest way to do that is to just find someone and yell at them. Whenever you capriciously place blame you'll inevitably find yourself in the bosship sweet spot. Everything slows down and it feels like you are yelling in slow motion. All your problems suddenly belong to someone else. Other people sink to their proper places of insignificance as your ego inflates and expands. You are once again the master of your world; the indomitable petty tyrant of your universe. Repeat to yourself, "It's good to be boss. It's good to be boss."

Some readers have seen the blog and said to me, "wow, you must be really warped to see management that way." So let me get this right -- I'm weird but it's okay that the boss lays you off and uses the money he saves as an incentive bonus for himself. No that's not strange…that's good Bosship™! Now there is nothing that good bosship™ types like more than a good business story. Bosship™ types love to use and be told stories for several reasons:

• It reminds them of milk, cookies, and "blanky" time.
• It makes them think they are being "wise" by understanding simple allegories.
• They are used by consultants when dealing with management clients for the simple reason that when you talk to management like adults they don't listen.
• Bosses use stories under the guise of "simplifying" the complex. By dumbing down a topic to the "See-Dick-Work" level, the bosship proponent has an opportunity to imply that everyone else needs a childish explanation, and so is behind the power curve, while he is ahead. When in reality this is the only level that he can express or understand the concepts he is using.
  
  Now to my story which is absolutely true except where it isn't.

My First Day At Work

I remember my first great bosship experience. It was my first day at work. I hadn't found the men's room yet when I heard -- "Barr!" in a voice harsh enough to boil the hide off an elephant. The rest of the room fell silent as everyone stared at me. "Barr, whoever the hell you are get your ass in my office -- Now!" I immediately ran into the Boss's office. Behind the desk sat a balding pretentious man who looked like he'd slept in his clothes. If I had looked that ratty I'd have been sent home, but for the Boss, he needed that "all nighter" look to impress his boss by looking like he was working hard. The office walls were covered with awards from next level bosses, things like "Neatest Desk" as well as various sporting trophies dating back to the 6th grade. In the middle of this collision of personal vanity was a photo titled "Company Softball Champions 2005" that was populated mostly with the Boss in the foreground hugging a gaudy trophy about five feet tall. In the background were a lot of tired and hot people whose grimace-for-smile expressions looked more like Egyptian slaves at the end of a pyramid project than the "Winning Team" that was stamped on the trophy. A quick glance to a corner of the room found the trophy covered in dust, old files, and the Boss's jacket. The Boss never looked up from his copy of Yachting magazine which he was thoroughly engrossed in. Without looking up he barked, "Sit!" like I was the pet spaniel who had just did potty on the Bukhara. He harrumphed as he turned a few more pages then looked up with a quizzical expression. "Who the hell are you?" he asked.
"Barr, sir" I answered.
"Shit! I thought I made it clear to Jones down in personnel that I wanted a babe; someone easy on the eyes. Last time that bastard gets any OSU tickets from me!" He kicked back from his desk and weakly threw up his hands. "Oh well ...you're here... so I guess you'll have to do. You been through orientation?" He queried.
"Yes, sir, I have." I said proudly.
"Good, 'cause I don't have time to handhold some wet nosed kid. If you've got any questions about your job ask someone out there. Now look here Bark..."
"That's Barr sir." I corrected.
"Whatever... everyone on my team works hard, puts in a lot of extra hours, and they always make me look good...That's the whole idea of a team... to look out for each other..." he said as he brushed some dust off his Manager of the Year Award before he continued, "Just like football -- you played football, right Bark?"
"No-o-o sir," my wary voice trailing the answer out.
"You a pansy or something? Great I don't get a babe and Jones sends me a poofder too. Anyway it's just like football. I call the plays and quarterback the team. It's real important that we all play off the same sheet of music or otherwise the sails don't hit the wind when they're suppose to and the cups half empty instead of being ...you follow?" He fired.
"I think so sir," I replied, my head still swimming from the plethora of mixed metaphors.
"You're not too quick on the up chuck are you Bark. Hey let's get something straight from the getgo. I'm sure that you were All American Joe College Magna Summa Cum and all that but this is the real world. Get any ideas of glory out of your mind. You're not here to "reinvent the corporation" or come up with some crack brained idea that's going to save or make the company 50 million. You're a corporate grunt... a cog in the machine. You know what happens to cogs that make noise in the machine…don't you? They get thrown out and replaced. Leave the thinking to people like me or you're going to have problems. You following this?!" he stated in a hard tone.
"Yes sir." I grimaced, wondering if I already looked like one of the "Team" in the softball picture behind the boss's head.
"Now here" he shoved a pile of documents in my hand, "do what you're supposed to do with these and work it in with ... Smith... I think that's his name... yeah Smith... the tall guy ...depressed expression, cheap suit. I'll want the results soon -- And don't screw it up! Remember you're on 90 day probation here." He wagged his finger at me and spoke to me like a spaniel again, "Now go be a good little cog." and then with an unexpected thunderclap, "And don't make any noise that will piss me off or I'll ship your ass out in a heartbeat. There are lots of homeless people that want your job! Now scram!" And so I had my first experience of Bosship™.