Recently, a manager named Carol told me she had been verbally attacked by another manager. The anger seemed to come out of nowhere. Carol asked a question, Mount Vesuvius erupted, and next thing she knew, she was covered in hot lava. It happened at the end of a management meeting when others were still lingering. No one, including her boss, came to her defense.
The offender was someone with whom Carol had a good working relationship. She’d heard others mention his blowups, and she had even witnessed him dressing down another employee, but she had never been his target before.
