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Bad managers not just accidents of nature

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If you've been in business for any time at all, chances are you've seen your share of bad managers.

Unfortunately, the cream isn't the only thing that rises to the top. (For a concrete example of this principle, please consult your local septic tank operator.)

How do the inept rise to power? I don't know. I recommend writing your congressman for a first-hand report.

We all like to think that those who rise to positions of trust and authority do so based on merit. The boss must have seen something in that employee, some quality that they thought made them worthy of management status.

Then again, if it's a small company, and the inept manager was in on the ground floor, it may have been a natural progression, based on seniority, that put them on the track to leadership.

What makes a bad manager? Here are a few characteristics you may recognize:

The mirror isn't the only thing with two faces. Do you know this manager? She tells you one thing, but tells the boss something completely different.

She assures you that she will relay your successes and contributions to the chief, but in the sanctum of the CEO's office takes full credit for herself, something you only find out about indirectly and long after the fact.

The Teflon tyrant. No matter how many complaints he racks up, nothing seems to stick to this marvel of a bad manager.

He might be a longtime employee and trusted friend of the boss someone who was at the boss's side at startup. Maybe he was the hottest salesman going circa 1973 and he's been resting on his laurels ever since. He did the company a good turn, and this, he feels, is his reward.

Bright and outspoken staff make him uncomfortable, so he quashes them at every turn. The resulting high turnover is not because of his methods, he says, but because these applicants today just don't have any work ethic.

He has the boss' ear, he is confident that he richly deserves his position and salary, and he inspires that same confidence in the boss. When challenged about his methods or decisions, he affects hurt and anger or an air of martyrdom.

And speaking of martyrs. Oh, woe is this manager. She's got so much to get done, so many deadlines, so many projects, so many excuses.

She maintains her deathgrip on managerial status by exciting the boss' sympathy for her brave forbearance under heavy burdens her medical condition, her deadbeat husband, her six children, her inept staff and her onerous workload, which she keeps unwieldy by stubbornly refusing to delegate tasks.

Everything would have been done, but the documentation didn't come in, the computer bombed, the phone kept ringing, the kids were sick and the staff is a bunch of incompetents who get nothing done unless she looks over their shoulders and points all day long.

Every project comes complete with a three-hanky tale about why it's late, why it's overbudget or why it failed, with herself as our beleaguered heroine, victim of jealousy, other people's poor communication skills and circumstances.

That's Mister DeSade, to you. He knows nothing about what it takes to get the job done, he merely knows that if he yells, screams and threatens loud and long enough, it all comes together.

Whereupon he takes all the credit.

His employees are very quiet. Cowed, in fact. No one wants to fall under the concentrated acid of his glare, or be ritually dismembered by that razor-sharp tongue. No one complains to the boss, because no one dares.

The boss only knows that this manager gets results. Because of that, the big cheese may be disinclined to listen to the truth, writing it off as the rantings of a disgruntled employee with a private ax to grind.

How did this happen? Some say bad managers, like hyperactive labrador retrievers, are born, not made. I beg to differ. There is one thing that allows, and even encourages, bad management: bad communication policies.

An open-door policy on the part of the boss, a written grievance policy, a 360-degree review process and a little team building would go a long way toward circumventing these kinds of problems.

Communication. Period.

Bad managers thrive in the large corporate setting because they are the boss' sole source of information about what is happening with the departments and employees under their care.

But the small office is hardly exempt.

The small-business owner who is preoccupied with the details of daily business likewise depends on his managers to be where he cannot, to be agents of his authority and judgment.

Who's managing the managers at your company?

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