How To Be A Terrible Boss
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There’s an old saying that is supported by much research – people join companies; they leave their managers.With that in mind, we thought we’d share seven ways to drive your employees away.
| George and Mary-Lynn are experts at driving people away. Listen to today’s show and you’ll find out why we say that! |
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#1 – Be indecisive.
Postpone making decisions. Send it to committee. Call in a consultant. Wait until you have ALL the information. Analyze EVERY alternative. There all kinds of ways to do this.
Instead of ready – aim – fire, you should get ready and then – aim – aim – aim …
#2 – Don’t let them know what you expect.
Don’t have a plan that you share with them. Don’t make goals or establish priorities. And don’t ever set a deadline. After all, if your people don’t know what you expect of them, they’ll never know how they’re doing. They’ll have to rely on you to tell them.
#3 – Be inaccessible.
Don’t spend too much time at the office. When you do, keep your door shut. Or, if you do keep it open, always look like you’re too busy to talk to any of your employees. They don’t have anything important to discuss anyway, right?
#4 – Be inflexible.
Always follow the rules, without exception. They’re not in place to provide a framework –they’re the law! Business must always come first – no matter what’s going on in your employees’ lives.
#5 – Be inconsistent.
What’s your mood today? Make decisions based on your emotions, not on the plan, policies, and precedents. Don’t treat all of your people all the same – show favoritism. Don’t worry about performance; take care of the people you like.
#6 – Make them feel unappreciated.
Don’t tell them when they do a good job. And when they don’t, criticize them in front of their peers. Oh, and don’t forget – be sure to openly discuss one employee’s faults with some other employee. That definitely will drive people away.
Quickly dismiss any ideas your employees have. Better yet, don’t even listen to them. And, whatever else you may do, don’t trust them with any major responsibilities.
# 7 – Don’t lead by example.
You should have one set of rules for you and another set of rules for your staff. They should do as you say, not as you do.
| We need help – how can we keep from driving employees away? Let us know by leaving a comment at the end of our blog. |
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Our Bigg Quote today comes from E.M. Kelly.
So, if you want to drive your employees away, just keep driving them.
Next time, we’ll talk about how to reach your goals this week. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!
DON’T load my schedule up with lots of meetings so I can’t get anything done! That’s a “bigg” pet peeve of mine!
As a manager, you shouldn’t micro-manage. Once you’ve delegated a task, you have to let that employee do it without watching over their shoulder every second.
When an employee’s grandmother dies and you only give him 5 vacation days and no sick days. Dont ask when he is going to make up the time for missing for the funeral or to take a vacation day for the funeral.
Dee, yes… lack of humanity is a great way to drive away your best employees. Thanks for adding to our post.
I googled ‘I have a terrible boss’ and this came up. Helped me decide to leave my awful bitch on wheels manager. Thanks! So much happier now.
Danielle, glad we were able to help with such a bigg decision! Here’s to happier days ahead….
thanks! i really needed this this morning. i had to take a mental health day from work bc I work with the most incompetent bitch ever. When she makes mistakes (and she has f-up big time), she BLAMES me or, get this, our volunteer!!!! Needless to say, I have started looking for another job… but there is little out there :(
Wow, sounds like you are doing the right thing by looking for work somewhere else. Good luck, Rain. Glad our post helped.
Don’t tell your employee that you evaluated as just an average and scaled him so he didn’t get his bonus, that it is not a good time for him to be out of the office for one day when his 16 year old daughter is having emergency surgery. Her surgery needs to be rescheduled because it is putting tooo much work on the above average employee for one day.
Wow. A heartless boss is definitely a terrible boss! Our thoughts are with you and your daughter.
Set unattainable budget targets then implement incentive based pay where the max your staff can get is the pay they were contracted. Heavily dock pay for not hitting said target.
Provide faulty equipment and penalise your staff for not hitting targets when things break down
Instantly and unreasonably dismiss the manager you appoint’s staff and expect her to work double shifts to cover the roster gaps.
Wow…this is really bad! Sounds like you are speaking from experience, and we are sorry to hear that. Thanks for sharing, we’ll bet there are many reading who can relate.