Dealing with less than effective managers

I found this article very interesting. Follow the link below for complete discussion and comments.

Working for an Idiot Boss: How to Handle a Lousy Boss?
http://www.resumark.com/blog/author/katia/

Main points are given here. ------------------------

If you’ve never had an idiot boss, consider yourself very lucky.

The rest of us sometimes have to deal with bosses who are control-freaks, intrusive, micro-managing, rude, and even obnoxious.

So what makes a lousy boss?
A lousy boss loves to take credit for your work and never gives you praise or positive feedback for any of your achievements. A lousy boss fails to support you in accomplishing your work, unnecessary interfere due to his lack of understanding and insecurities and leaves you hanging when you actually need their help. He likes recruiting cheap resources but demands best quality and quick delivery (off course with invoice) within deadlines- any PMs worst nightmare. He is usually very poor in cash management which is his main job and to hide that he wants to put blame on others. His obsession with "client is god" assumption also makes him paranoid and anti to his own employees. All the “support” that you get is annoying and results in counter-productive micro-management when you actually don’t need any help and they are just interfering in your and your teams work.

Lousy bosses think their subordinates have no feelings, interests or personal lives outside work and only he cares about the organizations welfare. Fact is he is the biggest threat to the co.s future. They take their employees for granted and think they'll do anything for the salary and contract extension esp he happens to be an expat. They think employees are robots designed for carrying out their orders. They make employees stay late after work for no reasons, attend stupid meetings and perform tasks that make no sense or have little purpose. He has no faith on anyone except few slave types, non-performing psycophants because he lacks self esteem and faith in himself.

The worst type of a boss gives you way too many tasks to handle, with unclear directions, wrong type of untrained resources, and impossible deadlines, while constantly changing their mind and directions, and having no clue about what they want or how they want it done. At the end, when you are late or the work is not done to their satisfaction – it becomes your fault with all the resulting consequences.

Boss's energies are directed towards a whole day drama where he wants to show others that he is the best man for his job. Fact is that he is there because of someone's mistake not due to his capabilities and he is the biggest threat to the co.. He is poor in cash management due to overemphasis on cost cutting to maximize his bonus & commission.

Any of this sounds familiar? Try these four ways to deal with an idiot boss before deciding to quit your job.

So how do you deal with a lousy boss?

1. Be smart and adapt to their style of work. Find the buttons to press. Dealing with less than effective managers (let’s just call them idiot bosses), is a challenge that too many employees don’t know how to approach correctly. One way to prevent problems is to study and understand your boss’s personality, their style of work and their expectations regarding your work. You can then adjust your approach and your style to please your boss, while guarantying yourself peace of mind. For example, if your boss is an annoying micro-manager, ask them about their preferred ways of you reporting to them, and report back on a regular basis and make sure ask for feedback every time. Chances are you boss will love this and will soon leave you alone after seeing that things are done “their way” and that they are “in control”. They may also get tired of “too much control” having to give you feedback all the time and will eventually give you more freedom (as some bosses will put it – “because they trust you will do a good job”. The bottom line – you will make your boss happy and will earn your freedom while keeping your boss off your back.
2. Manage your boss. If it is at all possible, try resolving problems by talking to your boss – it is the quickest and the least painful way. If something concerns you, makes you uncomfortable or offends you – tell them about it right away. For example, if a boss is constantly yelling at you, simply tell them that you understand their frustration but them raising their voice makes you uncomfortable or even threatened. This especially works well if you are a female and you boss is a male – mostly will back down right away.If that doesn’t work, document the facts of all incidents and how that impacted your performance – as well as other employees in the company. This process may be enough to relieve you of the stress so that you can cope. If everything fails – ignore him and take your case to the senior management.
3. Do not take things personally. Try focusing on work. Try to perform well, while ignoring all these distractions and focus on your work to see if that changes anything. Let your boss know that you are doing job to the best of your abilities.
4. Find a mentor or a mediator in the office. If you and your boss don’t connect well, you should consider finding someone else in the office who may be able to help you. A more experienced, seasoned or an elder employee may be more respected by the boss and may have already found “a recipe” to handling them. They can put in a word for you as well as provide you with valuable support and advice in coping with the boss. However, be very careful about your choice of words when talking to other employees – you never know who else they might tell. Tell them you have a problem – don’t bad mouth your boss.
5. Don't be part of money-laundering project – If you are in this situation then you have no escape because you have been hired as per a plan where you have to take blame for all the misdeeds and inefficiency of the people who are sharing the booty. There are few countries where 90% projects are of this type and everyone in client is interested in making a project fail so they can float a new tender for another similar project with new vendor.
   
6. Don’t sacrifice your nerves or self-esteem – it is not worth it! Doing nothing and hoping that the problems will resolve themselves is the worst idea. No one (especially your idiot boss) is worth impacting your mental and physical health, self respect, self-esteem or sanity over them. If there is no way to resolve these issues you should start looking for another job. If you want to stay in your company, a good mentor can help you transfer to a different department provided co. is big enough and he is not the only boss around. If you do decide to quit – do it wisely: don’t burn bridges and have a backup plan if anything changes.

Remember nothing will work (among 4 ways suggested above) with a persons who is trying too hard to masquerade as an effective manager. He is trying to keep an eye on everything though he is blind like a bat. He is a control freak but no control on himself. He doesnt respect his employees and vendors except his own reporting manager. Then its sure, you boarded a sinking ship with too many holes where you have been hired as a scapegoat from the day you signed the contract.