Why Are Bosses So Bad?

Every boss I have ever had has been a terrible manager. I have never met anyone who praises his boss (at least when he is not actively engaged in sycophancy), and I am pretty sure that I have been more or less a failure at bossing whenever I was put in charge of people. With experience, I think that I got better over the years and that I did this by simply doing less. Whenever I left productive people alone, they became even more productive. And the unproductive ones were not going to get any better no matter how closely I supervised them, so I learned to work around them when I could not get rid of them. Luckily, I don't have to exercise authority over anybody in my current position, and I can either work around or in collaboration with my ostensible subordinates.

I have thought a lot about bad bossing over the years. I accept the Peter Principle as valid in that hierarchical organizations promote people out of their comfort and competence zones. Managing people is very different from doing their job, and being a cracker jack salesman does not necessarily make one qualified to be a sales manager. Also, there is very little good training in leadership and management, and what there is seems to be based on hierarchical, top down models involving tight control.

Your subordinates are your enemies who must be constantly surveilled and cowed into doing their work under such models. The more simple-minded and mechanical the work is, the less you have to rely on worker initiative or intelligence, and the more control you have. Of course, your organization is less responsive to its clientele's needs. I often think of working at McDonald's back in the 1970s when ordering a hamburger with no pickle would bring the whole hamburger distribution system almost to its knees. Back then, we took orders and added up bills with a pencil on a pad, so those of us with good mental arithmetic skills were in high demand and could make management cut us some minimal slack. Still, the whole process was completely dehumanized, and management was evidently under the impression that job satisfaction was a form of employee theft.

Another problem inherent in bossing is that anyone who wants to be a boss in a hierarchical organization is probably already a power hungry prick. Otherwise, he would find the whole bossing idea distasteful. If he is at all a reluctant boss, his higher boss will see any non-bossiness as evidence of weakness and lax management. If his unorthodox non-bossing yields results, the higher bosses will have to find a way to sabotage this.

Finally, bossing is problematic because in any hierarchical organization every boss at each level in the hierarchy will act in his own individual interests without regard to the interests of others or of the organization itself. He ordinarily has no incentive to collaborate or cooperate or to promote the careers or well being of others. The success of his unit should be seen as a function of his skilled bossing rather than the creativity and competence of his underlings. It is better for the boss for everyone to think that his underlings are idiots and that success derives entirely from the blessings of his good management. Otherwise, he may be seen as superfluous (which he probably is). No boss on his way up wants to see any contraction in the layers or levels of boss positions; therefore, all are committed to the maintenance of the hierarchy and rooting out anti-hierarchical heresy.

Accordingly, it is easier and more satisfying for a potential good boss to go out and start his own business than to climb the corporate ladder. The bossed probably already realize that their bosses are parasites and must be overthrown as in the great myth of Yertle the Turtle. Maybe if investors begin to see bosses in the same light, we may come to see more humane business organizations.