Five Things Weak Managers Do Instead Of Leading

By
Liz Ryan - CEO and Founder, Human Workplace

Just having the title “Manager” doesn’t make you a leader. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people in management positions who don’t know how to lead. They drag their teammates down by picking at them over tiny things instead of inspiring them to greater heights.

It’s a sad situation, and if you find yourself working for someone who can’t mentor you to keep learning, you may want to think about getting a different job.

The job market is heating up dramatically. Employers are fighting over talent. At the bottom of this column you’ll find links to articles about how to job-hunt effectively in this new-millennium workplace.

Here are five things lousy managers do when they should be leading and inspiring their teams:

They watch people do their work.

We have to feel some compassion for managers who don’t know what their job is. Lots of people get thrown into management jobs without training or support. They don’t know what to do, so they watch their team members do their jobs, and it’s oppressive.

I remember one boss standing over me while I composed a newsletter for our sales force. She stood behind me as I typed paragraphs onto the screen and she edited my work in real time. Talk about overbearing! Poor managers who don’t have anything more significant to do may decide their time is best spent watching and criticizing their teammates while they work.

They kiss up to bigger bosses.

One of the easiest ways to spot a manager who doesn’t understand leadership is to watch them with their own boss. Good managers tell the truth to their higher-ups because they assume they were hired for their brains and their opinions. Poor managers don’t tell the truth. They tell their boss whatever they think their boss wants to hear.

They make pronouncements, establish rules and hand down punishments to make sure everyone knows they’re in charge.

Poor managers boss people around. They spend time dreaming up  new rules and restrictions to make sure that their team members know who’s in charge. The problem is that the more rules and restrictions you put on people, the more you slow them down! The more you trust your capable staff, the better everyone will feel and thus perform in their jobs.

They make their subordinates listen as they pontificate.

I worked for a horrible manager who find new and creative ways to torture me and me co-workers every day. One of his favorite things to do was to come over to my cubicle and lecture me while I was working. He pontificated, railing on about his views on life and leadership for my benefit. I gritted my teeth and tried to get my work done while he literally breathed down my neck. Good managers give people room to breathe. They have their own work to keep them busy!

They micro-manage.

The last item on our list is one that lousy managers are famous for: micro-managing! You’ll know you’ve got a micro-manager to deal with when your supervisor tells you to copy him or her on every email message you sent out, or instructs you not to talk to a certain person without his or her permission. A micro-manager doesn’t trust himself or herself to let people do their jobs.

They have to watch their team members like a hawk, because they don’t believe that people can do their jobs capably without close supervision. Micro-managers are fearful. They can’t inspire their teammates because they are mired in fear.

If you have a micro-manager on your back, don’t get mad. He or she can’t help it! Take an extra minute to fill your manager in on your plans and update them on your progress every chance you get until your micro-manager begins to back off and relax. Most of them will get there eventually. You will grow new muscles in the process of getting your micro-manager out of your business, and your customers will benefit!

Five Signs You Work For A Weak Manager

By

Liz Ryan - CEO and Founder of Human Workplace

I write about bringing life to work and bringing work to life.

We are learning more and more about leadership all the time. One of the biggest “Ahas!” new and experienced managers (and the people who work for them) have experienced over the past few years is the realization that being a strong manager doesn’t mean being forceful or domineering.

It’s just the opposite — strong managers are strong enough to lead through trust, whereas weak managers have to use the force of their job titles to make people listen to them.

When we talk about fear-based management, it’s the weak managers we are referring to! You can spot a weak manager at a hundred paces or more, because weak managers are the ones who raise their voices, make threats and generally keep their teammates off-balance and worried about pleasing the manager when our customers need them to be happily focused on their work.

Strong managers lead through trust. They trust their teammates and their employees trust them. They don’t have to be right. They don’t care whether they are right or not, as long as the right answer emerges from the conversation. They don’t have to be bossy. They trust their employees to know what to do and to ask for help if they need it.

Weak managers don’t trust themselves enough to lead that way!

Here are five sure signs that your manager is a weak manager pretending to be strong. We can feel sorry for him or her but you don’t have time to waste in a workplace that dims your flame. If your manager is not a mentor and an advocate for you, you deserve to work for someone who is.

Can’t Ask for Help

When a weak manager isn’t sure what to do next, he or she won’t ask the team for help. Instead, the weak manager will make up a solution on the spot and say “Just do it — I’m the manager, and I told you what I want!” A weak manager cannot ask for input from people s/he supervises. If you try to reason with your weak manager, s/he’ll get angry.

Needs a Handy Scapegoat

When a weak manager notices that something has gone wrong, he or she has one goal in mind: to find somebody to blame! A strong manager will take responsibility for anything that doesn’t work out as planned, and say “Well, what can we learn from this?” A weak manager can’t take on that responsibility. He or she must pin the blame on somebody else — maybe you

Can’t Say “I Don’t Know”

A strong manager can say “I don’t know what the answer is” many times a day if necessary, but a weak manager is afraid to say “I don’t know.” He or she will lie or start throwing figurative spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Strong managers learn fast because they learn from successes and misfires, both. Weak managers are not as open to that kind of learning, because so much of their mental and emotional energy goes to deflecting blame when something goes awry.

Measures Everything

Strong managers focus on big goals. They follow the adage “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” Weak managers get sidetracked with small, insignificant things. That’s why a weak manager will know that you worked until nine p.m. last night averting disaster, but still call you out for walking into work five minutes late the next morning.

Weak managers rely on measurement instead of judgment when they manage people. They have a yardstick for everything. They will say “I manage by the numbers” when in fact, they aren’t managing at all.

Can’t Say “I’m Sorry”

The last sign of a weak manager is that this kind of manager cannot bring him- or herself to say “I’m sorry” when a stronger leader would. They can’t be criticized and they can’t accept feedback, however compassionate. They can’t take it in, because their ego is too fragile to acknowledge any room for growth.

Life is long, but it’s still too short to waste time working for someone who can’t be human and down-to-earth at work. Work can be a fun and creative place, or a sweat shop where you count the minutes until quitting time.

One of the biggest determining factors in your satisfaction at work is the personality of the manager you work for. Don’t you deserve to be led by a person with the courage to lead with a human voice?