Top 5 Traits of Really Bad Managers

We’ve all labored under at least one really bad manager at some point in our careers. You know the kind of boss I’m talking about, a would-be tyrant who is always right even when they’re wrong, who micromanages even the most insignificant of projects, and who has absolutely no empathy for their employees—or, perhaps, any other human being.

What traits do really bad managers share—and how can you either deal with them or, if you’re a manager yourself, avoid them? Read on to look at the top five traits shared by really bad managers.

1. Really Bad Managers Micromanage

Perhaps the most common and most destructive trait of bad managers is micromanagement. You know how it works: your manager insists on knowing what you’re doing every minute of every single day, to the point of monitoring your every movement. It’s frustrating.

Bad managers who micromanage track what you’re doing down to the nth degree, dividing normal tasks into subtasks and sub-subtasks, constantly inquiring about your progress every step of the way. Micromanagers not only want to know what you’re doing but how you’re doing it—and they demand that you do it exactly their way, no variations. It’s stifling and ultimately nonproductive.

Micromanagers want to control every minor detail of what their employees are doing. They hover over your shoulder and monitor every word you type, providing unwanted input and imposing their own will on the way you work. In years past, micromanagers would track your work in enormous spreadsheets, with a separate row for every individual part of every task you’ve been assigned. Today they use the tracking tools in Microsoft Teams and other apps, which allow them to monitor your progress in real time. Some even make you install “productivity management” software on your computer that records your activity on a minute-by-minute and keystroke-by-keystroke basis. It’s beyond intrusive.

Micromanagement is particularly harmful because it signals that the manager doesn’t trust their employees. They don’t trust their employees’ skills, experience, or motivation. They don’t trust employees to know what they’re doing, they don’t trust employees to manage their own time, they don’t trust employees to do anything right or on schedule. There is zero trust, period.

This lack of trust is demoralizing for anyone who works with a micromanager. It is the opposite of motivating; how eager would you be to go above and beyond the call of duty for someone who doesn’t trust you to do the job for which you were hired? It has the opposite effect on employees, who end up suffering under the burden and doing the bare minimum to get by.

Micromanagers are more focused on process rather than results. To these really bad managers, how an employee does something is more important than what the employee accomplishes. It doesn’t matter if a project is completed on time and well; if the employee didn’t do it the right way or in the right time frame, that employee failed.

Not surprisingly, micromanagement stifles creativity and innovation. Employees are discouraged from offering new ideas or any input whatsoever. If an employee comes up with a new or different way of doing a thing, the micromanager shoots them down and makes them redo that task the manager’s way. Nothing is good enough unless it mirrors the manager’s thinking, word for word. (I know of one situation where a manager forced an employee to rerecord a video presentation multiple times because he didn’t like literally one word the employee used. That’s micromanagement!)

If you’re a manager, you must resist the urge to overmanage your employees. You have to hire people you trust and then let them do their jobs. They may not do it exactly the way you would, but if they get the job done, that should be all that matters. You shouldn’t have to monitor them every minute of the day to make sure you’re getting the last ounce of productivity from them. Hire good people and trust them to do what they were hired to do. That’s what really good managers do.

2. Really Bad Managers Are Totally Uninvolved—Until the Last Moment

Not all really bad managers are micromanagers. Some bad managers stay relatively uninvolved throughout the course of a task or process—until the very last moment, that is. That’s when these previously uninvolved and uninterested managers suddenly get interested and insert themselves into an almost-complete process, often forcing employees to redo everything they’ve done up to that point.

This type of really bad manager is deceptively hands off throughout the course of a project. That can lead to a sense of complacency on the part of employees, who think that the manager’s lack of attention or criticism is a green light for what they’re doing. With no feedback from the manager, they develop their own plans and drive a project close to completion.

That’s all well and good until the manager realizes the project is almost done and decides it’s time to get involved. Because the manager hasn’t been involved up to this point, they’re often surprised by what the employee or employees have done. That’s where the problems begin.

A better manager, even if they don’t get involved until near the end of a project, will recognize the work done and perhaps offer a few suggestions to tweak the results. A really bad manager, however, will use the opportunity to toss aside the work already done and demand something totally different from the employee, most likely something that better conforms to the manager’s vision—which the employee had no way of knowing because the manager was too hands off throughout the entire project.

I recall one website project I was involved with where, after the initial kickoff, I got minimal guidance from the company’s management and couldn’t pull them into things as the project progressed. When we got near the end, management finally got involved, didn’t like what they saw, and demanded everything be completely redone. “That’s not what we wanted,” they said, “we really wanted to go this other direction instead.” Nobody told me that—until that moment, that is. I wasted a large amount of time on that one thanks to some really bad management.

If you’re a manager, you have to strike a balance between micromanagement and disengagement. You need to monitor progress throughout a project but not intrusively; you need to know enough of what’s going on so that you aren’t tempted to scuttle everything at the end when you finally do pay attention.

3. Really Bad Managers Communicate Poorly—If at All

Really bad managers are often poor communicators. They don’t listen to employee feedback and offer minimal feedback to their employees. When they do communicate, which is seldom, the message is often muddled.

Employees who have to deal with a poor communicator often feel out of the loop. No one’s telling them what’s going on, so they feel excluded. No one provides them with key information, so they don’t get enough direction to do their jobs properly. No one listens to their input, so they feel of little worth.

If an employee doesn’t receive detailed information in a timely manner, they’re apt to perform in ways contrary to management expectations—and it’s not their fault. If a manager doesn’t tell them what to do at the appropriate time, they won’t know to do it. This type of misunderstanding can be frustrating for both the employee and management.

Really bad managers who don’t communicate with their employees can cause confusion and frustration. Poor communication affects productivity since employees don’t have the information they need to do their jobs properly. They also have to spend time asking questions of the manager or of other employees, when they could be working. They also don’t know when they’ve done a good or a bad job, since their boss doesn’t tell them.

Poor communication goes both ways, of course. A manager who doesn’t communicate with their staff probably isn’t listening to that staff, either. This can result in end-of-project swooping, as we’ve discussed, or just general ignorance and confusion.

This lack of listening can also apply to managers who are better outbound communicators. Consider the manager who sends out detailed emails but never answers employee questions about those emails. That’s almost as bad as not communicating at all.

It’s a good general rule: good managers keep in touch, bad managers don’t. If you want to be a better manager, make sure you’re effectively communicating with your staff—and listening to them when they have something important to say.

4. Really Bad Managers Take Credit for Others’ Work

There’s nothing more irksome than your boss taking credit for the work you’ve done. Any manager who shunts you and your colleagues aside to hog the spotlight is, by definition, a really bad manager—and a bit of a glory hound.

It is demoralizing when your manager takes credit for something you’ve done. Not only do you not get the recognition you deserve, it artificially boosts your boss’ contributions and makes them look much more important than they really are.

You deserve the recognition and praise that come from a job well done. When that is denied to you, your apparent value to the organization is diminished. It also affects your motivation and engagement for future endeavors; why try that hard when you won’t get the notice you deserve?

It’s also a matter of fairness. It’s simply not fair for anyone to claim credit for your work. When a really bad manager needs to assuage their ego by stealing credit for which you’re due, you know you’re dealing with someone who will never recognize your accomplishments or otherwise help you advance your career. Their ego gets in the way of your recognition and advancement.

If you’re a manager, make sure you always give credit where credit is due. Make sure the people above you know the good job the people below you are doing. The success of your team depends on your team’s hard work; you’re just a conduit and can’t take credit for what they do.

5. Really Bad Managers Lack Empathy

As much as some management might think otherwise, employees are people, too. Really bad managers tend not to recognize that fact. They treat their employees like fungible commodities to be used when needed and then ignored or discarded. It’s no surprise, then, that unempathetic managers do not garner much loyalty from their seemingly disposable employees.

Really bad managers don’t care about their employees. They don’t care about their personal lives. They don’t care whether they’re having a bad day. They don’t care about their workload. They don’t care about their careers. They don’t care about them at all.

An unempathetic manager will overwork their employees. They’ll require employees to work overtime with little advance notice. They’ll require them to work when their children are sick or home from school. They’ll require them to come in when they’re feeling sick or are dealing with illness or death in the family.

A manager who lacks empathy simply doesn’t care about their employees as people. They don’t care what struggles they’re going through outside of work. They probably don’t even know what their employees’ personal lives are like. They don’t know if their employees are married or have kids. It doesn’t matter to them. To them, an employee is just another piece of equipment to be used to its fullest and then discarded.

In many ways, a lack of empathy is the worst trait a really bad manager can possess. A lack of interest in or acknowledgment of employees as people leads to the distrust that enables micromanagement. It reinforces poor communication, because why should you communicate with someone you don’t care about? It encourages taking credit for their work, because why would their work matter?

Really bad managers don’t know when they’re overworking their employees because they don’t care about their employees. They don’t care if an employee gets fed up and quits because employees are interchangeable; one leaves, you just get another one. They don’t recognize that an employee’s personal travails can affect their job performance. They don’t know how to deal with employees as people.

To avoid being a really bad manager, you need to recognize that the people you work with are people just like you. They have their own personal lives and their own issues and their own motivations. To get the most from your staff, you need to empathize with them and treat them as you’d like them to treat you. In the end, empathy is just another way of embracing the Golden Rule—a rule that benefits both your employees and your organization.

Are You a Really Bad Manager?

If you exhibit any of the five traits discussed here, chances are you’re well on your way to becoming a really bad manager. You need to stop doing these things as soon as possible and revert instead to their opposite. Avoiding these bad management traits can turn you into a really good manager—and that should be your goal.