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I wrote my first epoch on asshole bosses back in early December 2015, so about six years ago almost. Here it is. Now, yesterday on Harvard Business Review, we have this headline — and I wasn’t clear that we needed this info, or lacked it, in 2019: “To Prevent Burnout, Hire Better Bosses.” Indeed. That would make some logical sense. Part of the problem is that we breathlessly discuss “employee experience” all the time and rarely, if ever, discuss “manager experience” — but the average employee’s experience is driven by the experience of managers, specifically what they’re throwing down the chain out of frustration.
Even though we massively over-complicate the why of people leaving jobs, in reality it’s usually their relationship to their manager — or something about money. (And often those are related too; often your manager is the one blocking you from making more money.)
So it would stand to reason that if we had better bosses, we could solve a few of — if not all — the major problems people feel at/about work, help reduce turnover, etc. Logical, no?
Why doesn’t it happen, then?
Lots of interrelated, complex reasons. Bad management typically does not evolve out; if anything, it often gets worse as a company scales. Why? Well, lots of different reasons. Among them:
