Sulphureous Bosses

Please Don’t Call Me Boss

I hate being called “boss.”

Maybe it is because I was good at Latin and the word lands badly in my ear. Bos means ox. And somehow, once you hear it, you cannot unhear it.

But the problem is not the word itself. The problem is the culture behind it.

In Romania, we still carry this deep, persistent, almost hereditary typology of the “Chief.” The man above. The person to whom others must adapt, bend, smile, report, wait, flatter, and occasionally fear. It is not only an organizational reflex. It is cultural sediment.

Decades of communism taught people dependence. Not responsibility. Not initiative. Dependence. You waited for approvals. You read faces. You guessed moods. You learned who mattered and who did not. You understood that survival often depended less on competence and more on proximity to someone else’s goodwill.

Servility became a skill.

And like every skill, it was passed on.

This is why the word “boss” still circulates so easily. It is used jokingly, commercially, socially, politely, sometimes affectionately. But underneath it, too often, there is still the old instinct: someone must be above, and someone must be below.

I dislike that instinct.

I dislike it deeply.

The Inflated Ego With Nothing Inside

I have seen too many people become intoxicated by position.

Not by power, exactly. Real power requires weight. It requires responsibility, vision, courage, consequence. What I often see is not power. It is a small ego suddenly given an office, a title, a company car, a budget, a team, a few frightened subordinates, and the illusion of importance.

Then the balloon starts to inflate.

A strange, paradoxical balloon — large on the outside, empty inside.

The title expands, but the person does not. The chair becomes higher, but the mind remains narrow. The authority grows, but the character stays unfinished.

This is the type of person I call “the unfinished.”

They arrive in leadership carrying unresolved frustrations, private humiliations, old insecurities, resentments, fears, social hunger, emotional debt. And once they are fixed into a higher chair, something unpleasant happens. They do not become leaders. They become little despots with access cards.

Not enlightened. Not strong. Not even dangerous in a grand way.

Just toxic.

They confuse obedience with respect.
Silence with agreement.
Fear with authority.
Busy people with loyal people.
Their own comfort with the company’s health.

And because nobody tells them the truth anymore, they begin to believe the fiction.

The “Boss” Is Often a Promotion Error

The boss-culture does not appear by accident. It is produced.

It is produced when companies promote loyalty over competence. Noise over clarity. Family proximity over merit. Personal obedience over independent judgment. Availability over intelligence. Aggression over discipline.

It is very visible in smaller, family-owned businesses, where nepotism is often treated as natural, almost organic. “He is family.” “She is trusted.” “He has been here from the beginning.” “We know him.” As if trust automatically creates competence. As if bloodline is a management methodology.

But this disease is not limited to family businesses.

Large corporations have their own version. Cleaner language, better offices, more polished vocabulary, but the same animal. The boss becomes “senior leadership.” The fear becomes “alignment.” The servility becomes “stakeholder management.” The lack of courage becomes “political awareness.”

Same mechanism. Better PowerPoint.

I have seen these transformations many times. People who were tolerable before promotion becoming unbearable after it. People who smiled horizontally until they were moved vertically. People who, once placed above others, suddenly discovered a taste for domination they did not even know they had.

And when it was in my power to act, I acted.

Because you cannot complain about toxic hierarchy and then tolerate it when it happens under your own roof.

There Is No Future for Bosses

I do not believe the “boss” species will survive.

Not in the long run.

The world is moving against them.

Communication is better. Options are multiplying. Remote work changed the geography of dependence. Skilled employees can compare cultures, salaries, managers, opportunities, and working conditions faster than ever. People talk. People leave. People no longer accept sulfurous leadership just because the building has a logo on it.

The old boss used to survive by controlling access.

Access to information.
Access to approvals.
Access to salaries.
Access to clients.
Access to promotions.
Access to survival.

That world is cracking.

The more options employees have, the less oxygen the boss-culture gets.

Talented people will not spend their lives inhaling the fumes of someone else’s insecurity. They will leave. Maybe not immediately. Maybe not loudly. But they will leave. First emotionally, then professionally, then physically.

And the bosses will remain surrounded by those who either cannot leave, do not dare to leave, or have learned to profit from the same sickness.

That is not a company.

That is a swamp with payroll.

Eventually, these bosses will sink into the darkness of their own fears and frustrations. They will become irrelevant. Loud, perhaps. Bitter, probably. But irrelevant.

Good.

The Future Is Not “Boss and the Rest”

The future of leadership cannot be “the boss and the rest.”

That model is intellectually dead, even if it still walks around in expensive shoes.

The future belongs to a different type of leader. More modest. More stable. More useful. More emotionally complete. A leader who does not need applause every morning to function. A leader who can listen without feeling diminished. A leader who can admit not knowing something without collapsing internally.

Call it servant leadership. Call it agile culture. Call it maturity. The name matters less than the behavior.

The future leader does not stand above the team as a decorative authority figure. He creates conditions for work to happen properly. He removes blockers. He builds trust. He protects clarity. He takes responsibility. He gives credit. He absorbs pressure. He does not need to humiliate people in order to feel tall.

That kind of leader is not weak.

On the contrary.

Only weak people need constant displays of dominance.

A mature leader is self-sufficient. Reliable. Sympathetic without being soft. Modest without being invisible. Firm without being abusive. Present without being theatrical.

People follow such leaders not because they must, but because work becomes better around them.

They are business locomotives.

They pull. They do not sit on top of the train shouting at the wagons.

The Coffee Mug Test

I learned a lot from the Norwegians.

In Norway, hierarchy exists, of course. Companies have CEOs, managers, boards, reporting lines, responsibilities. Nobody pretends structure is unnecessary.

But the symbolism is different.

Even the CEO may have a day when he gathers the coffee mugs and puts them in the dishwasher.

For some cultures, that sounds almost absurd. “How can the CEO do that?” Exactly. That question is the diagnosis.

Because the act is not about mugs. It is about civilization.

It says: I am not polluted by ordinary work.
It says: my role is important, but I am not sacred.
It says: responsibility does not exempt me from decency.
It says: the organization is not a throne room.
It says: leadership is function, not feudal privilege.

I admire that.

Not because I romanticize Scandinavia. Every country has its own problems. But there is something deeply healthy in that gesture. Something we still need to learn.

A leader who cannot touch a coffee mug should not touch strategy.

It Will Be Fine

Romania will get there too.

Not because people will suddenly become noble. They will not. Human nature does not change that quickly.

It will happen because the environment will force it.

Better communication will expose bad leaders. Better opportunities will punish toxic companies. Better infrastructure will create mobility. Better standards of living will reduce dependence. Younger people will accept less humiliation. Competent people will walk away sooner. Mediocre tyrants will discover that fear is not a scalable retention strategy.

It will not happen everywhere at once.

Some places will remain dark for a long time. Some bosses will still shout. Some employees will still bow. Some companies will still confuse trauma with discipline and obedience with culture.

But the direction is clear.

The age of the boss is closing.

Slowly. Unevenly. With resistance. With noise. With ridiculous speeches from ridiculous people defending “authority” when they mean ego.

But it is closing.

And yes, I believe it will be fine.

Not perfect. Fine.

Fine because the future belongs less and less to those who need to be called boss, and more and more to those who can actually lead without asking anyone to kneel linguistically before them.

So please, do not call me boss.

Call me by my name.

That is already enough hierarchy for one civilized conversation.