I’m sure we’ve all been there at one point, we’ve worked a job where the manager was absolutely dreadful.
The type of boss that makes your job unbearable to a point where you feel like walking out during any given moment.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of horrible bosses out there and they can make even the funnest of jobs seem frightful.
Here are some of the characteristics of a horrible boss:
1. Controlling
There’s a clear difference between a boss and a leader.
A great leader knows how to motivate people and make the people around them better.
A horrible boss is more of a controlling delegator, who only focuses on assigning busy work to employees without having to necessarily explain to the employees why.
I’m sure a lot of employees out there still don’t know why they’re filling out TPS reports.
2. Indecisive
Horrible managers can be indecisive in what they want completed out of certain tasks.
This is because they don’t necessarily analyze situations enough to see what the end result is. They just think things are “good ideas” and tend to run with it, without necessarily weighing in the pros and cons.
When they do think it through, they don’t know if they want to follow through because they don’t know what they really want to make that assumption, and if it were to fail, it’ll look bad on them.
A great leader will evaluate the situation and be able to realize if decisions will better the company. Even if the decision is a good one, they aren’t afraid to fail fast and try something new.
3. Stubborn
They always think they’re right, they don’t want to hear any other person’s opinion, they will show disregard toward a potentially better idea … or take credit for it.
Stubborn managers can break a department’s spirits and be detrimental toward the growth of a company.
Whereas leaders are open-minded enough to know that everyone in the office is equal and that employees can conceptualize new ideas and bring more to the table if leadership remains humble.
4. Resist Change
Poor management embraces being stagnant and don’t like changing certain processes within the office.
People in general don’t like doing anything that will require them to change; however, for managers to resist change is putting jobs on the line.
Growing as a business requires that you constantly reinventing the office environment and coming up with new concepts that’ll allow your employees to work better and satisfy your customers.
5. Micromanage
I guess I may have a personal bias, but, micromanaging is probably the worst thing that one human can do to another.
A horrible manager that is constantly reviewing work to make sure it’s completed to their liking is quite the imbecile. They are demotivating their employees and ruining the quality of their work.
Some of the best places to work enforce employee autonomy so they can give their employees the freedom to accomplish more task and do it to their liking. It’s a lot less stressful for both management and employees.
6. Lead By Fear
This type of tactic make work in an archaic workplace where we’re supposed to look at management as some form of demigod, but the way things have changed throughout the past couple of years, there is no room for this kind of leadership.
The prototype modern day workplace is a lot more liberal and doesn’t use fear as a form of management.
We’ve all seen those old movies where the managers threaten an employee by saying they’re going to fire them if they don’t complete a big task.
Well, there’s a reason why the manager in those movies usually are the villains. So sorry, scrooge … that kind of management doesn’t work anymore.
7. “Visionless”
It’s bad when a boss doesn’t see the long term vision and they only focus on making short term fixes.
Whether it’s relating to a product/service, work environment, or even conflicts. A boss who can’t take the time to appropriately have a goal set or a long-term vision can bring down the moral of colleagues.
Great bosses tend to have a roadmap of what to do for the coming weeks, months, and sometimes even years.
8. Favoritism
There’s no place for nepotism in the workplace. Horrible bosses shouldn’t be choosing favorites in the office, especially if they’re going to refer a person for a big position.
A manager can make friends with employees (even though I’ve had other managers tell me different) however, they have to know when to separate personal friendships from business.
Leaders often see any personal relationship they make with a person as an add-on to being a colleague.
They can differentiate work and personal stuff, and they often try to do their best to establish a great relationship with everyone at their office.
9. Arrogance
Similar to being stubborn, an arrogant boss can ruin workplace with their ostentatious personality.
They will carry around this horrible bravado that will make them seem as if they’re the most powerful person in the world. Which in my opinion is wrong.
There’s no room for cockiness in an office and good leaders tend to check their egos at the door.
They know that having engaged employees comes from making sure that everyone is working together as a team; not trying to show off all of their personal accomplishments.
10. Angry
I find that angry bosses are absolutely ridiculous. They think because they’ve obtained a position of power, they can berate, belittle, and treat others wrong.
This is not a definitely not a good indicator of sound leadership and it’s kind of using leadership by fear.
Real leaders can obtain an even-keel attitude and not let their emotions get the best of them.
11. Blame-Shifter
This is similar to someone who makes excuses all the time within an office. This type of manager will always look to blame someone instead of taking it on themselves.
Basically, the blame-shifter will always look at all the things that went wrong and put it all on the employees.
A great leader is able to hone up to any mistakes that they make, and even more impressive, they’ll often time take blame for any mistakes that employees have made. Just because they were not there to correct any mistakes.
12. Driven by emotion
Lastly, a horrible boss is driven by emotion. It’s one thing to make a couple of decisions based on confidence or a gut feeling, however, it’s another to do it and not have any reasoning behind it.
Great leaders can usually make a decision by using a good amount of data to back up their reasoning.
This is a less riskier route and has a higher reward. There’s a reason that there are so many analytic platforms on the internet. It’s so great managers can use them to their advantage and come up with data to confirm any assumptions.
Remember, there’s a clear cut difference between being a boss (a horrible one at that) and a leader. I think that workplaces will grow a lot faster if we continue molding people to become better leaders. That’s why it’s important to make employees engaged within their offices.
So try some unique employee engagement practices that will allow people in your office to lead better and respect one another.
Have you ever had a horrible boss?
Let us know about it in the comments below!
Read more: Personality Traits of a Great Boss
Yes I’ve had a boss who displayed all these. Needless to say I didn’t do my finest work for her. I’m glad to say though that things in my company are now changing as we have a new man at the top. Here’s wishing him more power to his elbow
I had one boss in my career with all 12 characterstics mentioned above. During that period of my job, I caught with diseases like, hypertention. Tough time….
Thanks GOD after that I have never got a boss with more than 2 characterstics …. thats manageable ;)
Yes! Presently I have a very horrible boss and he has all the characteristics mentioned above.
Can I point out that the qualities on your list aren’t restricted to bosses? I’ve had co-workers who put the boss in the shade in terms of making the workplace toxic — and since they were members of a union, getting rid of them was about as easy as getting them to do their jobs. (Jip, that’s not meant as a blanket condemnation of unions or union members: I’m sure there are plenty of union members out there who are stellar employees and co-workers.)
Jip, I agree that change is a good thing — but not if it’s change merely for the sake of change. A good leader should be open to change — but they should also be smart enough not to fix what isn’t broken.
Yes, mine falls in the list too that’s why I am leaving the company but thanks to him I need to serve 2 months notice instead of 1 month like everybody else with the same ranking as me.
Yes. I had an ex-boss with all those characteristics mentioned above. Working with her is like living in hell every day. Luckily, Management reshuffled and I have a good boss now.
I also have rude boss, he is just impossible to bear. anyway nice post. this is vinod @ rowing machines guide</a
We all have bosses which display one or more(some even all) of these characteristics, which make it difficult for us employees to get work done. What could be useful in this article is how to overcome these problems and strategies to negotiate around such bosses.
The question is, how do we make the boss realise how horrible he is?
I have had horrible bosses and I have had fantastic bosses. Needless to say, my productivity was tremendously better with the bosses who helped to improve the work environment instead of tear it a part. This infographic is the perfect representation of that: http://www.executiveplacementsofva.com/2015/08/26/office-morale-are-you-setting-yourself-up-for-success/
daam true i have face this
article is very help full i would love to implement it
One in every five bosses are like that and this type of bosses slow down growth
I have had many in my time. The worst for me are bosses who look down on you and treat you like a simpleton. Just because you are younger than them and they have the power to talk to you in whatever way they want. I think the problem diminishes with age, as the older I got the less of a problem I had
Other things terrible bosses do: Fail to stand up for their team when interacting with outsiders and senior management. Make no attempt to understand the roles of their subordinates (for example I’m a health professional working for an unqualified person with events management experience, which would be fine if she bothered to gain insight into what we do – instead she ignores our attempts to explain our role and walks out of our presentations). Be unethical and expect the team to go along with it. Have no respect for your employees personal time – send work messages to private numbers at midnight when it’s not an emergency. I could go on…
Oh, and bosses who are sexist/racist, fail to protect you from harassment, or do protect (but not develop) unproductive team members whose work is falling on others.
I have that boss, she goes as far as start lies to turn each girl against each other or get gossip to use against between 6 girls. All the glory but running business like shit show