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Top management thought Rich was a star. When I asked to spend time with the best managers, his name was at the top of my list. "You'll learn a lot from Rich," the person in HR told me. I did, but not much of it was good.

I met Rich for breakfast on the day I was scheduled to shadow him. He was sharp and well spoken. Just after we got in his car to drive to the office, his cell phone rang. There was a crisis at work. "I'll be there in just a few minutes," Rich said as he hit the "off" button.

Then he started talking to himself, frantically going over various things he should do. The coach in me just popped out. I got him to stop and had him take a couple of deep breaths, then I suggested he pull over for a minute and collect his thoughts.

"I can't," Rich said, "I need to be there!" He accelerated and off we went with him talking to himself again. I began to suspect that Rich wasn't all his bosses thought he was.

We careened into the parking lot and Rich's assigned space. He started racing for the door while I tried to keep up. Rich went past the security desk at a trot, pointing over his shoulder and shouting, "He's with me." The guard believed him, but I still had to stop and fill out some paperwork. It was a few minutes before another guard escorted me to Rich's office.

Things were crazy, but they got sorted out over the next half hour, mostly because of some of Rich's experienced team members. I went back later to interview Rich's boss, team members, and peers about him. Each of them had a different view.

His boss thought Rich was great. It must have seemed so. Rich knew all the right jargon and came across well. In the meantime, his team made sure that the job got done, so Rich looked good on paper, too.

The people on his team used words like "a**hole" and "jerk" and other less flattering terms to describe him. They all thought he was a nice guy, not mean or a bully, but he just couldn't do his job well. One team member said, "Our big challenge is keeping him from doing harm to himself and others."

Rich's peers agreed that he was a good guy who'd been promoted too fast. The organization had an "assessment center" promotion process and Rich aced it, but he wasn't ready. His peers thought that Rich might have made a good boss if he had a couple of more years of seasoning.

Boss's Bottom Line

Not all bad bosses are mean or bullies. They don't all kiss up and kick down. Some are victims of their own ability to navigate the system.

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.