How/Why Does Your Boss Fail?

[M.D. Holloway]

I am fortunate to have a Boss who is level headed, smart, doesn’t get overly emotional and has a great grasp of the company vision and also understands market trends and customer requirements. I am blessed but I also know that many others are not.

I am interested in trying to understand what makes for poor management – or better yet, why and how does management fail?

Please select as many of the reasons as you wish and if you would be so kind as to provide any additional insight and examples it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Dudes!

[M.D. Holloway]

Please note - Being a chucklehead I did not allow for multiple answers. Pick your top one feel free to make note of the others. Thanks and sorry.

[legion]

I think management (and the people under them) often overestimate the importance of the projects they are involved in to the organization...

[kaisen]

I think the hardest challenge in management is handling the balance between corporate objectives and personal empathy. Sometimes it is a gray area, and someone is going to get hurt or upset either way. That's why managers are paid to make the tough decisions. Gray areas suck.

E

[lendaddy]

I think I often fail because I don't trust those under me enough and when I do they fukc everything up.

[asphaltgambler]

Number 11....................absolute laziness in procedure and flow

I am a firm believer that good management takes real effort and ongoing skill set.

Most people 'manage' through fear and negative re-inforcement.........which actually doesn't take any effort at all.

[M.D. Holloway]

I have noticed that some guys that have transistioned from a sales role to a management role seem to struggle because they do not grasp the concept of protocol - almost like they think things should just happen becasue it will make the company money when in fact it can end up costing a company money. Often it is the details that are as important as the energy and ideas.

[gaijindabe]

1 - 7. We merged about a year ago. A few high dollar guys have been let go. And a few more good people have left. Me and a few others here are on the wrong side and it is only a matter of time..

The silly thing is - the whole process is so transparent. Getting second guessed on every detail, being wrong on every objective decision, chasing away the business we brought to the merge.

I am sure the whole thing is calculated to the last penny. "Push them out, we don't want to pay any severance..."

[HardDrive]

My Boss is great. And my bosses boss is great.

But we all suffer under our fearless leader at the top of the company. Egoticial f*ckwit who likes to pretend that he still knows something about technology. Ends up getting in inane arguments with developers and engineers as they try and calmly explain to him why he is wrong. We have lost 4 amazing devs because of his bull*****.

The kind of guy that reads half an article on an airplane, and decides he is now an expert in the matter.

NT 4.0 MCSE who thinks he's relevant.

[Seahawk]

Originally posted by LubeMaster77
I am fortunate to have a Boss who is level headed, smart, doesn’t get overly emotional and has a great grasp of the company vision and also understands market trends and customer requirements.

So are all the folks who work for me!

My boss is also a great guy...probably the best guy I have ever worked for. He gives his program managers the tools and guidance to be successful and never micro-manages. His insights and experience are delivered without criticism.

His only weakness is that he does not like to ruffle feathers outside his organization...he prefers to work compromises with other elements within the Navy and other branches of the military when no negotiation is really required.

Small *****, and it may be my lack of understanding of his pressures.

Great guy.

[azasadny]

I'm lucky, I happen to have a great boss. I think he's the best boss I've ever had. Too bad everyone can't work for someone like him... Oh well, it won't last forever so I had better enjoy the "good times" while they last.

[Superman]

I am blessed also, and have been many times in my career. I am currently very blessed.

Also, I am a fan of "Management" as a discipline, and "organizational behavior" kinds of consideration. I would say that overall, management fails when it lacks patience and/or courage.

Managers are control freaks. No doubt about that. It's how they got where they are. At that point, they will struggle mightily unless they learn to perform a 180-degree turn. Delegation means you're not going to do it....someone else is. Delegation requires courage. Managers can destroy months of their own efforts in trying to get workers to take initiative and take risks and use imagination and reach for the brass ring. By reaching around someone's shoulders, grabbing the wheel and making a course correction. Quite frankly, they would have been much better off invoking the courage to keep their hands off the wheel, and retaining the worker's loyalty and energy.

My favorite bumper sticker of all time? On an obvious forman's truck:

MORE WHISKEY AND FRESH HORSES FOR MY MEN

That sums up my management experience. As a manager, I have never done so well as when I stayed out of peoples' way, and got them the resources they need. Occasionally I knock down a barrier they could not have razed. I keep my hands and feet away from the moving machinery. And I appreciate it very much when my boss does the same.

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by 930addict
...Let me know if you want more details.

Yes, I would like more details. This is interesting. Thanks.

[oldE]

I agree with Superman. I have been blessed with several bosses who trusted people to know their jobs and get the work (at whatever level) done.
The greatest failures I saw in bosses occurred when they did not give their workers credit for knowing how to do their jobs. I had to laugh at a couple of occaisions in my career with the Dairy. Twice, upper management brought in consultants, to look at the way we did things and re-invent us. Basically, what the consultants did was what upper management should have been doing: They talked to the production, distribution and sales and office people and made recommendations along the lines of what the people who were doing the jobs suggested!
Les

[SLO-BOB]

Yuck-what a depressing thread. It reminds me of the bad old days when I had a boss. I marked little or no initiative. Burn out doesn't factor in my experience. You have to shine before you can burn.

I've come to the conclusion that management in general is a stop gap between people who actually work for a living and executive levels. Executives place a drone in management to leech, squander, lie, worm, wiggle, and suck their way through a career while draining any subordinate of the will to go on. They take bright ideas and make them their own while they effectively screen and filter underlings from executives who don't want the rest of the company to know how easy their job is and how replaceable they also are. That requires a special kind of dim-wit who will nod and say yes no matter what the exec has said, which often times leads to the inevitable sacrificial goat phase of middle a manager's career. "Well Smith, seems you authorized this ...blah blah.......security will meet you at your office. Bring a box." Not to worry though. He can easily rotate into another vacancy, at another company, somewhere between the VPs office and the janitor's closet. As long as he keeps using chapstick he is welcome. This is the only phase of an underling's pathetic career that bring any reward. That, however, is short lived as that jetsam will shortly be cloned and his position will be filled by an equally unenlightend fool as described above.

Why do you think there are so many incompetant managers out there? That is not by accident. This is a corporate strategy.Companies are not about making money anymore-they're about making someone within that company money.

Little wonder I'm my own boss.

[DavidI]

Up until recently, I worked for the best boss in my 17 year career. He completely trusted my abilities and backed my decisions. As a supervisor myself, I do my best to do the same. I encourage my crew to make decisions on their own. It is amazing how creative (in a good way) that these guys do policework. My job is to make it easier and safer for them. If I disagree with a particular tactical operation, I let them know my concerns and give some suggestions. In some cases, the crew have been right and me wrong. I have no problem admitting my mistakes publicly.

I am now getting a new boss. We will see how things go......David

[kang]

THE PLAN

In the beginning was the Plan.
Then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form
And the Plan was without substance.
And darkness was upon the face of the workers.

And they spoke of the Plan and said,
"It is a crock of ****, and it stinketh!"

And the Workers went unto the Supervisors and said,
"It is a pail of dung, and none can abide its odor!"

And the Supervisors went unto the Managers and said,
"It is a container of excrement, and is very strong,
and none may abide near it."

And the Managers went unto the Directors and said,
"It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."

And the Directors spoke amoug themselves, saying,
"It contains that which aids growth, and it is very powerful."

And the directors went unto the Vice Presidents, and said,
"It will promote growth, and it is very powerful."

And the Vice Presidents went unto the president, and said,
"This new plan will promote growth and vigor of the company,
with powerful affects."

And the President looked at the plan,
and saw that it was good.
And the plan became policy.

And this is exactly how

**** Happens!

[cashflyer]

My boss is like a god among men.
Other men want to be him, and women want to be with him.
He's intelligent, handsome, and even drives a Porsche.





... did I mention that I'm self-employed?

[Burnin' oil]

My boss is a friggin' idiot. It's a wonder he can find his way to work each day, much less make a living. It's only a matter of time before he is found out and loses his sorry butt... Incompetent buffoon. . .




I, too, am self-employed

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts
You've hired the wrong people then.

-Wayne

It was kinda tongue in cheek, but there is some truth there. I am trying to find that line between guiding and leading around by the nose.