Mass media such as “The Atlantic”, “Fortune”, “Economist” and “Financial Times”made a dire prediction for 2024. These leading publications believe this will be the year of workplace counter-reform and the return of the “toxic” leader or “corporate tyrant.”

According to the BBC’s expert on labor trends, Alex Christian, this is already happening or will happen everywhere, but especially in the “nursery of trends” of global capitalism that is the United States, as “El Pais” writes in an article.

As Christian explains, the post-pandemic years have seen friction between bosses and workers over the critical issue of returning to the office. Workers from all walks of life have fought tooth and nail to maintain their flexibility and quality of life in relation to telecommuting. Some even achieved better wages, more decent conditions and a greater degree of autonomy.

Between 2021 and the summer of 2023, workers had a formidable… resource at their disposal: the “Great Resignation”. As defined by Anthony Klotz, the economist who coined the expression, the term refers to the willingness of the masses to quit their jobs if they could not find a way to make them compatible with their personal priorities and life plans. “If you don’t play by my rules, I’m leaving…”

According to Alex Christian, there was a veritable “workers’ revolt” but it was eventually easily quelled once the pace of hiring slowed. Already in the first half of last year, companies such as Disney, Amazon and KPMG became the first to force their employees to return to the office en masse.

Business Insider reporter Beatrice Nolan notes that “the bosses have regained control” after the Damocles sword of the “Great Resignation” proved ineffective in this new climate of increasing authoritarianism, layoffs and the steady rise of Artificial Intelligence.

The return of the

A “symptom” of this sharp change in direction is that the international business press has brought back a subgenre we thought was over: the “rogue boss” success stories. Such is his case Wang Chuanfu, of the man who just usurped Tesla’s “crown” as the world’s leading producer of electric cars. Chairman of BYD, a company based in the Chinese city of Xi’an, and an associate of Warren Buffett (among others), Wang is now all the rage in business schools for his visionary drive, “his emphasis on technology, the reduction of costs and tight control of the supply chain’ and for the ‘austere and ruthless’ style of management, as Edward White and Peter Campbell explain in the ‘Financial Times’.

Sometimes, as “El Pais” writes, the worst bosses are the ones most obsessed with projecting an image of disruptive leadership.
It is taken for granted that those employees who are unwilling to speak up will unquestioningly accept the basic directives of the company and the “toxic” leader. The result; Employees suffer bouts of stress, pressure or public scorn from a “leader” who must exercise authoritarian control over the company he runs and very often confuses honesty with cruelty.

Bernat Muniesaprofessor of political thought in the history department of the University of Barcelona, ​​used to tell his students something that has remained relevant for the past 30 years: “Speak freely, let’s pretend we live in a democratic society. Then you will enter the labor market and see how naive this pretense is…”