Shyamal Majumdar: How bad is your boss?

HUMAN FACTOR

Many companies end up converting exceptional performers into sub-standard managers.

It may be sheer coincidence but an interesting one nevertheless. Just when Working America, a federation of unions in the US, has started a "My Bad Boss Contest", the latest issue of BusinessWeek has a column by Jack and Suzy Welch, titled "Are you a boss-hater?"

The former GE chief feels boss-haters generally suffer from the "everyone is dumb but me" mindset and are unable to see the value in any person above them in a hierarchy. Too many companies perform well every day "" returning billions in profits by inventing, making, selling and distributing products and services "" for bosses out there to be total nincompoops, Welch says.

But going by the response to the bad boss contest on www.workingamerica.org, an overwhelming number of corporate citizens don't seem to agree with Welch, and have no shortage of horror stories about the men or women they report to. Workers have been invited to share their best stories about their worst bosses in the contest and each week's top vote-getter will be eligible to compete for the grand prize "" a seven-night vacation getaway and $,1000 for a round-trip air fare "" to be announced by August 16.

There seem to be a huge number of bosses out there who either take all the credit for themselves, or who think you have no life outside work, or who give out too many tasks with impossible and constantly changing deadlines. There are stories about bosses who are pathological liars, or control freaks, or someone who has the IQ of an eraser. The boss also seems to be having the spine of a jellyfish "" someone who would never stand up for you.

There is also the obsessive micro-manager who would give assignments but then manage them to death. He trusts his people the way you would trust a five-year-old behind the wheel of the car. Then there is this officer talking about his table-thumping boss who ordered managers to instil fear in workers to boost productivity.

Some of these comments are obviously exaggerated, especially as they are written by anonymous people, but it's a fact that there are enough bosses who can make your life into a Dilbert strip. A vice-president in a premier engineering company in India says his boss "" a perfect gentleman otherwise "" would start wandering in the reception hall at 6 pm to make sure no one left work before him. Though no organised surveys have been done on this issue, an informal study in India a few years ago found that almost 75 per cent of the employees surveyed identified their boss as a lousy manager.

Behavioural studies have found that bad bosses believe in the following:

The average person dislikes work and will avoid it he/she can;

Therefore, most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organisational objectives;

The average person prefers to be directed; to avoid responsibility; is relatively unambitious, and wants security, above all else.

The major reason why companies are saddled with such managers are the short-sighted and faulty executive promotion policies practised by many of them, which result in converting exceptional performers into mediocre or sub-standard managers. For example, a company promoted its engineers to managerial positions for the wrong reasons, that is, technical competence rather than managerial proficiency.

HR experts say companies must first find out whether the candidate has the right combination of mental abilities, personal interests and personality traits to allow for success as a manager. Companies like Microsoft or GE would promote even an average accountant to a manager because he has the potential to outperform an outstanding accountant in the same managerial position. This does not mean that the outstanding accountant should be ignored, but that the career ladder for him may possibly lie sideways rather than head upward.

One solution could be to move away from the culture of rigidly hierarchical structures. Look at Microsoft, which has created a separate status scale for its software engineers who can get higher compensation and external profile than their managers, the basic idea being that managers gain promotion as they take on more people and greater responsibility, and software engineers gain in status and pay as they demonstrate brilliance.

The old corporate ladder that stretches to the executive suite need not be available for everybody. Even Welch would agree to that.