Do you sometimes think it's No Good people who become Bosses? (employees, apply)

[Jesse69]

Do you sometimes think it's OFTEN No Good people who become Bosses? They gotta boss for squeezing profits out of subordinates... This happens at Walmart. They care more about the bottom line than people. They lie and disreguard about the good things you did for your company so you won't get a raise. Sometimes I think the ones who become Bosses were the "Big Ass Kissers!" Sometimes I think bosses have greedy personality flaws. I'd say in my history of employment I've had half good / half bad bosses.

What's your rant about bosses?

[samston]

IMO, the key ingredients in being a manager are thus:

- somebody who stands out, in a good way. whether by good performance, inspiring others in the workplace, etc.

- somebody with leadership skills, which may be linked to the first point. somebody who shows they are willing and able to shoulder responsibility and make decisions autonomously.

- somebody who gets on with others in the workplace, by being civil, jovial, friendly, etc. this impacts on whether they hold the people skills for management.

Now, none of these denote the moral character of a person, as such. They simply denote an individual who has stood out, and impressed the persons who matter (and who ultimately possess the ability to recommend and install persons as managers).

I would thus advise anybody seeking a managerial position to make yourself noticed, whether by outstanding performance, good interpersonal relationships with co-workers, professionalism, autonomy, innovativeness, etc.

[nowannamove]

or, as I have personally seen, a boss is sometimes someone who gets promoted or a lateral move because the company needs to move the 'problem' to another department

[Braunwyn]

Hmmm, Déjà vu. I could have sworn you started a similar thread not too long ago.

[yellowsnow]

I too have seen problem employees promoted to managerial positions. I worked in an area for years where the managers made considerably less than the people they 'supervised'. That made for an interesting dynamic where people couldn't accept 'promotions' to a job that made less money. Consequently we always had managers who had never done the work and couldn't understand what we did. That meant all they could do was count.....

[Count David]

I'm a boss, and I think I earned my position due to my quality/consistency of work and my work ethic. I wasn't trying to become a boss, I just wanted to keep my job, and when I was offered a promotion, I took it.

I like to think that I'm the same person I was before I was a boss, but part of being a boss is having to make a-hole decisions and to come up with a-hole ideas, even if it is at the cost of other people and their feelings.

If I have an idea that will hurt somebody else, but will help the company and cushion my status within the company, I have to act on that idea.

It really is the survival of the fittest out there. I've seen too many people leave our company (unwillingly) over the past couple of years, and I'm glad that up to this point that I'm not one of them.

[nowannamove]

David, there are many good bosses. You are probably one of them

But there are also inept, abusive bosses. You are probably not one of them.

[bande1102]

I've had both good and bad bosses. Personally, I love having the opportunity to work with the visionaries. You know, the ones who have "it" and can inspire all of us with their innovative ideas and great problem solving. I also love working with bosses who are smarter than me so I can learn from them.

I dread working with bosses who fall into one of two categories: 1) they got the job b/c they were really good at their non-managerial job or had seniority or 2) they got the job b/c no one else wanted it. Seriously. A current supervisor got the position w/o experience, and was sorting mail. This particular supervisory position had horrible hours and pay so no one applied for it. The previous supervisor resigned citing health issues due to the stress of the position. Not a sole applied except him. It is horrible. He can't manage, can't problem-solve. It is really painful to watch. He is running that division into the ground, but the powers to be would rather keep a known problem that offer rewrite the job.

[brightdoglover]

In my field, a master's degree is required to be a manager, to even apply. (There is nothing in that master's that helps people become managers, trust me).
It's my observation that people who doubt their own abilities often get a master's because they know how to go to school. Then they are the only people considered for the job.
My particular institution seems to hire petty, chicken**** people with master's and lets them run wild- there is virtually no oversight except a figurehead who does nothing. I hope my job is a particularly dysfunctional one (on this level) but it is still difficult to live under those thumbs.
I had a couple of good managers when I started out. Didn't realize they were good, thought they were normal. They both quit screaming and said they'd never manage anything again, and in fact, moved out of the area and did not do management.

[Huckleberry3911948]

2 magical ways to turn a human being into a devil
promote him over me or you
or marry him and stick with him 2 years