Horrible Bosses

In any walk of life, it seems to me that there is a bit of a difference between bad management and good leadership.

All the difference in the world in fact.

So here’s a (by no means exhaustive) list of the sorts of things that might just be evident wherever bad management is to be found:

• People who don’t love people.


• People who regard people as no more than units of production.


• People who care more for their own advancement than they do for anything else.


• People who move goalposts repeatedly and without apparent reason.


• People who appear unable to distinguish between the important and the urgent.


• People for whom everything is a priority.


• People who seem fixated with hitting the target, but who end up missing the point.


• People who don’t listen.


• Or who listen, but don’t hear.


• Or hear, but don’t do anything about what’s been said.


• People who would rather blame than learn.


• People who will (in a shouty voice) tell you that their way is the only way.


• People who surround themselves only with those who share their view of the world.


• People who lack even the most basic emotional intelligence.


• People who say things about you that they’d never be prepared to say to you.


• People who lack simple moral courage.


• People who make the job harder, rather than easier.


• Who place obstacles in the way, rather than doing their damnedest to remove them.


• Who add to the burden, rather than lessening the load.


• People who talk first and think later.


• If they think at all.


• People who never pause to ask how you’re doing.


• Or, if they do, have no real interest in your response.


• People who abuse position and power for their own inexcusable ends.


• People who don’t understand the simple fact that every single contact leaves a trace.

Management isn’t – in and of itself – a bad thing. In fact, it’s an important and very necessary thing.

But we need leaders.

More than ever before, we need men and women of substance and courage, of decency and humanity, of intelligence and compassion, of generosity and character. Men and women who understand the things that have to matter more.

The good news is that I see them all around me.

And now is their time.