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For the first time, eBossWatch.com, a website dedicated to helping people avoid workplace harassment and bullying, assembled a panel of experts to choose and rank the 25 Worst Bosses of 2009 in the U.S. and abroad.

The list is a carnival of horrors, but once the shock factor ebbs, some basic rules of the road emerge:

• Don’t harass your employees – about race, about or for sex or sexual orientation, about a disability, for ANY reason.
• Don’t yell at, swear at, insult, or bully your employees.
• Don’t punch or hit your employees.
• Don’t pay less than the minimum wage, refuse to pay overtime, or steal employees’ tips.
• If you DO do any of these things, don’t retaliate, threaten, or fire employees if they object or complain.
• If you observe others engaging in these behaviors, don’t join in or just sit by and laugh.

Listed out, these rules are ludicrous – or would be, if the cases cited didn’t make it so crystal clear that bad behavior in the workplace is more common as we might like to think.

Taken together, they provide a reminder that respect is fundamentally what it’s all about. As leaders, what can we do to make it a priority in 2010?