"Your Boss is Intimidated By You" - Part 1

Research time lieutenants, agents in the field, and all varied and sorted types of economists!

Your beloved Captain has a problem and a problem that has been bothering him for quite some time.  Try as he might, he has had no success in figuring out a phenomenon he has regularly ran into in his life.  Normally if he sits down and ponders things he can figure it out, but not this one.  Worse still, he doesn't even have any theories or ideas that might explain this phenomenon which he can tender to his fine elite readership for approval or rejection.  No, he is just plain dead in the water when it comes to this one.  So riddle me this riddle me that Cappy Cappites:

"Are bosses really intimidated by some of their employees?

I ask because when I have rammed heads with management in the past (which has pretty much been always) my peers, friends, family and loved ones always say,

"Well, he/she is probably just intimidated by you.  They know you can do a better job than them and are smarter than them."

To this my original response was disbelief.  Early on I chalked it up to me not being a good enough employee.  I tried working harder, smarter, etc., but it never worked.  I still rammed heads.  Then I chalked it up to my brash personality.  They weren't intimidated, they just didn't like me.  So I became more demure and subservient, and of course that didn't work either.  Then once I took the red pill of employment and saw just how grossly incompetent, inept, and sometimes outright criminal gray hairs were in the banking industry, I chalked it up to the fact I was not playing along and refusing to be corrupt stooge they wanted me to be.  It wasn't intimidating, I just wasn't a team player.
But my ultimate reason for not believing in the "Intimidated Boss Syndrome" is that I couldn't see any of my bosses, no matter how incompetent or corrupt, being "intimidated" by me to the point they'd quarantine me or somehow impede my career our of fear I'd "usurp" them.  It just seemed to damn petty, even for them.

But, sure enough at the bar nary a couple days ago, when talking to a buddy of mine about my Wyoming gig he said, "Oh, he was just intimidated by you."  And the fact he said it so "matter of factly" has now made me hell bent to figure this out.

So Cappy Cappites, lets see if we can with our communal SEAG (TM) brain power answer a couple questions.

1.  Does such a phenomenon exist?  I'm sure SOME boss SOMEWHERE has been intimidated by an underling in the history of the world.  But is this a COMMON phenomenon you believe exists?

2.  WE NEED PROOF.  Stories, observations, epiphanies, anecdotes, something you can point to and say, "Yes, see there!  There it is!  That boss is intimidated by his underling and here's how you can tell."  Not stories of "my boss sucks and here's why."  I need "S/he displayed this odd behavior or did something that would suggest they were intimidated."  Hell, insider stories of people who know who are bosses confiding in you their employees intimidate them.  And I'd be curious if this is more common with women than men (though my money is on the men if this proves to be true).

3.  I would also like to see a working psychological model or explanation as to why this is.  What is the psychology, what are the symptoms, what are the traits and behaviors of intimidated bosses?  What do they do and say and why do they say it so we know they're intimidated.

I KNOW there is something there.  It's too uncanny  that this keeps getting cited, not just in my experiences, but others.  I want the "Intimidated Boss Phenomenon" ID'd and explained.

ht for info and insight