Fast Company discusses the "Ten Habits of Incompetent Managers" by Margret Hefferman which are as follows:
- Bias against action: "There are always plenty of reasons not to take a decision, reasons to wait for more information, more options, more opinions. But real leaders display a consistent bias for action. People who don’t make mistakes generally don’t make anything."
- Secrecy: "….If you treat employees like children, they will behave that way — which means trouble. If you treat them like adults, they may just respond likewise. Very few matters in business must remain confidential and good managers can identify those easily…. Secrets make companies political, anxious and full of distrust."
- Over-sensitivity: "An inability to be direct and honest with staff is a critical warning sign. Can your manager see a problem, address it headlong and move on? If not, problems won’t get resolved, they’ll grow…… Interestingly, secrecy and over-sensitivity almost always travel together. They are a bias against honesty."
- Love of procedure: "Managers who cleave to the rule book, to points of order and who refer to colleagues by their titles have forgotten that rules and processes exist to expedite business, not ritualize it."
- Preference for weak candidates: "…Who did our manager want to hire? The junior. She felt threatened by the super-competent manager and hadn’t the confidence to know that you must always hire people smarter than yourself."
- Focus on small tasks
- Allergy to deadlines: "A deadline is a commitment. The manager who cannot set, and stick to deadlines, cannot honor commitments. A failure to set and meet deadlines also means that no one can ever feel a true sense of achievement."
- Inability to hire former employees: "… Every good manager has alumni, eager to join the team again; if they don’t, smell a rat."
- Addiction to consultants: "A common — but expensive — way to put off making decisions is to hire consultants who can recommend several alternatives."
- Long hours: "In my experience, bad managers work very long hours. They think this is a brand of heroism but it is probably the single biggest hallmark of incompetence. To work effectively, you must prioritize and you must pace yourself. The manager who boasts of late nights, early mornings and no time off cannot manage himself so you’d better not let him manage anyone else."
Margret goes on stating that "Any one of these behaviours should sound a warning bell. More than two — sound the alarm" I found the last point especially interesting….!
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Fantastic list George. Thanks for pointing it out. It’s unfortunate that these characteristics are so prevalent in the workplace. No wonder worker engagement is so low, huh?
We all need to be reminded of this list to avoid falling into these traps. It’s unfortunate, however, that the prime offenders, those that need this dose of reality the most, will probably never read it. They’re too busy keeping secrets, following procedure, and working the long hours!
Perfect post, as usual. Very helpful. I’ll try to avoid that. But to try to avoid that around me will be the hardest job ever.
If you want to see incompetent management first hand, the US Postal Service is home to plenty of them.
The last one and several other incompetent habits reminds me of my former position at IBM where the manager and his team leads were obsessed with secrecy and ultra procedure and worst of all more time at work. He would brag about how many hours he did each week. Yeah when you stand around the water cooler all day it will take you 60 hours a week to do your incompetent job. AWFUL! THE WORST EVER!
So true! The leadership at my organization is guilty of all of these behaviors. I am surprised that each one of their faces is not embedded in the text of this article.
Howdy,
I came across this post whilst googling on “how to deal with incompetent leadership”. This is a great list, especially the last point because bad leaders often find themselves in a corner through improper management and then make up for it through the “brute force” method of increasing hours or encouraging employees to increase hours to make up for it. Too often personnel is the last consideration when prioritizing projects and increasing personnel stress becomes the easy answer for tight squeezes.
I also like the point about secrecy but I also think that could be broadened to attempting to be inscrutable or deflecting questions from subordinates. The worst offenders are the middle-level managers who decide they need some sort of scrim around them to protect them from contact from the subordinates — a tactic which can actually also fall under over-sensitivity and love of procedure.
I would also like to add another point: Fellow coworkers who chant “cover your a–” or “think of your career”. In general, these two ideas are not bad points to follow but if you start to hear this a lot, then you know your boss is the bus driver and you are prone on the pavement. Keep rolling out of the way!
Great list!