Four stories, head to head. You pick the winner.

None of the stories below is a member's account, a client's case or a real submission, since our inbox has not been opened yet. That begins next month. Right now, four supervisors are competing for your attention. Your task is to pick the worst.

Keep this principle in mind from the start. Think of a bad boss as a pattern that keeps recurring, drains your money, reputation or rest, and would not be cured by you simply working harder. Each entry comes with its own cost attached, and the boss who did the most damage is the one who ranks highest.

Route One. The Credit Converter

Harsh remarks are almost never something he offers. What he does is convert. Her analysis turns into "our thinking." An idea she offered in a meeting he skipped appears under his name in his Thursday update to the CEO. When she brings it up, he looks puzzled and somewhat wounded: "We're a team." The cost was two promotion cycles in which the committee could not point to a single thing she had accomplished, because all of it carried his name.

Route Two. The Weather System

Whether you get the brilliant version of her on Monday or the dangerous one by Wednesday is anyone's guess, because the change only shows once she steps into the room. The team keeps a private channel to warn one another and spends the first hour of every morning reading her mood rather than the business. Because the senior team quit passing along bad news, a $4 million forecast miss blindsided everyone and became a $4 million surprise. Treat that figure as illustrative. The pattern itself is very real.

Route Three. The Sponsor Who Wasn't

Each review, he calls her "next," and for three full years she takes him at his word. By year four, a colleague quietly tells her the job went to an outside candidate, adding that he had served on the selection panel and never once spoke her name. Per McKinsey and LeanIn's 2025 study, for every 100 men advanced to manager, 93 women are advanced as well. Someone who says nothing when it counts cannot really be championing you. He is a delay.

Route Four. The Twenty-Four-Hour Clock

Late at night, around 11:40, his best ideas come flying at you. By 6 a.m. he wants a response already waiting for him. run. He would never say out loud that this is what he expects from you. He simply notices who replied. Her replies go on for two years, right up until her physician raises the subject of her sleeping. The cost: a health scare, a résumé that has held one title for far too long, and a phone she still checks at dinner.

Counsel from veteran leaders

Senior women who have come through all four rank them in an order that tends to surprise younger colleagues. Most alarming yet simplest to escape is the Weather System, because its volatility is visible to everyone around you. The Clock takes the heaviest toll on your health, yet it is also the easiest to end, since a single line can do it: "I'm offline after 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. For anything urgent, call." The Credit Converter and the Sponsor Who Wasn't do the greatest damage, precisely because outsiders cannot see them and the person doing it stays polite to your face. Only years afterward do you realize that none of his promises ever amounted to anything.

The verdict

Your answer depends on what you are counting. If the measure is money and lost years, the quiet ones come out on top. If you had to warn a friend about one of these first, pick the loudest one. Women who have lived through all four offer the same conclusion: the most dangerous boss is the one you keep defending.

Vote

Select A, B, C or D and forward your decision to your chapter in Richmond. Next month's issue will report the outcome. Should you have a real experience of your own, share it too, with the names disguised. The stories in next month's issue ought to be the ones you send in.