Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Boss?

“Bad Bosses” are often driven by fear and lack of proper leadership skills.  It is common for these individuals to be micromanagers and heavy on controlling their employees.  Another characteristic is being overly critical and nit picky, penalizing employees for minute issues, and providing ridiculous negative evaluations.  They do whatever they can to try to intimidate employees in order to instill fear in them.  Anyone who is not afraid of the “big bad boss”, has their own mind,  speaks up, and stands up to this type of boss ends up being “legally harassed” and put on “the list”.  

Working for a “bad boss” causes high performing, intelligent employees to become demotived, unhappy, frustrated, and possibly stressed.  Ultimately they will seek another place of employment because working under those conditions is unfulfilling.

What happens is the insecure, fearful, and more than likely incompetent “bad boss” actually becomes intimidated by any subordinate who sees straight through their “I know more than you” facade.  Once this type of boss recognizes how talented, innovative, creative, and proficient the employee is, they go into attack mode, abusing their authority in order to “keep subordinates in their place.”  This is their attempt to lower the confidence of the employee and find any miniscule flaws in that person in their sick effort to even convince themselves that they are smarter than their subordinate.  They have some serious self esteem and self confidence issues.

Since this subordinate is a potential threat and most certainly could do the boss’ job with ease and much better, they are put under a microscope, given the negative evaluations, and eventually forced to leave the organization because typically the boss’ boss allows it and that’s the unfortunate, sad part about the whole ordeal.  Good people are unable to perform at their highest level under those kinds of conditions so it’s a good idea for them to move on.

Have you ever had a “bad boss” or are currently working for one?  Tell us about your experience or share your thoughts by adding to the comments below.

Photo: www.flickr.com