George Stern's anonymous posts of boss messages reach millions of viewers

Stern asks for receipts, probes senders and strips names and companies

Management consultant George Stern has drawn millions of viewers to a series of social media posts built around direct messages that employees say their bosses sent them, including an exchange in which a manager presses an employee about bereavement leave during a grandmother’s funeral. In an NPR News profile published Oct. 24, Ryan Warner of Colorado Public Radio, reporting from Denver, describes Stern as a former Colorado election clerk and former CEO who reads the messages aloud, checks each account before posting and leaves out names and companies.

About a year ago, after a career in the public and private sectors, Stern began sharing leadership tips on LinkedIn. He posted management advice and infographics and started receiving direct messages from people who complimented his work and then described a workplace problem they did not know how to handle. “I was posting management advice and infographics on LinkedIn,” Stern said. “And I started getting these DMs from folks saying, love your content.” He decided the situations deserved a wider audience: “And I thought, you know what? People should probably hear this too.”

The audience that followed spans social media platforms, NPR host Scott Simon said, where cringeworthy exchanges between managers and employees are posted “maybe not always to shame, but to encourage better behavior.” Millions now watch across Stern’s own accounts, Warner reported, as he shares stories of employees contacted on their wedding day, a vacation approval rescinded and an exchange about a grandmother’s funeral.

One of the exchanges Stern posted begins with the employee writing: “My grandmother passed away last night. I’ll be taking bereavement leave this week. At the airport now.” The manager replied: “When you say the week - a funeral’s only one day, though, right?” The employee answered: “The funeral is one day. The traveling and supporting my mom is the week.”

According to Warner, the manager then asked for proof, wondered whether the employee’s grandmother qualified as immediate family and raised an approaching presentation. Stern read the closing lines of the exchange: “Could you dial into the pitch from Ohio?” and “I’ll be at a wake. No. Boarding now. Deaths are famously inconsiderate about pitch schedules.”

Stern’s background includes service as a Colorado election clerk and a stint as a chief executive, and he roots for workers with boundaries, the report said, pointing managers toward better behavior. His prescription is plain: “The lesson in all of this, if you want to be a good boss, is be a good human being or don’t be a jerk.” Stern expanded on it: “You have to communicate well. You have to treat people well. Don’t be a jerk. That’s what it comes down to.”

The screening behind each post is deliberate. Stern asks for receipts and screenshots and, before posting, probes further with the sender, Warner reported. The check that carries the most weight is the response: “I have yet to post a video that didn’t have dozens of comments and DMs saying, the same exact thing has happened to me.” The people watching the posts supply their own accounts, and the volume of those responses is what Stern treats as confirmation that a message was not an isolated incident.

Anonymity is part of the method. Stern omits names and companies from the exchanges he posts, leaving the worker, the manager and their employers unnamed in public.

The empathy in his posts runs in both directions. He applies it to employees and, Warner reported, extends it to managers who perhaps were promoted but never trained and who may be under pressure from above. Stern argues that most bad management is not a plan to cause harm: “Almost no one wants to be a bad boss. No one wakes up every morning and thinks, I want to destroy someone’s career today. Let’s see how I can bring people down and make them feel small.”

Warner’s report ends on a warning for any manager whose conduct matches the exchanges: “if that is your deal or your effect, look out for George Stern.” For workers who send such messages to Stern, the process is straightforward: he asks for receipts, he follows up with the sender, and if the account holds up, the exchange is read publicly, without names or companies attached.