Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me.

I am a Software Engineer working for a Multi national company. I worked for many Organizations in the last 9 years at different roles with many Managers. In my recent project i have a bad experience of working with a very immature manager who complains and blame employees when something goes wrong. There are few instances where couple of my colleagues were released from Project. Who’s fault is it? Is it their fault for not doing their job well or is it management and the process that failed the employee?

Bad Managers! I’m almost tempted to challenge anyone to find someone that hasn’t had that experience! The truth of the matter is that we all had at least one, perhaps many, if you are not new to the workplace like me. Many managers lack fundamental training in managing people. But, even more importantly, managers lack the values, sensitivity, and awareness needed to interact effectively all day long with people. Skills and techniques are easier to teach, but values, beliefs, and attitudes are much harder to teach – and harder for managers to learn.

If you are a manager and fail to provide the right goals, information, resources, or assistance — don’t complain when employees fail. It’s clearly your fault.

Traits of my Manager: The below listed are the few unacceptable traits that i observed in my Manager. There were many more than the listed one’s.

Screamer Who the ***k you might be, it’s not accepted to YELL at workplace. But, my manager Yells at everyone on the floor without any sort of commonsense. He speak loudly, rudely, one-sidedly to staff. He provide the air time for staff to respond to accusations and comments. They intimidate people and bully staff. He allow few(incapable) employees to bully employees who actually working hard for project.

Never Recognizes Talent of Employee One of the most common mistakes my manger make is to neither recognize nor capitalize on the unique differences of each employee. He consciously paint everyone with the same wide brush and all but eliminate any chance for personalities to set themselves apart and bring their individual talents to the team. Most employees who are all treated the same way eventually start feeling unappreciated, misunderstood and overlooked.

Team Politics All time my Manager is surrounded with bunch of Fools, who are professionals in Team Politics.  For some unknown reason he loves their company and listens to their words blindly. He considers they as valuable team assets, but unfortunately everyone knows they were fit for nothing 😉

Poor Communicator. Not giving clear instructions is a prominent trait among bad bosses. My manager can’t speak proper English and can’t even communicate properly in mother tongue. He dares to comment on team members communication and points at the way they were communicating.

Neither Technical nor People Manager  He’s a person who have no technical exposure and he don’t even know to manage the team. He’s purely unfit in both the areas which are more important traits of a manger.

Does Not Have Courage He does not have the courage to deal with a difficult situation despite knowing that it is the right thing to do. My manager is never in a position to take any challenge or stand by the people who’s doing that.

No Positive Feedback It absolutely sucks to go at your daily grind without knowing how your manager feels about your progress. You don’t want to wait until an annual review to know that your manager is unhappy  with you

Tyrant It’s easy to become the tyrant. Write people up, threaten their jobs, and crack the whip! That’s easy. That isn’t accountability. This kind of leadership through fear inspires people to work hard enough to not get fired. They disengage, and they don’t share their struggles for fear that exposing their mistakes will cost them their jobs.

Terrible Listener. Bad bosses/asses don’t listen, which goes hand in hand with being bad communicators. Worse, he do not even care to listen. Whatever you say, my manager hear what they want to hear and understands what he wants to. In addition, he interrupt constantly, and he’s never fully present during interactions with employees.

Focuses on Weaknesses He dwell on what a resource can’t do instead of what he or she can do. The problem is he never bother to uncover what it is that really motivates an individual, and miss out on opportunities to benefit from innate talent and specific strengths. One of the primary responsibilities of managers is to motivate and develop staff, offer them extensive training on how to better understand human behaviors.

Never Praise or Encourage. He’s there, Quick to criticize and slow to praise: Too many employees of bad bosses report that their managers have not thanked them in years. Given that recognition is the most effective driver of engagement, this is one of the most egregious traits of a bad boss.

Micromanages Most employees are happiest if allowed to have at least some say in determining their own path when it comes to accomplishing objectives. They’ll want a varying amount of oversight from the boss, depending on their specific level of self-confidence and individual desire to take some calculated risks.

Fails to Fit the Right Person to the Right Job Good managers know the personalities of their team members and place each one in a role designed to play into their innate talents and interests. They set them up for success, instead of for failure. But my manager is unable to do that.

Mangers, please note that Not everyone can function in high-stress situations and work as you expect. Not everyone can lead. And not everyone can withstand others’ critiques or nasty remarks.  

When employees resign, the top reason for their resignation is their relationship with their manager. People leave managers, not jobs or employers.

When any organization has quality problems or safety problems, this is clearly  the responsibility of managers. When you’re the boss, you are (like it or not) responsible for everything that happens in your project, whether it’s a small or a big team. Sadly, many mangers think they can get away with blaming their employees when things go wrong. A ‘blame culture’ is common in all different kinds of offices, and can lead to a lack of productivity, wasted time, and hard feelings being created. There are many different reasons that can lead to the development of a blame culture, but all of them are reversible with the use of proper management techniques and some logical thinking.

Is your Manager in your team fit to do the job?

Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, you experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below.