(Friday, October 23)

Last Friday was National Boss Day, and obviously it totally slipped my mind.

Shame on me.

At the end of this month, my boss at the Toronto Sun, Lou Clancy, is stepping down — on his own, no push from behind, no pink slip — to head off to Mexico with his wife, Rhonda, to begin a well-deserved early retirement.

I've had a lot of bosses in my life, and Lou Clancy ranks up there with the best.

And it is a very short list.

Research about to be published in next month's Psychological Science shows that bosses who feel they're in over their heads are more likely to bully their subordinates.

I've seen a few of those in my day — the bully boys who attempt to hide their incompetence behind the guise of knowing it all.

It's surprising, at least to me, how many actually survive, but most get caught up in their own lies, their pass-the-buck dodges and, finally, all the mistakes they made to cover their own butts.

I was a boss once, as publisher and CEO of the Ottawa Sun, and ended up walking the plank when the new owners' idea of a good bottom line did not jibe with my more employee-conscious one.

Getting fired from that job was the best thing that ever happened to me because it brought me back to what I do best.

Which is not being a boss.