Baddest Bosses: Could You Be One Of Them?
People skills seem to be in short supply among today's managers.
You could say I've had a few inept bosses in my day, starting as a kid in school, where I considered teachers my bosses. I had the football coach who punched out the drum major, the band leader who dated underage girls – even a teacher who forced us to learn tatting (don't ask – it's kind of like crocheting).
Later I was on a crew that sprayed a mix of diesel fuel and defoliant on trees growing under power lines. We hiked through fields, toting leaky sprayers on our backs, while the boss sat in his pickup. He constantly accused us of sleeping in the fields (we didn't).
I had a boss in Detroit whose daily routine was to tour our building with the janitor to assign his duties of the day, read the morning paper, then lunch with the same middle manager. After lunch he napped, read the afternoon paper and went home. He avoided employees, and even skipped staff meetings.
Another boss kept his office, where he did his yoga, closed at all times. All his communication was by memo. If he sent you one listing your shortcomings, you'd been fired.
Lately there's been a flurry of surveys, articles and columns about managers who lack people skills. There's even an online "My Bad Boss" contest, where people send their stories. Here are examples, gathered from several sources:
• A boss who used the motivational strategy of spanking underperforming employees in front of fellow workers.
• The boss who got the staff's attention before a meeting by firing a stun gun behind their heads as they entered the room.
• A boss, walking behind an employee who had been crippled by a spinal operation: ("Expletive)! Do you have to walk like that?"
• A VP who ordered a middle manager to cut two buttons off his blazer sleeves so it wouldn't look like he outranked the VP.
• The boss who refused to let an employee off for the birth of his child. "You got her pregnant on your time off," he said. "You need to have the baby on your time off."
• The boss who, after an explosion in the building injured a worker, told a new manager, "Remember when we get there – act like you care."
• The boss who docked a worker an hour's pay because daylight savings time took effect during his shift.
• The boss who forced an employee to use vacation time to bury his father, then sent flowers – but deducted $200 from the guy's salary to pay for them.
David Sirota, who heads a firm that does in-depth research on management, says one of the most common bad boss failings is to deliberately make people feel insecure about their jobs, instead of treating them like responsible adults.
That makes sense. And if any of the above bad boss examples are in your own management repertoire, you might want to rethink your approach.
Doug Condra
President
E-mail Doug Condra at dcondra@truckinginfo.com, or write PO Box W. Newport Beach, Calif. 92656.
