I’ve met a few mean people in my life, both were women, and both were my boss (at different times)
The first mean boss was a terrible control freak. She absolutely refused to respect work that was not done precisely the way she wanted it to be done, and her expectations were subject to change hourly. She was horribly disrespectful in her demeanor- even suspected a coworker of being mentally retarded because his work always fell short of her expectations (in reality, he just resolved to do his work to the best of his ability and took himself out of the try to please/fail cycle). I like to think the pressure of her job made her that way, but she never bothered to try to mentor anyone to work in tandem with her, so all people did was fail to meet her expectations and give up trying and then quit. (I didn’t quit but I got my ass transferred at my first opportunity). I think at her core she trusted no one.
The second mean boss is my current boss. She gets off on making mean-girl jabs, throwing people under the bus, making comments in order to make people look inept, dissecting people’s weaknesses publicly, office political gossip, etc. It is truly only because of one thing: she has zero self confidence. It’s too bad, because she’s trying to claw her way to a leadership position, but has shown zero leadership potential. It will probably not end well for her.
