Why the Bad Bosses Stay and What to do About it

This literally does my head in. Why do we keep, promote or accept poor leaders, horrible bosses and bad managers?

How many of us have worked for a horrible boss? I have! Most people have at some point worked for a bad boss. In fact, when it comes to the performance of managers and leaders, the norm is incompetence rather than competence. This is why so many people are disengaged, looking for other jobs, and ditching employment to work for themselves instead. Today I am hearing more and more stories from people who are even more frustrated with their managers now they are working from home. A whole new level of leadership skills are required here too.

I call this the Darth Vader of Leadership. In saying this Darth Vader did have some positives. What I mean is, when we have a horrible boss or ineffective leader, we see companies do a number of things. They push them sideways to another department and make it their issue, they promote them as they don’t know what else to do with, the culture of the company embraces that type of leadership, so they keep them and finally they don’t know how to performance manage or have the courageous conversation, so they ignore them.

Poor leadership can break a business.

Many businesses and organisations struggle to accept this. After all, they are in charge of selecting effective managers and leaders, and admitting that their leadership choices are poor is perhaps a step too far.

And yet, only 20% of boards of directors see their leadership identification and development practices as effective, and 70% of employees report that the worst part of their job is their direct line manager. We know that businesses are interested in getting results, and high-quality leaders are the biggest single driver of results, why is there is so much tolerance for incompetent leaders. What stops businesses from simply replacing them with more talented people who will enable their teams to go from frustration, stress and alienation to inspiration, engagement and productivity?

Five things.

The first attracting and hiring the wrong people. This is due to a number of reasons. It’s an urgent hire, halo effect, inability to recruit effectively, unconscious bias and inability to match a leader with the culture.

The second is unwillingness to invest in leadership development and coaching at all levels. We find especially during times like COVID, businesses put leadership development on the back burner (no idea why!) when this is the perfect time to develop your leaders, so you come back stronger braver and better. In turn, businesses that don’t invest in training or development that is a fit for the business and a tick a box training with little ROI.

Next is a general inability or even unwillingness to measure the performance of their leaders.

Unlike in professional team sports where leaders are carefully scrutinised based on how their teams perform (and the rules of the game are well-defined), businesses tend to lack robust metrics to compare the performance of their leaders and evaluate how they impact their teams, business units or the organisation as a whole. This is where engagement and cultural surveys and even 360 assessments can be powerful.

The fourth is the influence of toxic politics and poor culture. This also explains why incompetent leaders will reproduce: the more -inept and corrupt a manager is, the more detrimental his or her hiring decisions will be. Moreover, such managers will go to great lengths to sabotage the career prospects of talented and ethical employees focused on helping organisations rather than pleasing their bosses. In turn, poor leaders who are not aligned with the values and behaviours within the culture of an organisation are not challenged and their poor behaviour is accepted. This literally drives us nuts when we see this. If you work for a bad boss - READ THIS!

Finally, companies who focus on the wrong soft skills, selecting leaders on confidence rather than competence, charisma rather than humility and courage, and narcissism rather than integrity and kindness. These flawed criteria explain not only why the majority of leaders are incompetent. The result is a system that rewards leaders for their incompetence while impeding more talented and competent individuals from rising to the top.

Luckily, the solution to our leadership problems is simpler than people may think. First, organisations should pay attention to the qualities proven to make people better leaders: competence, courage, kindness, humility and integrity. They must invest in development and coaching in these areas as well as the values and behaviours that the organisation espouses. In turn, we find promoting within is a great way to build bench strength and don’t be afraid to look at the women in your business as sometimes they don’t put up their hands for promotions. At the end of the day, it will always a great result if we focus on the right talent for the role.

Competence is a function of experience, knowledge and intelligence. Detecting it is not that hard so long as those tasked to detect it are themselves competent and have subject matter expertise in the field. When you have great leaders within your business, they will in turn have the best experience and insights into detecting other great and potential leaders. Don’t you agree?

Also organisations and especially our HR leaders and hiring managers must learn to use the right hiring methods and skills as well as use data and predictive assessments even when the results run counter to one’s intuition, they will help organisations detect true leadership potential and select and promote the right people. They must spend time getting to know  values and motives of potential leaders and how they fit into the culture of an organisation.

Finally get the wrong people off the bus. Having a bad manager and boss will cause you a lot more pain and heartache in the long run if you don’t deal with it. Have the courageous conversation now and we know your people and business with flourish. It might be painful in the short term however if not dealt with, it will be detrimental to your business.

Remember culture eats strategy for breakfast and how leads your Culture? Your Leaders.

I personally don’t want to watch movie Horrible Bosses Chapter 3 which is based on your business.

Do you?

Stay Courageous. Stay Kind. x

About Sonia McDonald

Sonia McDonald is the CEO and founder of LeadershipHQ and McDonald Inc. Sonia is an in demand keynote speaker, leadership coach and advisor, author and facilitator.

Sonia works one on one with CEO’s of Multi-National organisations and advisory boards to start up enterprise, facilitating in-office workshops with emerging leaders and supporting companies through cultural transformation and positive wide behavioural change.

For more than 25 years, Sonia has been on the front lines of Human Resources, Leadership and People and Culture. She has held leadership positions worldwide and through experience, research and study come to realise what it takes to be a truly great leader.

Sonia has an ability to speak bravely and authentically about her own development as a leader, personal and career challenges in a way which resonates with her audience. She is recognised as a LinkedIn influencer and has become an in-demand keynote speaker, starts important conversations. Sonia has also been recognised in the Top 250 Influential Women across the Globe and Top 100 Entrepreneurs across Australia by Richtopia.

She is an award-winning published author of Leadership Attitude and Just Rock It! With her third book close to completion, Sonia understands the importance of distilling inspiration and cold hard facts into a few digestible pages. Entertaining and irreverent, you will find a methodology that takes you courageously to the next step of your career or journey

Keynote Speaker

Sonia has been a keynote speaker for over a decade and has delivered presentations to a thousands of people all over the world. Renowned for her candid rhetoric, personable insights and fierce business acumen, her presentations and books have transformed how people worldwide conduct themselves as leaders. Book Sonia HERE.

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