ABSTRACT
In structuring a qualitative study, the author reaches out to the population with an electronic survey that simply asked respondents to describe and, if possible, provide a story or narrative about their “best” and “worst” managers. The survey also asked for some basic demographic information such as the respondent’s gender, the gender of the manager, length of time with the manager, and business or industry category. The author explains in the email that accompanied the survey that the study was completely confidential, that all responses would be anonymous, and that no names of people or companies would be revealed in the results, although selected excerpts from individual responses might be used as illustrations. The worst managers are generally described as the opposite of each of these themes: unresponsive, selfish, insecure, manipulative, and in dire need of people skills. The procedure is iterative and admittedly more art than science; however, over time one begins to understand and interpret meaningful patterns in the responses.
