To think most managers are bad?

[Avisitboss]

I have worked for a few different companies and various teams within them and on the whole, I would say you get more bad managers than good managers in terms of line managing and actually being able to do the people management part of the job well (development, criticism when needed) and remain professional?

I have had managers / directors who either get too friendly and want to be liked and then struggle to be tough when needed or a total nightmare and their personal mood / happiness dictates the whole team culture.

I think I have had about 20 line managers, and would only say three were good people managers. YANBU.

Technical skills and business knowledge are not people skills.

Many are bad managers because they KNOW what they don't like about bad managers, but aren't confident enough to step away from the bad practices, because those are the trappings of power. They think if they let go of them, they let go of the power too.

I had some great training, which highlighted the pain points of management and taught you how to remove them. Management isn't about control to me - it's about removing obstacles, and taking advantage of the enthusiasm you can develop in an employee.

I think I was a great manager :D My current manager is shite!

I have a wonderful manager.

I have previously had managers that have took a people manager job because it is the next logical step…and nothing to do with them actually wanting to manage people, motivate them and drive their careers. They only want them to make them look good. You always felt their bad moods, they could be abrupt, sometimes you’d walk on egg shells. They all had good points too but you never knew what you were going to get.

My manager right now is amazing, consistent, reliable, motivating and wants to know where you excel and help you develop that in the right way. But also appreciates some people just wanna do 9-5 and clock off and values their work too.

My current line manager has effectively thrown me under the bus due to their lack of training and awareness

I do think this is a valid point. In my current work place all my managers have been internal promotions. None had additional training prior to being given a managerial role and it SHOWS. X2 we’re not people people, 1 was but struggled more with the business side of things. And my current one gets it all and is brilliant but I was hesitant as I didn’t think they have enough of a back bone initially but I was proved wrong

I think one problem sometimes is that a lot of organisations use the manager role solely as a career progression thing, you get promoted to it after X amount of experience/high performance etc. But just because you’re good at your job doesn’t mean you’ll also be a good people manager. It’s often a completely different set of skills. Decent organisations need to invest in management training and do something like mentoring schemes for new managers.

I’ve had a real mix over the years. Most have been fine. A couple great, a couple really awful. I think the worst ones are those who ‘won’t get their hands dirty’ so to speak, and won’t muck in to help out with the work in high pressure periods because they’re above it all. So the direct reports feel resentment that they’re being run ragged and the manager looks like they’re twiddling thumbs. A good manager should never ask you to do something they wouldn’t also do themselves.

The worst manager I ever had was a deputy head in a secondary school. The second worst manager I ever had was a head teacher in a primary school. Shockingly, shockingly poor management. Woeful.

Ive had some great managers too so it’s pretty much a 50:50 split.

I’ve had mainly good managers over the last 2 decades. But I did have meet quite a few arseholes when I worked in McDonald’s as a teenager

Some are good some are bad.

I think people also have too high expectations of managers expecting them to have all the answers and not think for themselves.

When a colleague comes to me for advice I always ask "what do you think we sho

Dammit hit send too soon

"What do you think we should do" because part of my job is to help my team be self sufficient independent. I've had people on my team react poorly to this responding "you're the manager you need to tell me" then wonder why they don't get promotions...