IamMightySore wrote:
I think this sort of management "style" was far more normal in the era that Weisinger hailed from... The boss/employee relationships were more dictatorial than we would tolerate in our society today. I'm sure this was what Mort learned during his early years and continued to practice it, thinking it was what motivated his staff to perform their best... Even if it could be demonstrated to him that it didn't work, he may have had a difficult time changing...
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick on this. If what Mort did was typical of the era, his writers and artists wouldn't have thought he was such an extreme ogre. I've read about dozen interviews with people that worked for him and the only person who claimed to have no problems with him was Dick Sprang. Also Weisenger was supposed to have gotten a lot worse in the 50s and 60s then he was in the early 40s, so I don't see the problem being that he was copying a previous boss.

Barry Forshaw called Weisenger "talented but appaling". I think that hits the nail on the head.