Do you recognize these dysfunctional managers?
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As I wander around from workplace to workplace, I'm often amazed that the same dysfunctional managers keep popping up again and again. Maybe you recognize some of them.
There's Narcissus. He or she spends lots of time looking in the mirror and re-reading press clippings. To Narcissus, there's nothing more important than Narcissus.
Down the hall is Mussolini, the Dictator. The trappings of power are usually prominently displayed. The Dictator gives orders. Messengers who bring bad news, managers who tell uncomfortable truth, and any potential rivals are subject to termination.
The Dictator's polar opposite is Neville Chamberlain, the Appeaser. The Appeaser figures that we can have peace in our time if we don't confront the bullies, but just go along with them. So the Appeaser gives in and gives in, hoping that the crocodile bully will get full before eating them.
Sometimes the Appeaser sounds a lot like the Hippie. The Hippie thinks that everybody should just get along. The mantra is "happy people are productive people." So the Hippie tries to make everyone happy and doesn't worry about productivity.
Finally we have the Bret Favre of the workplace. Bret can do anything but decide. Actually that's not true. Bret decides a lot and then reverses that decision only to reverse the reversal later.
Boss's Bottom Line
Great bosses create workplaces that are people-friendly and productive. You can do that, even if your boss is one of the ones described above.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
I thought I was the only one seeing these types...
Funny thing about stress and adversity, it forces our true selves to emerge. I believe why the above types are so prevalent and no longer disguised is the challenge in most businesses today.
Market leading organizations are quickly identifying dysfunctional roadblock and busting through them...even if those roadblocks are people.
Markets losers keep reinforcing their silos and spend time blame storming as I discuss in my post: http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/blame-storming-a-sign-you-work-for-a-market-loser-not-a-leader/
Focus on understanding your market and solving the problems of your internal and external customers, and the managers in your team with the traits discussed will eliminate themselves through their behaviors not in alignment with your team's roadmap.
If your owner / CEO is one of the above...make a decision, you in or you out? It is what it is and complaining about it is not being a part of the solution.
Mark Allen Roberts
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Thanks for adding your voice to the conversation.
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Nice collection. You could add The People's Friend to this. Underneath TPF's charming and fun veneer, lurks an expert of manipulation fully focused on his own agenda.
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Absolutely, Reeta. We will add the People's Friend to the menagerie. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Good blog Wally. I have been reading your blog for a while and I have been trying to figure out what kind of leader my GM is. According to this post I am guessing he is closest to the dictator. From what I have seen my boss never stands up to him. I can be wrong though because my boss is not the most transparent. It is something that I have been wondering for a while so I am going to keep looking. By the way, my boss and GM are great and I really enjoy working for them, probably because they like me. I guess that might be clouding my vision. Thanks again Wally.
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All I can say, Greg, is that if you like your boss, he probably isn't any of the ones we've profiled. Thanks for stopping by and sharing.
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Wally,
Loved the blog. In these uncertain times, when many current leaders have clearly done a very poor job, employees are worried about keeping their jobs and keeping their heads down, and are unwilling to point out problems and issues with leadership. Companies should be aware of this situation and be proactive in evaluating all their leaders and boards anonymously and make changes. Great leadership is a rarity and companies should be vigilant and constantly evaluating their leadership and being honest in their assessments.
James Woolwine
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Thanks for sharing your comments, James. I agree with you that great leadership is a rarity. It takes a combination of talent, hard work and the right situation most of the time. But good leadership shouldn't be rare. It's a matter of hard work and learnable skills and just requires the minimum requirements. The willingness to confront and make a decision, a desire to help other succeed, and enough intelligence and stamina to do the job.
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Wolly, your blog was hilariuos becuase it is true. In my work place alone there are a few of the above mentioned bosses, each one bringing its own flare and personality to the workpalce. My question to you is, can there be a point where there are so many different bosses that they actually being to create tension becuase they cant all agree? If so, what can you do help ease the situation?
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Alas, there are far too many of these folks in far too many workplaces. My worst boss ever was a combination Narcissus/Dictator. He thought that one of the keys to his success was his "thin watch." Performance never got mentioned.
Thanks for coming by and sharing.
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Wally, I think the worst people to work for or with are the inconsistent ones. We have to go to work everyday and the one thing we should be able to count on is consistent managers and consistent coworkers. Who wants to go in not knowing what "mood" Fred is in today or whether Jan is going to be really helpful or make everything difficult? I'd rather have the Dictator if he/she is going to consistently be the Dictator and I know what I'm going to deal with when I walk in the door.
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There's a lot of research that would agree with you, Lynn. Maybe we need a new character for inconsistency. Any suggestions?
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Well, I could say "Constance" since it seems to fit, but that's not really a great character. Hmmmm...."Old Faithful" or "The Mailman? or "The Taxman?"
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I like the Taxman, but I prefer not to antagonize those people. Perhaps some readers will have good suggestions.
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Hi Wally, again great post
I think your right best not to mess with the taxman. I would go with Waffler instead.
Chief Jon
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I think Waffler is a winner, Chief. Thanks for sharing the idea.
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Very funny...and so true. Love the addition of the People's Friend Reeta added.
Why do you think these "archetypes" continue to survive despite how significantly they impede an organization, not to mention the negative impact they have on morale?
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Thanks for commenting, Susan. I'm not sure I have the answer to your question, but I suspect it breaks into three parts. Here goes.
First, some of this is human nature. Once people emerge from early adulthood, the personality items are pretty much set. So change for them is unlikely on any basic dimension.
Second, we don't do a good job of selecting, training, and supporting new leaders. Until we do that, we'll have all kinds of folks winding up in leadership roles who were great in their prior work, but are not suited for being responsible for group performance.
Third, in most companies, we evaluate bosses on results alone, leaving how they get those results out of the equation. Until we looking at the "how" as well as the "how much" we'll continue to have these problems.
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Great writing, and very interesting. I have seen these sorts of managers in my various employment histories. I liked the categories. Could you share any more boss or manager's profiles?
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Thanks for the kind words. I don't have any more characters, but two commenters have come up with suggestions so far.
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May I also suggest:
Peter, the paranoid who believes everyone is after him and his prestigious job which is why is keeps all information to himself.
Shawn, the invisible who is nowhere to be seen maybe behind his closed door waiting for retirement.
Sherryl, the cheerleader who believe everything is always going perfectly and denies reality.
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Oh my! I just knew that you readers who add to the menagerie and Martin adds not one, not two, but three new characters! Thanks, Martin!
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Very interesting post Wally. I think anyone in any field can relate. I agree with Lynn M. that the most difficult bosses are of the inconsistent type. Not knowing what reactions to expect from a manager can be very intimidating and hazardous to the workplace.
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I think a lot of people would agree with you and Lynn. The problem is you never know what to expect.
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What's amazing to me is that, despite awareness by many people that these personality types exist, companies, government, and other groups keep winding up with these kinds of people in leadership positions. Do you think this is because leaders with those personalities look for others like themselves to promote into these spots or do the people going into these positions see what they think is working for one person and try to emulate that style, resulting in an on going procession of these personality types? Personally, I think it is a combination of the two. Certainly leaders tend to promote those who they see as most like them, but people who are being promoted or learning to lead also tend to look to those they see as successful for inspiration on how they should craft their own leadership style. And, the promotion merely reinforces the preexisting bad behavior, so it just reinforces the bad behavior. Kind of a lose-lose situation for all involved really.
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Thanks for stopping by, Patrick. I gave a longer try at answering this in my reply to Susan Maaza, but here's a recap from a slightly different angle.
We'll probably always have some of these kinds of bosses, because they seem to show up in just about every part of life. But we can limit the number by better selection, training, and support and by including values as well as results in our evaluations.
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Wally, this is right on! I would like to offer you a few additional dysfunctional manager titles.
Creditor—the manager who has no concept of the word “team”. When presenting the facts/figures/results put together by his/her team, he/she forgets the hours worked by others and presents the work as “mine”.
The Buddy—similar to the Hippie, this manager that thinks he/she is doing everyone a favor by trying to be everyone’s best friend. In the process, no one gets a fair appraisal of their work. And people under this boss wonder why they aren’t getting promoted.
Mountain Mole Hill—the manager that has such horrible mood swings that you have no idea what is going to set them off on a bully tirade …something than can look like a mole hill, will appear like a mountain to this boss.
The Salesman—this manager is great at selling the services of his/her team, but not staffing the team to deal with all the work he/she creates.
Thanks for the fun exercise!
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Thanks for adding those great descriptions, Sharon.
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Wally,
I really enjoyed reading the article. Could you possibly elaborate a bit more on what you mean by the Hippie types. I am trying to get a better understanding of ho thesse types go about managing work.
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Hippie for me is a boss who only cares about whether people are happy and getting along. He or she really doesn't spend time improving productivity or confronting team members about performance or behavior.
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Wally,
This post made me smile today. I'm sure a majority of us have all experienced these types of leaders/managers, or will experience them within the near future. I especially liked your comparison to Bret Farve. That gave me a chuckle.
How would you recommend dealing with someone in upper management that would be classified as "Mussolini". I have a current situation where our group was given the job to create something, we were told it was great, got awesome feedback from our customers, and then 3 weeks before officially releasing it, we're told that it now has to change. We were given no good reason other than it doesn't look like our competitor's? We were not delivered the news from the manager, but we were told through the grapevine of management. Either way, as you can tell, it's a frustrating situation. So it resorts back to my question of how to handle Mussolini at any level of management?
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I'm glad there were a couple of smiles in there. That's always a good thing.
I'm afraid my opinion on Mussolini isn't very optimistic. If you've got someone in a senior position who acts like the dictator, it means that the organization tolerates that kind of behavior. And that means things probably won't change any time soon.
The best you can do is develop your own strategies for dealing with things and work to make the part of the vineyard where you labor a productive and people friendly place. If you're a boss, make it a great working environment for your team members. The only other choice is job search.
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Wally,
Brett oversees my office. Decisions are never final until we ask and get it three (or so) different times. The newest thing is decisions are often forgotten they were made which, I believe is a direct result of the way he tends to micro-manage. There is never a simple go do it we have to confirm time and time again.
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Wow, Kyle. That sounds like a truly toxic combination, a micromanager who's also a Brett Favre type and can't make a decision.
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Wally,
Very intersting post and very true! I really the Bret Farve type and its amazing how these types of bosses still survive. Todays work place needs to be productive with few mistakes or the ship is going to sink. I see this at my place of work. I have a problem trying to understand how you can be indecisive in a lead position, costing the company money, while still keeping that position.
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Thanks, Matthew. I don't have an answer for you. Since we don't screen potential managers for the willingness to decide, we wind up with lots who won't. Because in most organizations management is the only latter to climb, we're reluctant to pull someone off it, even if they shouldn't be there. And because they same people who promote a person into a management job are also often the ones doing the evaluating, there's probably a component of not being willing to admit we make a mistake with the promotion.
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I've been managed by all of these types, worked with all these types and will admit to being one of these types in my past roles. Luckily, I came across a really fabulous mentor who helped me to do what you mentioned above: have the balance of happy people and productivity. Great post!
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Thanks, Kristen. Isn't it great how a good mentor can cut through the fog and clear things up? I've been very lucky to have some great people who took the time to teach me and to prompt me to learn important lessons. Sounds like you had one, too.
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sir i was reading about 5 Dysfunctional Leader Types i.e compulsive Narcissistic Paranoid Codependent Passive-Aggressive ...but all the examples mentioned were taken from bible...can you please help me by providing some modern examples of these leaders types.. like bill gates etc etc ...
thanks alot ...
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Thanks for joining the discussion, Sara. I don't know enough about the types and examples you describe to comment knowledgeably. Perhaps a blog reader will be able to help.
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