Transcript

Hey everybody. I hope the video finds you well.

Based on the video I did a few weeks ago about my favorite boss, I got a couple texts this week asking,”Give me some attributes of your worst boss.” This one was kind of fun. So I got to think about my worst boss in my career over the last 30, some odd years, and I’ll narrow it down to three or four attributes that this boss had that drove not only me crazy, but I think everyone else crazy and ultimately was one of the reasons why I left.

And I’ll start with micromanagement. Now, I believe this leader really wasn’t trying to create an atmosphere of micromanagement. I think it was more of control, but it really led to several times a day asking what we were doing, what we were working on. When was the deliverable ready? When can we do this? And it really, really, really took a dent in not only our relationship, but our productivity. That micromanagement hurt the team. That also led to lack of visibility for the team members.

So as we were producing results, this leader was the one that decided to take credit for the work that we were doing. Very, very infrequently were we offered the ability to come to a meeting and share results or share the things that we were working on or any of our findings. This individual liked to take the credit for his team’s work. That led to another dent in the relationship. So that micromanagement and the lack of visibility, lack of trust, or at least a feeling of a lack of trust really hurt the relationship.

And when an employee left — that old adage, you don’t leave a job, you leave a manager. I took that,I actually felt that firsthand, and I do know that when you are frustrated, especially with someone above you, it does make you wander. It does make you look around. That’s unfortunate. So I’d ask you, what are some of the attributes of the worst boss you’ve had? And let’s make sure that you’re not doing it, even unintentionally.

So take a look. Take a listen. Think about your worst boss you had and hopefully you’re not one of them.

Take care.