Bad Managers: Why People Quit Their Job

A Manager Who Competes with Employees

If your manager lacks confidence, there is a high chance that he will compete with you—always wanting everyone’s recognition for having the best ideas. He may be jealous of any successes you have and try to hinder your growth. This situation is especially prevalent for employees who are exceptionally good at their work. If an insecure boss notices that you are consistently gaining the attention of senior leaders, he may try almost anything to make you feel demotivated and hinder your success. Such managers often resort to bullying tactics such as public ridicule and sarcasm, putting you down in front of others, falsely accusing you of doing your work improperly, lying to others about you, or using other unethical means to undermine your reputation. Ultimately, the inevitable outcome in such a situation is that you’ll quit.

A Manager Who Lacks Any Philosophical Foundation

Some managers have no philosophy at all behind their thinking. According to Dr. David Brendel, having an effective philosophical base can help managers become good leaders. Philosophy teaches practical skills and values that are essential to motivating employees and increasing their productivity. However, not all managers believe in or are even receptive to good values. Such people often think all that matters is how they expect the world to be. Such amoral managers may adopt every possible unethical means of influencing or controlling others. Nothing pleases such managers unless the outcome is exactly what they want, so when things don’t go their way, they’ll find fault. Such behavior is demoralizing to employees. If you’re a good person, you’ll soon look for greener pastures.

A Manager Whose Skills Have Stagnated

Good managers continually advance their own skills and mentor others. Lazy managers don’t improve their own skills or develop expertise that they can pass along to their employees. Nor do they want others to acquire expertise for fear that someone else will make them look bad. In most cases, they discourage employees who offer valuable ideas. This leads to a regressive work environment that is bad for the employees and the business. When employees don’t have the opportunity to learn new skills, the business stagnates. A company’s new growth opportunities may lay fallow because there is no one who has the expertise to lead them. Both employees and the company suffer. So either the business will have to get rid of this manager or their best employees will leave the company.

A Manager Who Takes Credit for Your Work

Remember the popular movie Working Girl, in which the evil boss, portrayed by Sigourney Weaver, stole the ideas of her secretary, played by Melanie Griffith? This happens in real life, too! If you do something great, such managers won’t want you to get credit for it. They want you to work hard for them, but ultimately take the credit for all positive outcomes. Managers who steal the credit for their employees work or pass off others’ ideas as their own demotivate employees. In such cases, the best employees leave because there is no opportunity for growth. If you have a manager who steals all the credit for your work, there’s really nothing to do but get another job.

A Manager Who Has Stopped Growing, but Expects Others to Change

While some people recognize that the only constant is change, a manager who has stopped growing never changes his habits or attitudes. He sticks to the conventional and shuns anything that is new. Such managers fear change. If you’re audacious enough to propose something new, it is likely that you’ll come under fire. This kind of manager expects employees to conform to whatever he thinks is right—from the way they work to the way they speak. If you work for such a manager, you may feel that you have no freedom whatsoever in your job and become so frustrated that you are forced to quit.

A Manager Who Favors a Certain Few Employees

When you see your manager being good to some employees, while showing a negative bias toward others, this can have a severely demoralizing effect. The lucky few who are getting good reviews and the appreciation of their manager may feel like stars, but everyone else feels how unfair this is. While most companies discourage unfairness at work, managers’ showing their partiality for certain employees can be difficult to check. According to a FindLaw survey, one in four workers has experienced bias against their gender, age, race, or other traits. If this happens just a few times, employees may slough it off. But, over time, bias creates a negative perception of the workplace that severely degrades employees’ tolerance for such a negative work environment. If you find that you must endure such bias for an extended period of time, your level of discomfort will likely prompt you to leave.

A Manager Who Is Unpopular with Other Teams

Last, but not least, it is likely that nobody in your company—whether employees or stakeholders—likes or wants to work with such bad managers. A manager with a negative attitude doesn’t relate well to other people and makes a poor impression on them. A manager with a negative, cynical outlook is very difficult for anyone to work with. Therefore, such a manager is unable to form positive relationships with people on other teams, who want avoid him to the greatest extent possible. That makes it more difficult for their employees to build the positive relationships that may be essential to their success in their job. Being deprived of the sorts of relationships that would make you happy in your work makes it more likely you’ll quit.

Conclusion

Appreciation, motivation, creativity, and freedom mean a lot to most employees. But, in all likelihood, at some point in your career, you’ve had to work for managers that fit these profiles. It is highly probable that such experiences made you rethink where you wanted to work.

While in some companies, employee reviews include 360-degree feedback, in which employees have the opportunity to provide feedback about their managers, not all companies do, leaving people working for bad managers no recourse.

Corporate policies and employee benefits differ across companies, but it is really your manager’s values and leadership that determine whether you love your job. When managers behave in the negative ways we’ve discussed in this article, it’s almost inevitable that people will leave, and the company’s attrition rate will increase over time. 

References

Bolden-Barrett, Valerie. “How to Deal with a Biased Boss.” Houston Chronicle, undated. Retrieved June 22, 2016.

Smith, Jacquelyn. “9 Things You Can Do When the Boss Takes Credit for Your Work.” Forbes Magazine, January 26, 2016. Retrieved June 22, 2016.

Lipman, Victor. “People Leave Managers, Not Companies.” Forbes Magazine, August 4, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2016.

Tredgold, Gordon. “People Leave Bosses, Not Companies: But Maybe That Boss Is You!” The Huffington Post, January 26, 2016. Retrieved June 22, 2016.

Snyder, Benjamin. “Half of Us Have Quit Our Job Because of a Bad Boss.” Fortune Magazine, April 2, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2016.

Vann, Madeline R. “Is Your Boss Making You Sick?” Everyday HEALTH, October 12, 2011. Retrieved June 22, 2016.

Loewen, Stanley C. “Dealing with a Micromanaging Boss,” undated. Retrieved June 22, 2016.

Satell, Greg. “How Philosophy Can Make You a Better Manager.” Forbes Magazine, July 31, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2016.