The entertainment world has a number of fictional tyrant managers, such as Montgomery Burns of the Simpsons or Michael Scott of the Office. Many of us also have real-life stories of bosses who behave badly.
The depth of this issue is reflected in the number (58) of comments posted on
David Silverman's blog on poor boss behavior. Silverman includes unclear communication, not showing appreciation, not recognizing employees need for work life balance and not understanding employee’s personal goals on his list.
Bill Robb--a time management expert -lists behaviors such as “harsh, abrupt language,” dictator leadership style, and the use of fear, anger and pressure.
Why do these behaviors occur? In the case discussed in
Verbal Abuse as a Workforce Strategy, the company condoned this type of treatment of others. This case, however, is not a typical example. Other causes may be related to increasing economic stress in the workplace or a lack of preparedness on behalf of the manager.
In some cases, top performers have been promoted to management even though they do not wish to manage others. In an
interview with Ian Portsmouth, Dan McDonald-- co-founder of Business Improvement Solutions--points out that “there is no correlation at all with the competency of being organized or being good at sales or being good technically with the abilities to manage people.” For those individuals who deserve to be promoted, but do not wish to manage others,
Patrick Sweeney--executive vice president of Caliper, an international management consulting firm-- suggests “by identifying top performers and publicly letting them know that they are extremely valuable to us, we can reward the performance we seek and give individuals the opportunity to continue to grow with our companies as individual contributors or as managers, depending upon their desires and talents.” This, however, requires organizational flexibility.
Managers play a key role in helping an organization retain talent. When a manager is behaving badly, retention suffers. Thus, providing new managers support to adapt to their new role and considering promotion alternatives for those who do not want to manager others may be beneficial.
References:
Hollon, John. “Top Blog Posts of 2008: Verbal Abuse, SHRM, Bosses Behaving Badly, and Good Manners.”
Workforce Management [www.workforce.com]. December 19, 2008.
Hollon, John. “Verbal Abuse as a Workforce Strategy.”
Workforce Management [www.workforce.com]. March 7, 2008.
Portsmouth, Ian interview with Dan McDonald. “Episode 41 – Promoting people into management.”
Canadian Business Online [www.canadianbusiness.com]. January 13, 2009.
Robb, William. “Middle Managers Behaving Badly - How To Stop This Damaging Your Results.”
Ezine Articles [http://ezinearticles.com]. 2004.
Silverman, David. “11 Habits of the Worse Boss I Ever Had.”
Harvard Business Publishing [http://discussionleader.hbsp.com]. July 26, 2008.
Sweeney, Patrick. “It Is Not All About Becoming a Manager.”
Workforce Management [www.workforce.com]. November 2008.
