Top 5 – How to Be a Horrible Boss
Here’s my Top 5 ways to be a horrible boss:
1. Belittle people – Call them names, yell at them, look down on your staff. After all, they are beneath you.
2. Tell nobody nothing – Don’t share your calendar, don’t share information about what your bosses goals are, don’t update them with key HR updates. Keep them in the dark – they don’t need to know.
3. Celebrations are for whimps – Let’s ban all birthday celebrations, going for coffee, work happy hours, summer picnics. If you aren’t working, you aren’t working.
4. Do everything yourself – Don’t delegate any work. You can’t trust the staff to be competent. So do everything and then complain they don’t do anything.
5. Be always on – Schedule meetings on weekends, write emails at 11pm and ask for input right away, conference calls at 7pm, force people to work on vacations.
Feel free to vent a little here and tell your horror story, or better yet you success story on how your boss has avoided these or other mistakes. I'll take either!
Comment
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Comment by Micheal Mullen on August 30, 2011 at 11:42am -
When I was a manager, I learned to delegate early (my boss had left, I was made manager in a day). My goal was simple, create experts. While I still had the reins on what they did and had to field any complaints, I helped them to create clear goals, levels of achievement and ultimately better the product. The old teammates have gone on to do great things and one of them, now editor-in-chief on a major site, gave me public props for my management style.
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Comment by Kanika Tolver on June 24, 2011 at 10:57am -
This is true!
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Comment by Nancy Wrona on June 3, 2011 at 2:42pm -
I have had 2 different bosses who lost it over successes that I had for which they could not take credit. Each one of them came into my office unannounced, slammed the door and them began screaming at me while jumping up and down. I don't remember what the first one was yelling, but the second one kept shrieking, "Now you've gottten me f***ing fired." What was even most interesting in that case was that my office had a glass wall and all of my staff got to view this bizarre behavior.
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Comment by Allen Sheaprd on February 9, 2011 at 8:40am -
Ehhh, I would re-write #4 - Don't do anything. Delegate tasks without one of the following: instructions, direction or rescources. If things start to go bad - turn up the heat. When they go good - take credit. After all it was "your taks"
For extra credit - go to a big conference to "represent" the group and get the award. Tell everyone how much you enjoyed the conference.
Extra points for displaying the award in your office where we can all see it - year after year after year.
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Comment by Tim Evans on February 8, 2011 at 5:22pm -
Approve their work, then run like hell when someone else above you bounces it; never back up your staff.
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Comment by GovLoop on February 8, 2011 at 5:04pm -
Ha...that's funny.
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Comment by Chris Adkins on February 8, 2011 at 4:26pm -
I used to have this boss, and then we got detached from Finance into Information Technology and my boss now is great! Needless to say, Director of Finance resigned not shortly after. Power and people crazy, when he lost us, he nearly lost his marbles...the few he had left.
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Comment by Lorne W. Neff on January 6, 2011 at 12:34pm -
I recognize a lot of these traits from past bosses and mostrecently by my boss when I was put in charge one of the sections put togetherfor years time. Even though, I was theone with the title as head of my section, my boss(s) (multiple) gave me littlepower to actually make decisions and allowed someone else in the section toplum their own assignments and work, often communicating through thatindividual or not all. This caused low moraleand resentment I could not change. I didmy best to shield my team from the criticism we received and was often blamedfor systemic problems that I had documented before I took over. But again was not allowed to change them. In the end, most of my people moved on tobigger and better assignments and did not suffer from poor performance appraisals,and the reductions in pay and status I’m sure were on their way had I not been there. I recognize my own failings in all this. I was unable to change the culture and affectpositive change. I feel my biggestfailing was leaning on the stronger individuals, and while I tried to cultivatethe weaker ones, the workload was not proportionate or fair.
I did insist my section be project orientated, and while Iwas criticized for not keeping my people chained to their desk during the day,I feel this was a plus, not a minus. Theother sections were clock watchers. Ihave worked in this type of atmosphere, forced to work certain hours. I did not do my best work and just wanted toget out of there at the end of the day. I hope I get another opportunity in the future to run a section, I thinkhaving good communication and support would make a team like that exceptional.
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Comment by Robert on August 27, 2010 at 8:56am
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1. Asked to be copied on every email that is sent so that they can be informed in "real time" on what's going on. Then jump into the conversation and make decisions, there by undermining the employee.
2. Expect your employees to do everything the way you would do it, or it's not correct.
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Comment by GovLoop on June 14, 2010 at 10:05pm
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Indecision is a decision as they say...
The boss that never makes decisions they don't want to deal with by saying "Hmm. I'll have to noodle that for a while."
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