How to Recognize a Bad Boss

Why do qualified workers leave the organization?
While qualified workers need jobs, they may be highly mobile. Losing their talent can be harmful to the organization. The best workers are

Why is the employee turnover so high?
Staff who leave organizations with bad management will do so. New hires are anxious for a good job but won't stay if the management is bad. People will retire as soon as possible. All of these employee actions point to bad bosses in the management of an organization.

Why do the employees not apply for advancement?
While this may be due to the lack of perceived reward for additional work, it can indicate that the organization has managerial problems. People just putting in time with a bad boss are not going to rise up and work harder. They will look for other jobs instead. There is often little an organization can do to entice people to apply for more senior roles with more pay.

Why is production dropping?
Difficult bosses will not inspire staff. Staff will work the minimum amount necessary to get by when they feel the boss is unreasonable, uncaring or otherwise exhibits traits of bad management. It can often be difficult to pinpoint why production is dropping. A bad boss will cajole employees to work harder, using threats and intimidation. Good bosses will work to improve working relationships, provide a better work environment and implement other progressive reforms that are desired by the staff.

What is the level of staff engagement?
Bad bosses are not going to get much feedback, positive or negative. If staff are disengaged, they will feel that nothing will help the situation at work so why provide any comments at all. The mere act of the company asking for feedback provides disengaged staff with a reason to complain. "Nothing good ever comes from these surveys so why bother?" is apt to be a familiar comment if any are provided at all.

Are staff members happy?
Bad bosses certainly won't care what the answer to this question is. They do their work in isolation from the staff. This is a big mistake. Staff happiness is an intangible item that is hard to measure but it can have dire consequences. Bad bosses will not receive useful suggestions from unhappy staff on how to improve things. Not that bad bosses would listen to such positive suggestions anyway. When staff are extremely unhappy, low productivity and staff turnover result, as has been explained. Actively disengaged, unhappy staff may even start to cause additional difficulties for bad bosses. This can be very easy to do. A staff member might know something that will have repercussions but they choose to ignore the information rather than pass it to others. The exact a measure of control or revenge on a bad boss through these types of inactions.