Bad Bosses

Many managers fear that their subordinates will learn how inadequate they feel in their jobs.  Although hiding vulnerabilities is hardly new, this concern has been exacerbated by a new fear of either becoming obsolete or technology-driven toast in a world of business transformation. "I've never seen businesspeople have to fake it more," says B. Joseph White, past business school dean and interim president at the University of Michigan and now president of the University of Illinois.

Four out of ten newly promoted managers and executives fail within 18 months of starting new jobs, according to research by Manchester, Inc, a leadership development firm in Bala Cynwyd, PA.  "Failing" includes being terminated for performance, performing significantly below expectations or voluntarily resigning from the new position.

Managers often fail for a few common reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people.

Those all-to-common poor managers create plenty of problems for companies as well as leading to poor morale, less production and higher turnover.

FSU Survey Sites Worst Boss Offenses

Nearly two of five bosses don't keep their word and more than a fourth bad mouth those they supervise to co-workers, a Florida State University (FSU) study shows.  The FSU survey included more than 700 people working in a variety of jobs and asked how their bosses treat them.

"They say that employees don't leave their job or company, they leave their boss," says Wayne Hochwarter, an associate professor of management in the College of Business at FSU.  Employees stuck in an abusive relationship experienced more exhaustion, job tension, nervousness, depressed moods and mistrust, the researchers found.  The findings include:

39 percent of workers said their supervisor failed to keep promises

37 percent failed to give credit when due

31 percent gave them the "silent treatment" in the past year

27 percent made negative comments about them to other employees or managers

24 percent invaded their privacy

Workers in bad situations should remain optimistic, Hochwarter said. 

Keep doing your job in the best way possible while being tolerant of your boss...who may be trying to learn how to best manage you and others.  If your boss has been recently promoted or recruited, you can expect that he or she will be incompetent for the first 9 to 12 months in the new position.

Source: Brent Kallestad, The Associated Press