Managing the Meanies: “I steal office supplies because I hate my boss”

When it comes to bad bosses, many employees work strictly from a place of fear and loathing. But passive aggressive behavior like pilfering office supplies and surfing the internet all day take a toll on the individual and the company alike. In today’s Managing the Meanies, Buck discusses both bad and good bosses and the impact they have on employees.

Not too long ago I saw a bumper sticker on a car in Boston, a message that pretty much condenses all that I’ve been writing about into one sentence, “I steal office supplies because I hate my boss”. The fact of the matter is this: if you’re a bully-boss, an abusive tyrant like several of the gems that I have described for you, then the people that work for you will sabotage you at every turn, they’ll cheat you with their time, do just enough work to get by, hold back vital information and they’ll manipulate situations to make you look bad. They’ll do anything to gain some satisfaction for themselves and to get back even a modicum of control.

Universally loved or universally feared?

Sure, if your management style is founded on abuse and tyrannical dictates you’ll extract results from your people. They’ll do it out of fear for their jobs, but you’ll never get that extra effort, that outstanding performance that will surely elevate you and your company to greatness. Rather, you’ll have mediocrity, plain, lackluster efforts, just enough to get by, a brown-out rather than a brilliant illumination. Which takes us to the Machiavellian riddle “Is a prince a good prince because he’s universally loved or because he’s universally feared?”

The good guys

What then do good bosses have in common? What traits are common to the motivators, the true leaders? Surely it can be said that such motivational managers are great communicators; conversely, they’re good listeners. But beyond that the truly good bosses seem to have few if any self-esteem issues, they’re confident in whom they are and what they are and they’re masters at motivating people into contributing their best. Most great bosses surely had an enlightened mentor at some point during their formative years; they were exposed early in their careers to the absolutely winning effects of having a supremely self-confident manager at the helm.

I believe that it’s a given to assert that true leaders recognize their own short-comings and bolster such weaknesses with capable people – genuine achievers that are allowed and encouraged to excel. And no matter how stressful things might be, the true motivators never show it and above all never transfer the burden of having a positively wretched day onto others.

Next Tuesday: The dual lives of bad bosses…

Editor’s note: Buck Hamilton is a sales and marketing executive who’s spent over thirty years working in the paper distribution business. He’s a prolific writer who’s presently working on a book which narrates the stories of sixteen Vietnam War veterans. You can read his weekly series  “Managing the Meanies: A Survival Guide” every Tuesday here on Really Bad Boss.

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