Bad Boss #1 - When You Have Directs

The Grave and Gathering Threat of Mismanagement (II)

Folks,

My comments here are the comments I entered in Career Tools - with a slight modification - for those who do not  follow Career Tools podcasts.

After listening to your last podcast on "Angry and Demeaning Bosses" in Career Tools, I must congratulate you on your most accurate description of the situation and your realistic solution for a manager stuck with a bad boss.

Unfortunately, looking at this solution from a SYSTEMS point of view, one will not find the advice the best because it misses important chances for system enhancement. The solution tacitly advocates the "Grieving Model," perpetuating bad bosses who never get stomach ulcers themselves but give them to their directs. Too many people, employed or unemployed, are walking around wounded and yet restricted to speak up. 

And those in transition are faced with even harsher pressures of keeping stiff upper lips, imposed by a culture of hiding mismanagement issues under the carpet. For example, established norms of not bad mouthing the ex-boss, fear of not receiving unemployment insurance, fear of receiving poor references,  advice to resort only to writing "poison letters" -letters addressing grievances that are never sent out but considered as having therapeutic values, etc.  Unfortunately this culture of hiding mismanagement has been tacitly encouraged and supported by various state and federal labor agencies, spreading and prolonging the misery. 

The general public is also still unaware of and misguided by the wrong metrics and statistics. For example, if one speaks about a woman having been bullied at workplace, the most likely general misconception would be that of sexual harassment -  a report by "The Workplace Bullying & Trauma Institute" shows that women bullies choose women targets 87% of of the time!  The evidence of need for a speedy course change in "mismanagement" area is mounting by the various reports and publications of sociologists, OD and clinical psychologists.

If you'd like a few references to explore this grave and gathering mismanagement threat, here are my recommendations:
 
1) "How to Solve the Mismanagement Crisis,"  Ichak Adizes
2) "How to Work for an Idiot: Survive & Thrive without Killing Your Boss," John Hoover, Ph.D
3) "Coping with Toxic Managers, Subordinates, and Other Difficult People,"  Roy H. Lubit, M.D., Ph.D
4) "Get Them On Your Side," Samuel B. Bacharach
5) "The Bully at Work," Gary Namie, Ph.D. & Ruth Namie, Ph.D.
6) "The Allure of Toxic Leaders," Jean Lipman-Blumen
7) "The Boss from the Outer Space and Other Aliens at Work, Patricia J. Addesso, Ph.D."
8) "Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers & Other Office Idiots," Vicky Oliver
9) "When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses," William Lundin, Ph.D.
Websites:
Bullying Institute: http://www.bullyinginstitute.org/
The WorkDoctor : http://workdoctor.com/

Finally while you are increasing your knowledge, need I remind you of  what M&M quoted - another example of pressure to hide mismanagement?
"Tell the truth to your boss and the truth will set you free!"
 
Malekz
 

Malekz- We do NOT advocate

Malekz-

We do NOT advocate the grieving model, tacitly or otherwise.  Even if you did a point by point comparison, the comparison doesn't hold.  The grieving model is built on a false premise and recommends emotional responses to real events.  We recommend effective actions.

The reason we don't teach the systems model is that it doesn't work, because people aren't systems. 

It might make "sense", but it doesn't make "feel", and bad bossses aren't about sense, they're about feel.

Bad bosses exist, but all those books describing them are FULL of bad advice about how to work with them.  I hope that anyone who reads them sees them as intellectual pursuits, as many of them are written by psychologists who have neither BEEN bosses nor worked for a bad one themselves.

"Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth" - Archimedes

Give us long enough, and we'll get rid of all of them - Mike and Mark

Mark

problem with the file

http://media.libsyn.com/media/managertools/manager-tools-2009-03-23.mp3 does not exist. It also doesn't work from within iTunes. 

Bad Bosses

Thank you for another great cast.

This is one that I will be sharing with a couple of my directs who sometimes have issues dealing with peers of my boss (a little different kind of issue).

I realized a couple of years ago that I learned some of my most valuable lessons from bad bosses. Many of those lessons were from observation and others personally painfull. The phrase "When I'm in charge I'll never ..." has some special meaning.

Thank you again for your efforts.

Jeff

RE: We do NOT advocate

Mark,

Thank you for your input to my comments.
 
I cannot overemphasize the importance and uniqueness of your podcasts on Bad Bosses. Nothing can replace them; they are original and grounded on real experiences of men in the arena. The books I have mentioned are no substitutes for your excellent podcasts at all. They were only mentioned to show that the problems of Bad Bosses are grave and gathering.
 
Your characterization of these books, namely "I hope that anyone who reads them sees them as intellectual pursuits, as many of them are written by psychologists who have neither BEEN bosses nor worked for a bad one themselves" is not entirely fair.
 
Because of the tremendous damages Bad Bosses inflict on employees and their families, many of them find no recourse but to seek assistance from clinical and industrial psychologists and counselors as a means of either coping with the situation or ameliorating  pains of the deep wounds Bad Bosses have inflicted on them and on their families. These psychologists may have not been targets of Bad Bosses themselves but they have spent thousands of hours listening to those who have. Many psychologists may also have direct experience themselves having worked in hospitals or mental institutions - places that are growing grounds for the worst kinds of Bad Bosses. I would not belittle their books as purely "intellectual pursuits."
 
The problem I have with many psychologists in the US is a different one. In many ways they are the culprit by every day coming up with new psychological techniques on how to manipulate and control others. These manipulative techniques are sugar coated with nice buzz words in motivational fields, coaching, marketing, sales, etc. Not only do Bad Bosses have the propensity of hurting others; they also get equipped to the teeth with these manipulative psychological techniques to cause most damage.

--Malekz

bad bosses

So your advice is about working with bad bosses?  How about a way to make them stop.  From what you describe in this series, I apparently have only bad or angry bosses all the way to the top.  So I cope ( with the aid of a lot of medication), I perform ( but never am good enough) and I look for other work ( in a terrible economy and companies around here are laying off or going to Mexico.) 

And what about the poor guys at the bottom of the heap who work for $8 and hour and take all the abuse and know they're lucky to have a job at all? 

Your information is helpful, but bad bosses are poison to the workers and the company and should be stopped. 

Hanging,  I'm sorry to hear

Hanging, 

I'm sorry to hear that you're going through such a difficult time at work. It seems like so many managers these days are feeling the crunch and expressing it in ways that are ... well ... ineffective. I have personally forwarded this cast to at least 5 of my friends since the economic downturn.

Unfortunately, there is no way to "make them stop" just as there is no way for your directs to make you change YOUR behavior. No one thinks of themselves as a bad boss and yet we can all cite one. 

Mark and Mike's advice is  the only way - cope, realize it isn't personal, and look for another job. 

Best of luck,

Kate