That’s just the kind of situation that Ray Blanchette, the new C.E.O. of Joe’s Crab Shack, a Houston-based seafood chain with 120 restaurants, wanted to avoid when he took over the company in May. In August, he brought in Tulgan to run a one-day boot camp for his regional managers. The message Blanchette wanted conveyed was that these managers needed to be more hands-on with their employees, giving clearer direction and providing more personal mentoring.

“When Bruce told them it’s okay to be the boss, it was like an epiphany,” Blanchette says. “You’re not just telling them what to do. You’re not just trying to be a pain in the ass.”

Blanchette says he had less turnover than he’d expected in a new executive regime and didn’t mind losing the employees who were put off by the newly engaged, more aggressive managers.

To be sure, some workplace experts still believe the primary problem with bosses is their insensitive, aggressive behavior.

“If anything, the workplace is more confrontational than ever,” says Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute, a research group and consulting firm based in Washington. “Management always blames the employee [in these cases], saying it’s a perceptual problem or that the employee can’t accept criticism.”

Based on his research, Namie sees the workplace as a far different place from the one described by the undermanagement believers. He cites a September Zogby International survey that found that 37 percent of American workers (an estimated 54 million people) say they have been bullied at work, while 49 percent say they have witnessed bullying tactics.

Namie and his group have helped introduce anti-bullying legislation that he says would serve the same purpose as antidiscrimination laws. So far, none have made it into law, although bills in New York, Vermont, and Washington are still active.

Namie insists that he’s not campaigning against executives who make the occasional politically incorrect comment or have boorish personalities. Rather, he’s aiming at repeat offenders who “inflict arbitrary cruelty, command unrealistic deadlines, and target a few for misery.”

Ben Dattner, a principal of Dattner Consulting, a Manhattan-based firm with both large and small corporate clients, says that in the current workplace climate, it’s difficult for both employers and employees to know how they should conduct themselves. But he finds that the more effective bosses are usually the ones that provide more—not less—oversight of their employees.

“I think people want more direction and want to know what their boss thinks is right or not right,” Dattner says. “Even if it’s negative feedback, or even if the answer is no. In my experience, it’s preferable to be more emotionally engaged, even if that means being negative.”