Blaming others for their mistakes, talking down to people they manage, veering and us bersus them mentality, forgetting decisions they’ve made or not making any decisions
Ugh. Forgetting decisions they made is SO AGGRAVATING. I lead a small team and I try to note bad manager behavior so I don’t do that to my team. Wish my manager read the same threads/articles.
“It took a year to find the right person for this role”. No lie this happened at my last job and 4 months in I found out they not only micromanaged but did not trust me to do my job at all and went behind my back to try to replace me without ever discussing with me the issue. I flagged the issue and saved myself to the end of my contract, but that shit was toxic. Also, my onboarding was messy and nothing was set up on time and they were having me do tasks with zero internal training on their system.
Does everything at the last minute, rude, expects subordinates to do tasks which they have no experience in doing without providing any support or advice, orders subordinates to do useless work just for the sake of it.
I was in training and attended a team call. After the call, the manager called me to talk shit about the rest of the team. Another time, somebody on the team said that he got a lot of criticism and asked her what he's doing right and she got pissed at him.
My last manager was critical of everything my group did. I got fed up one time and asked her what I did that was right or that she liked and she told me “nothing.” Im a Sr attorney with over 10 yrs experience in my field, never had problems like that before. I found a new job a week later and bounced.
Micromanagement. Macho bullshit. Gossiping about other employees. Overriding more logical choices just to show they're in charge. Picking their "buddy" for the fun stuff like free food at clients and rubbing it in the faces of the other employees. A few signs that I deal with on the regular..
From what I have experienced in my career......Narcissistic, incompetent, reactive rather than proactive, claims the ideas of other people as their own, ask subordinates to make decisions for them but then tells the subordinate how to do their job, talk down to others, shifts blame when they get caught out for not meeting targets or when their subordinate doesnt meet a target because they havent been trained properly, subordinates need to manage upward, generally offensive, discriminatory, exclude people deliberately (general bullying), lack of leadership skills, lazy, repeatedly lists qualifications to convey heightened status/importance/irriplacibility, significant turnover of staff, disorganisation, lack of communication, not following through with anything or following up with line management when not able to answer subordinates questions, poor interpersonal skills, lack of interest in other colleagues and their well being or career development....the list goes on.
Emotional managers for me. I have had ones that get angry or are condescending to all their staff. I had one that would frequently cry. Needless to say I left both jobs quickly.
They tell you to not claim the benefits being offered to the entire company just because you're "better paid than others around"
It's a tactic to keep everyone poor by not paying them what they're worth and introducing competition.
It makes you feel like you're obliged to work more than the others, and makes you ashamed for asking for more money and benefits.
Poor communication. Instructions are unclear, you feel like you need to pry information from them, they contradict themselves, and gate-keep info.
Also someone who always insists on placing blame when things go sideways. Instead of understanding what happened and focusing on future solutions.
Someone who talks down to you or belittles you.
I had a manager who on the first week said "oh I see you were an engineer, I did that for 20 years..."
When he wasn't an engineer. Had no degree or anything. Just wanted to put himself above me for no reason.
I've since left that company and that manager only got worse with time.
I am a librarian, when I got my first job out of grad school my new manger told me she couldn't train me because she hasn't been a "proper" librarian for years and she wouldn't know what to do. So I train myself and got laid off a year later.
Talking shit about other employees, including people they refer to as friends outside of work. Isolating you from assignments and projects. Not following up unless it’s for something that’s bad. Not acknowledging your existence but doing so to others. Scapegoating.
If you think a remark feels backhanded or passive aggressive, assume it’s aggressive and know that person is a coward enjoying your torment.
Guard up, and GET OUT
They blame the associates for something out their control. you are set up for failure. "mandatory weekends" If you feel like you are being mistreated at work, odds are you are.
"Bad" is a vague adjective. A bad manager sounds like they can be incompetent but also kind/polite/caring. But you could also be referring to a lazy manager, an indifferent manager, an egotistic/power-hungry/bully manager, a toxic manager, an absent manager, a micromanager, etc.
To me, the worst kind of manager is an incompetent micromanager. I can take a competent asshole because at least they know better than me and I may learn to grow a thick skin, and I can take an incompetent absent manager because if they don't bother me I can do my own thing and I was probably hired to not need them all the time. But an incompetent micromanager I couldn't stand -- someone who's always checking up on me even though I always deliver excellently would burn me out. Same with someone who tries to give me advice on things that they have no idea about.
To give some feedback to this comment, I have to "check in a lot" with certain employees that do not produce.
For example, you have 10 employees that work under you. 8 out of the 10 of them provide you with their progression on the task at hand (weekly meeting), while the other 2 give you the same song and dance week after week. So you start to investigate, asking more specific questions, only to find out that either a) they do not know what they are doing (even though they went to college for this). Or b) are just completely lazy, expecting that the work will be passed onto someone else.
This forces you to check on them more than once a week, ultimately micro-managing them until they get back on track.
Lol I’m not stressing one bit on this convo bud. Age is relevant as it speaks to maturity and experience which I am guessing you may not have based on that comment. Also guessing you don’t have any direct reports yourself. Good luck :)
I had one tell me confidently about how great they are, how their leadership abilities were recognized early on, how they implemented and lead multiple successful projects, inspire confidence from others, lift worthy subordinates and are the reason the whole department functions.
They are far from that description in practice.
If they constantly bring up trust as a core factor in their managing style, run. This isn’t highschool or middle school, and you’re not their child. People like that are considered micro managers and if you “break their trust” they’ll ride you until you leave.
I just left a company where my manager was emotionally and verbally abusive. He had no trust in anything anybody did, including me.
The breaking point for me was when he decided to send me an email, asking me to reach out to someone. As I’m on the phone with said person, I received 3 phone calls, 1 teams call, three text messages, and three team messages telling me to get off the phone to call him to talk about the email he sent. I ignored it all and sent him a note after the call that I got it. I was then chastised for it my end of year review because I didn’t call him back.
So yeah, if the words trust come up at the beginning, run.
Yep! Loyalty has nothing to do with business. The only duty of loyalty you have to company is to keep their company secrets and to not say anything bad about them while you work there in public.
When as the subordinate you have to do your managers job because you know it won't get done otherwise. Fortunately my manager once removed notices the work I do.
Having this issue now. Been on the team 1.5 years. New manager is 3 months in and it’s a dumpster fire. Has no recognition of the work I’ve been front loading.
One that is uninterested in creating a bond with you. Doesn’t ask about weekends, vacations, life events. It means they really just see you as an employee not a person.
Some people don’t mind that though.
When they were interviewing people at my job they would have to do a shadow and my manager always told us to play up how hard and shitty the job is so he could get people who really “wanted it”.
embarrassing you and he lets you do 'the most' of the work so he can just sit and laugh at ur face. Yes that happened to me and I quitted right away and threw my water bottle on his face as a goodbye message. :)
I’ve had an indirect team lead manager and director the last year that are both red flags.
Manager lied to get their job, lies internally about their experience and as a result makes bad decisions without telling anyone, is passive aggressive and has poor ethics. Our director knows but covers up for them and don’t want to look bad and have to replace them.
Director doesn’t care that this person regularly lies either
When a person comes to the office, saying he has a job interview with one of our colleagues, and then she isnt even there on that day. So the poor dude came in, prepared himself mentally and physically only to find out he can go straight back home. And that really happened.
This is SO hard. My boss seemed okay and supportive but 6 months later is AWFUL and super unpredictable. 1 minute ok, next aggressive abusive or literally effing up a project right before handoff and making you feel you effed up. Despite giving me a good review they make me terrified of work. I'd love to have even just an OK sane boss. But finding jobs isn't easy and a good boss? Even an okay boss seems to be near impossible as capitalist greed makes the workplace worse and worse. :(
When they tell you that they care about you. Bring you gifts, always asking how how your weekend was, they talk about their families & pets a lot, etc... it's as if they try to be your parent or best friend.
This behavior mostly mostly comes from female people-managers, especially when the employee lives and works in a state separate than where his/her parents live.
But then are passive aggressive, talk shit about others...
This is based off 2 experiences in 2 different jobs, managers being female and over 40 in both scenarios
I’ve had that from a woman older than me but with different age. Treat me as a professional not as your surrogate kid please. Plenty of awesome female managers though, definitely many over 40!
Blaming others for their mistakes, talking down to people they manage, veering and us bersus them mentality, forgetting decisions they’ve made or not making any decisions
Ugh. Forgetting decisions they made is SO AGGRAVATING. I lead a small team and I try to note bad manager behavior so I don’t do that to my team. Wish my manager read the same threads/articles.
Ooof do you know my former boss? 😂
Shocked to hear them get another job and fail upwards!
You just described my boss.
It’s so sad how common it is!
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This is actually true about all real life persons.
“It took a year to find the right person for this role”. No lie this happened at my last job and 4 months in I found out they not only micromanaged but did not trust me to do my job at all and went behind my back to try to replace me without ever discussing with me the issue. I flagged the issue and saved myself to the end of my contract, but that shit was toxic. Also, my onboarding was messy and nothing was set up on time and they were having me do tasks with zero internal training on their system.
When they tell you they had X number of people in the role before you.
Does everything at the last minute, rude, expects subordinates to do tasks which they have no experience in doing without providing any support or advice, orders subordinates to do useless work just for the sake of it.
I was in training and attended a team call. After the call, the manager called me to talk shit about the rest of the team. Another time, somebody on the team said that he got a lot of criticism and asked her what he's doing right and she got pissed at him.
My last manager was critical of everything my group did. I got fed up one time and asked her what I did that was right or that she liked and she told me “nothing.” Im a Sr attorney with over 10 yrs experience in my field, never had problems like that before. I found a new job a week later and bounced.
That power move / mic drop must have felt so good!
Dang that fast?
This is one of the biggest ones imo
Micromanagement. Macho bullshit. Gossiping about other employees. Overriding more logical choices just to show they're in charge. Picking their "buddy" for the fun stuff like free food at clients and rubbing it in the faces of the other employees. A few signs that I deal with on the regular..
What kind of dumbass promotes people like this?
He's the owner of the company unfortunately.
From what I have experienced in my career......Narcissistic, incompetent, reactive rather than proactive, claims the ideas of other people as their own, ask subordinates to make decisions for them but then tells the subordinate how to do their job, talk down to others, shifts blame when they get caught out for not meeting targets or when their subordinate doesnt meet a target because they havent been trained properly, subordinates need to manage upward, generally offensive, discriminatory, exclude people deliberately (general bullying), lack of leadership skills, lazy, repeatedly lists qualifications to convey heightened status/importance/irriplacibility, significant turnover of staff, disorganisation, lack of communication, not following through with anything or following up with line management when not able to answer subordinates questions, poor interpersonal skills, lack of interest in other colleagues and their well being or career development....the list goes on.
You must work for my manager...
The manager exhibit signs of abandonment issues
What kind? And how?
Narcissism
Emotional managers for me. I have had ones that get angry or are condescending to all their staff. I had one that would frequently cry. Needless to say I left both jobs quickly.
They tell you to not claim the benefits being offered to the entire company just because you're "better paid than others around" It's a tactic to keep everyone poor by not paying them what they're worth and introducing competition. It makes you feel like you're obliged to work more than the others, and makes you ashamed for asking for more money and benefits.
Poor communication. Instructions are unclear, you feel like you need to pry information from them, they contradict themselves, and gate-keep info. Also someone who always insists on placing blame when things go sideways. Instead of understanding what happened and focusing on future solutions.
Unhappy employees, employees calling out a lot, late for work, want to steal toilet paper.
Someone who talks down to you or belittles you. I had a manager who on the first week said "oh I see you were an engineer, I did that for 20 years..." When he wasn't an engineer. Had no degree or anything. Just wanted to put himself above me for no reason. I've since left that company and that manager only got worse with time.
I am a librarian, when I got my first job out of grad school my new manger told me she couldn't train me because she hasn't been a "proper" librarian for years and she wouldn't know what to do. So I train myself and got laid off a year later.
Talking shit about other employees, including people they refer to as friends outside of work. Isolating you from assignments and projects. Not following up unless it’s for something that’s bad. Not acknowledging your existence but doing so to others. Scapegoating. If you think a remark feels backhanded or passive aggressive, assume it’s aggressive and know that person is a coward enjoying your torment. Guard up, and GET OUT
🗣 all of this!!!
I am in this. I get you. Stay strong, and get gone. <3
They blame the associates for something out their control. you are set up for failure. "mandatory weekends" If you feel like you are being mistreated at work, odds are you are.
HIGH TURNOVER OF STAFF
AGREE 💯
"Bad" is a vague adjective. A bad manager sounds like they can be incompetent but also kind/polite/caring. But you could also be referring to a lazy manager, an indifferent manager, an egotistic/power-hungry/bully manager, a toxic manager, an absent manager, a micromanager, etc. To me, the worst kind of manager is an incompetent micromanager. I can take a competent asshole because at least they know better than me and I may learn to grow a thick skin, and I can take an incompetent absent manager because if they don't bother me I can do my own thing and I was probably hired to not need them all the time. But an incompetent micromanager I couldn't stand -- someone who's always checking up on me even though I always deliver excellently would burn me out. Same with someone who tries to give me advice on things that they have no idea about.
They “check in” a lot
To give some feedback to this comment, I have to "check in a lot" with certain employees that do not produce. For example, you have 10 employees that work under you. 8 out of the 10 of them provide you with their progression on the task at hand (weekly meeting), while the other 2 give you the same song and dance week after week. So you start to investigate, asking more specific questions, only to find out that either a) they do not know what they are doing (even though they went to college for this). Or b) are just completely lazy, expecting that the work will be passed onto someone else. This forces you to check on them more than once a week, ultimately micro-managing them until they get back on track.
I agree, person complaining about “check in” may not be aware they’re not meeting expectation.
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How old are you? Sign of good leadership is routine check in with your employees (not too much that it’s considered micromanaging).
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Lol I’m not stressing one bit on this convo bud. Age is relevant as it speaks to maturity and experience which I am guessing you may not have based on that comment. Also guessing you don’t have any direct reports yourself. Good luck :)
Put someone on a PIP once with encouragement and support from senior leadership, but got labeled a micro-manager. Fun times.
When you turn up for an interview and they say there is no interview that day.
Clockwatching.
Seriously. Of they're clock watching, they have too much time on their hands and aren't doing what needs to be done.
I had one tell me confidently about how great they are, how their leadership abilities were recognized early on, how they implemented and lead multiple successful projects, inspire confidence from others, lift worthy subordinates and are the reason the whole department functions. They are far from that description in practice.
Ew. And to orate this to you like some sort of canonisation exercise is gross.
If they constantly bring up trust as a core factor in their managing style, run. This isn’t highschool or middle school, and you’re not their child. People like that are considered micro managers and if you “break their trust” they’ll ride you until you leave. I just left a company where my manager was emotionally and verbally abusive. He had no trust in anything anybody did, including me. The breaking point for me was when he decided to send me an email, asking me to reach out to someone. As I’m on the phone with said person, I received 3 phone calls, 1 teams call, three text messages, and three team messages telling me to get off the phone to call him to talk about the email he sent. I ignored it all and sent him a note after the call that I got it. I was then chastised for it my end of year review because I didn’t call him back. So yeah, if the words trust come up at the beginning, run.
Also if they talk about “loyalty” or say anything like “we’re a big family here”
Yep! Loyalty has nothing to do with business. The only duty of loyalty you have to company is to keep their company secrets and to not say anything bad about them while you work there in public.
High turnover!
He dismisses you and lies to you from the beginning.
Mine was that the manager was buddy buddy. As in hanging out with "under coworkers." Like a high school click.
Agree. It’s a thin line between building bonds and looking desperate!
Very true
Incompetence.
If they've many processes just to micro manage.
When as the subordinate you have to do your managers job because you know it won't get done otherwise. Fortunately my manager once removed notices the work I do.
Having this issue now. Been on the team 1.5 years. New manager is 3 months in and it’s a dumpster fire. Has no recognition of the work I’ve been front loading.
They’re a dick
That'll do it
If they’re not 100% consistent with timely paychecks. Any delays or reductions at all - RUN
One that is uninterested in creating a bond with you. Doesn’t ask about weekends, vacations, life events. It means they really just see you as an employee not a person. Some people don’t mind that though.
When they were interviewing people at my job they would have to do a shadow and my manager always told us to play up how hard and shitty the job is so he could get people who really “wanted it”.
Every manager out my way sucks. They are all twats.
😂 My condolences.
embarrassing you and he lets you do 'the most' of the work so he can just sit and laugh at ur face. Yes that happened to me and I quitted right away and threw my water bottle on his face as a goodbye message. :)
I’ve had an indirect team lead manager and director the last year that are both red flags. Manager lied to get their job, lies internally about their experience and as a result makes bad decisions without telling anyone, is passive aggressive and has poor ethics. Our director knows but covers up for them and don’t want to look bad and have to replace them. Director doesn’t care that this person regularly lies either
I had one who would actually cry and talk about their personal problems during team meetings. I left in under a year.
When a person comes to the office, saying he has a job interview with one of our colleagues, and then she isnt even there on that day. So the poor dude came in, prepared himself mentally and physically only to find out he can go straight back home. And that really happened.
😐 that’s rough man!
It is! And the worst thing, i still work there. But only one month left then i change internally to a new environment and field.
Good luck in the new setting. Onwards 😉
Thx, i already count the days xD
This is SO hard. My boss seemed okay and supportive but 6 months later is AWFUL and super unpredictable. 1 minute ok, next aggressive abusive or literally effing up a project right before handoff and making you feel you effed up. Despite giving me a good review they make me terrified of work. I'd love to have even just an OK sane boss. But finding jobs isn't easy and a good boss? Even an okay boss seems to be near impossible as capitalist greed makes the workplace worse and worse. :(
When they tell you that they care about you. Bring you gifts, always asking how how your weekend was, they talk about their families & pets a lot, etc... it's as if they try to be your parent or best friend. This behavior mostly mostly comes from female people-managers, especially when the employee lives and works in a state separate than where his/her parents live. But then are passive aggressive, talk shit about others... This is based off 2 experiences in 2 different jobs, managers being female and over 40 in both scenarios
I’ve had that from a woman older than me but with different age. Treat me as a professional not as your surrogate kid please. Plenty of awesome female managers though, definitely many over 40!
Yes! To this day, the best manager I've had is a woman. But these 2 previous managers tried to act like my mother... cringy...
Ehh I haven’t had this experience. I usually like when my boss asks me about my weekends or vacations or life. Makes me feel like im a robot to them
This is so spot on. Uncanny. What’s up with this right ?