Ebenezer Scrooge begrudged paying Bob Cratchit for the Christmas holiday. Donald Trump reduces would-be employees to tears on NBC’s The Apprentice. And George Steinbrenner is, well, George Steinbrenner.

While a cantankerous manager makes for great entertainment, in reality, a bad boss makes life unbearable. In fact, a Gallup Poll of 1 million workers found that the single greatest reason for leaving a company traces back to stressful or problematic relationships with immediate supervisors.

If you’re above a bad boss, why should you care? And if you’re below a bad boss, how can you cope?

Numbers Don’t Lie

In 2004, the average organization spent 48 days and $3,270 to fill a position, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers Saratoga 2005/2006 Human Capital Index Report.

Meanwhile, according to a nationwide online survey of working adults by University of Phoenix, 67 percent are looking for a job on some level. At least one-third (34 percent) plan to change employers within the next three years, while 45 percent of Gen X and 55 percent of Gen Y workers plan to do the same.

Most vulnerable: the technology industry. According to the Saratoga report, one in 11 tech employees voluntarily left their organizations in 2004—up 30 percent from 2003.

Most stable: the telecommunications industry. Voluntary turnover decreased 40 percent during the same time period to nearly one in 13 employees.

Managing A Meanie

What do these statistics mean in today’s technology-driven, global market—where your company’s people may be your only real ace in the hole?

If you’re up to your neck in company restructuring, long hours and poor profit earnings, you may not have much time to manage a less-than-super supervisor. But if you are leaving a bad boss unchecked, you are taking risks. The top two? Dollars and cents.

 “The hard costs of recruiting and training employees are just the beginning. There are soft costs that may not be able to be quantified, but they are important,” says Gary Lahey, co-founder of the Web site badbossology.com, which aims to “protect people and companies from difficult bosses.”

“In today’s super-competitive world, how much creative and strategic input are employees under a bad boss willing to give? Lower morale isn’t the end of the process. It’s the prime of the process—it creates costs in the form of absenteeism, theft, less effort and general employee dissatisfaction,” says Lahey, whose Web site gets 1,500 hits a day.

And if your employees are dissatisfied, six months later your clients are, says Robert Levit, Ph.D., campus chair for University College at University of Phoenix in Jersey City, N.J.

“While the nature of business is numbers and profit—not employee retention—there is a secret that good managers know,” Levit says. “Humans do not perform at peak levels unless you engage them as humans. If you want peak productivity and peak customer service, you must engage the human spirit, the sense of meaningfulness in what your employees are doing.”

Coping with a bad boss

Meanwhile, if you’re suffering under the mediocrity or—even worse—the mean-spiritedness of your manager, here are some strategies.

Do nothing—at first.  A little soul-searching might save some regret, Lahey says: “To what extent are you the problem? What behaviors are causing difficulty? Is there something you can do to minimize those behaviors?”

Give your boss the benefit of the doubt.  “It’s easy to overreact to what the boss does. Bosses are just people,” says Russell Wild, a financial journalist and the author of Games Bosses Play: 36 Career Busters Your Supervisor May Be Firing Your Way and How You Can Defend Yourself.

Learn from your boss. View your second-rate supervisor’s antics as a case study. “If you go through a career and don’t have two or three bad bosses, you cannot hope to be a good one,” Levit says.

Make a deal. Appeal to your boss’s vanity. “Bosses who are not skilled know they are not skilled,” Levit says. “You could say, ‘Look, we don’t get along very well, but I’m going to support your objectives and protect your reputation.’ If you make such a ‘performance deal’ with them, they might leave you alone.”

Ride out the storm. “If you see your boss as terrible, chances are others do too. In today’s market, he probably won’t be around very long,” Wild says. So, suck it up, ride it out and realize it’s not forever.

Use accountability and subtlety. If your boss demands five “highest priority” projects by Friday, Wild suggests making your boss pick the ones that can be undercooked. Or, if your boss takes credit for a project you did, praise him to anyone who will listen for “supporting you on it.”

Confront your boss. “I call this the get-your- résumé-ready approach,” Levit says. This can be anything from standing up in a meeting and calling your boss a jerk to requesting a private meeting and confronting the behavior. You can take a co-worker along as a witness/representative, according to a 2000 provision for union and non-union workers alike by the National Labor Relations Board.

Go above your boss. Beware: Lahey calls this a kiss-of-death strategy. “To go over your boss’s head, you have to have a reason and compelling evidence, or else management will close ranks,” he says. A side note: If your boss is a bully—a mean-spirited person who compels fear—go over his head anyway, says Gary Namie, Ph.D., a workplace consultant in Bellingham, Wash. “Track absenteeism and turnover, and make a business case that the bully is too expensive to keep,” he says.

Plan your exit strategy.  Keep your contacts primed and your résumé ready. You are not an indentured servant. “If you can’t get up and go to work because it’s affecting your health, family or sense of meaningfulness, it’s time to quit,” Levit says. Of course, in the end, the problem and your style will determine your strategy. “Ultimately it’s up to the individual to take care of himself,” Lahey says. “If your boss is doing something that is breaking the law, see a lawyer. But if your boss just bugs you, figure out how to stick it out.”

Are You a Bad Boss?

These six flags might indicate you aren’t the manager you think you are.

1. You judge people on hours, not performance. As a result, overtime addicts with no sense of balance in their lives get promoted.
2. You deem mistakes as unacceptable. If you let your employees actually make decisions, they will make mistakes.
3. You cover your mistakes. “This tactic might help you keep your job a couple of months longer—but only a couple months,” says Robert Levit, Ph.D., campus chair for University College at University of Phoenix in Jersey City, N.J.
4. You don’t foster team spirit. “I call it the Star Trek Effect. You’ve got to have it if you want performance,” Levit says.
5. You don’t stand by your man—or woman. Ditch your employees when they fail or take credit when they succeed and they’ll trust you as far as they can throw you—which, on second thought, might be pretty far.
6. Staff turnover and absenteeism are high. People notice—especially the HR employee who tracks this stuff.

Bad Boss Survival Kit

Don’t suffer in silence; check out these Web sites and books for tips on surviving a bad or bullying boss.

To gain access to more than 1,200 articles and a free, confidential way to e-mail selected articles to those above you, go to badbossology.com.

To get a copy of Games Bosses Play by Russell Wild, your best bet is amazon.com. The book, written in 1997, is out of print.

And for some more advice, check out one of these books on the subject:

Nasty Bosses: How to Deal with Them without Stooping to Their Level by Jay Carter

It’s a Job Not a Jail: How to Break Your Shackles When You Can’t Afford to Quit by Robert M. Hochheiser

How to Work for an Idiot: Survive & Thrive—Without Killing Your Boss by John Hoover

Coping with Toxic Managers, Subordinates...And Other Difficult People: Using Emotional Intelligence to Survive and Prosper by Roy H. Lubit

When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses: How to Survive in a Crazy and Dysfunctional Workplace by William Lundin

A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses: Dealing with Bullies, Idiots, Back-Stabbers, and Other Managers from Hell by Gini Graham Scott

Power Freaks: Dealing with Them in the Workplace or Anyplace by David L. Weiner