As long as you are not leading a team yourself, you depend on the qualities of the person who leads you. Sometimes that works in your favour, sometimes it does not. You learn a great deal from a good manager. With a bad one you have three options: sit it out, leave, or take the bull by the horns.
This article is about the third.
How do you recognise a bad manager?
One of my most-read articles is 11 characteristics of bad leadership. These are the five I come across most often in practice:
- They do not see what is really going on. The numbers add up, the meetings run on time, and meanwhile the entire team knows something their manager does not.
- They promise a lot and do not follow through. Once is an incident. Repeated, it becomes a pattern, and a pattern teaches your team to stop taking anything seriously.
- They do not create trust. You cannot rely on them, so you build around them instead.
- They are closed to feedback but quick to blame others. It is the combination that does the damage, not either half on its own.
- They take no responsibility. Successes are theirs, problems belong to the circumstances.
If you recognise more than a couple, the question is no longer whether it grates. The question is what you are going to do about it.
What you can do yourself
How do you influence a manager who does not inspire you and does not help you grow?
Become more resilient. Coaching teaches you where you have influence and where you do not, and how to open the conversation without damaging the relationship. That is not about becoming more assertive. It is about seeing more clearly what is actually happening. I work on this every day with people in exactly this situation.
Ask your HR manager for help, if you trust them. They recognise a pattern more often than you would think, and you are rarely the first to raise it.
Give my book to your manager. Mijn Beste Team Ooit! In 7 stappen naar Golden Leadership is also available as an e-book and audiobook. I am happy to sign it for them.
Book an introductory meeting. Online or in person, to explore how the quality of leadership in your organisation could improve, and what you need in order to stand your ground.
And if you are reading this as a manager
Then the question is less comfortable. Everyone recognises these five characteristics, but almost always in someone else. The only reliable way to know where you stand is to ask your team, in a setting where they dare to answer honestly. That is where most trajectories begin.
You will find more articles on leadership on the Dudok Consulting website.
Frequently asked questions
Look at the pattern, not the incident. Everyone misses a commitment now and then. It becomes a characteristic when it is structural, when others on the team experience the same thing, and when naming it changes nothing. If it is about the chemistry between the two of you, you will notice that others are not affected.
No. What you can change are the conditions you work in: what you put in writing, what you feed back, who you involve, and how you protect your own boundaries. In practice that shifts more than people expect.
Only if you trust your HR manager and the way your organisation handles this kind of signal. Weigh it against what it might cost you. A conversation with an external coach is confidential and commits you to nothing.
When you have tried to open the conversation, when there is no prospect of change, and when you notice the effect outside of work. The order matters: try first, conclude afterwards. Otherwise you carry the same pattern into your next job.
Ask your team, in a way that lets them answer honestly. That rarely works in a performance review and usually does work through an assessment or an external facilitator.
