Is your current boss the worst one you’ve ever had? One in four people say “yes,” according to research from the employee survey and analytics provider Perceptyx. If you’re not among that group, chances are one of your friends is.
So, are there more bad bosses out there or are people just talking about them more? Emily Killham, Perceptyx’s director of research and insights, says it’s a little bit of both.
“When I started in this field 25 years ago, people were just beginning to learn about what it meant to be a real people manager, a developmental person that focuses on careers, helping employees get from point A to point B,” she says. “Before that, we had taskmasters. Now employees have expectations, and it is table stakes for a business to have people managers.”
Bosses can fall short if their companies demand more of them. “They’re being asked to do a lot of things they’ve never had to do before—things that their organizations haven’t upskilled them to do,” says Killham. “It’s a push from the top of do more with less; manage the employees and their well-being, but still keep the productivity high.”
Perceptyx surveyed 1,500 managers and 1,500 employees to determine what makes a bad boss. While one employee’s bad boss may be a great boss for someone else, the bosses deemed the worst have a lot in common. Here are the top three traits:
They’re Incompetent
The worst bosses are incompetent, with 46% of survey participants choosing this trait.
“Employees expect bosses to know what their job is and what they’re facing,” says Killham. “They want them to have the ability to empathize. We found that bosses that are incompetent don’t understand their [employee’s] job, yet they’re giving them direction about how to do it. They haven’t taken a minute to figure out what it is that they’re truly facing.”
In the survey, incompetence is paired with being unsupportive, which happens when the boss doesn’t have the employee’s back. “Are they interested in my development and what I need as an employee to thrive in the workplace?” asks Killham. “Are they advocating for me when it comes to company policies or when it comes to extra workload? Do I know they’re on my team? That’s what makes a good boss versus a bad boss; somebody who’s on your team.”
They’re Disrespectful
The second most popular trait of bad bosses is being disrespectful, selected by 28% of the respondents.
“This is a question of, am I being responsive when an employee asks for something?” says Killham. “Is it respectful if I reach out and ask for an opinion, and I receive none? Is it respectful if I reach out for direction, and it takes three hours, but the manager expects that I’ve done work in meantime, but I can’t, because I don’t have the information I need?”
The study also found that bosses with low response rates were 25 times more likely to be cast as bad bosses, while those rated highest were five times as likely to be named as good bosses.
Disrespect can also happen after you share with your manager that you’re struggling with an area of your job because of some interpersonal relationship, or because a new policy is really a challenge and it’s stressing out the team. When your manager doesn’t appear to care, it’s only natural to feel slighted.
They’re Unfair
Twenty-seven percent of respondents said the worst bosses were unfair. This problem has grown since the adoption of hybrid working arrangements due to proximity bias.
“We’ve talked about it as ‘office-ism’ that can feed into unfairness,” says Killham. “If I look around and see other people are getting certain opportunities that maybe I’m not getting, is that because they’re in proximity?”
Other examples of unfairness include emailing an employee after hours. “Am I expected to respond?” asks Killham. “Employees need to know the answer to that question. That feels pretty unfair when it’s not a time of day when I’m paid to work.”
How to Be a Good Boss
The survey found that 64% of employees are currently working for the best boss they’ve ever had. The top three descriptors used to describe them were “professional,” “trustworthy” and “caring.”
The key to being a good boss is customizing relationships. “The best managers individualize their role,” says Killham. “It is more important than ever when you’re not co-located. What looks like responsiveness and care to me, might not look like responsiveness and care to my neighbor.”
Individualism also addresses unfairness, says Killham. “What we find is, particularly in dealing with humans, is fairness is not the same,” she says. “Being able to be treated fairly has to do with what I bring to the table and what my skill set is. Understand what each employee on the team needs.”
Bad bosses aren’t just a retention problem for companies; they can feed into the community, as well. Killham says it’s important for organizations to identify and deal with them.
“Are we are sending people home at the end of a workday with more energy for their communities, for their families, for their friends, and to make our world kind of a better place?” she asks. “If you’re stressed at work, you’re more likely to be nasty to the people in your personal life. There is a big ripple effect from having bad bosses.”
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