
Ask HN: What made your least favorite/most hated manager/supervisor/CEO so bad? - limonkufu
Inspired from reading similarly titled ASK HN post(about favorite managers). I wondered what bad behaviour&#x2F;attitude your managers had&#x2F;have.
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dvanwag
I can deal with bad management/leadership, which I'm sure all of us have
experienced at one time or another. The law of averages dictates we will work
for someone who sucks at some point in our careers.

Even worse than bad/toxic management to me is No management or leadership. The
worse job I ever had involved managers who couldn't make even the simplest of
decisions or provide even minute guidance. I worked as a high level project
manager who executed on different projects across the organization. I would
bring back facts and figures to support the objectives of the organization and
usually have three to five recommendations for consideration just to be told
"they would get back to me". Weeks would pass with no direction and my team
would then be subject to abuse from other stakeholders on why we weren't doing
our jobs.

If I tried to take initiative to keep the org moving I'd be hanged by our
senior management, so it was a Catch 22 situation. Ultimately I made the
decision that the best thing I could do was protect the members of the team by
siloing our operations as much as possible while they struggled to do their
jobs with as little outside interference as possible.

Bad managers can be mitigated by sometimes playing their game to you and your
team's advantage, keeping certain actors at arms length, or "feeding the
beast" to simply be left alone. No leadership is the worst because it's the
equivalent of not just being on a rudderless ship lost at sea but with
everyone on said ship sick and expected to build the rest of the ship after
it's already left the dock.

[Update due to grammatical issue]

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orcs
Lack of backbone, cowardly backstabbing behaviour, condescending opinion of
all the people he managed. He was a bully and oppressive. He was of the
opinion he would progress if he disciplined someone so he was always trying to
screw someone over.

On the flip side I'm now untouchable as far covering my own ass when it comes
to these wankers.

~~~
jackgolding
First sentence is what I was going to write (bully but cowardly and
backstabbing) but would add my manager was also entirely hands off and would
cancel weeks of catch ups then complain when a deliverable didn't match their
pedantic requirements.

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justtopost
20 to 100 person startup. CEO was 'brilliant', but never delegated, and was
never there. Work stopped hapf the day as everyone in the office waited on
him. An open secret affair with his office helper while his wife had a kid.
Bankrupted a skyrocketing food service products company for his ego, after
firing everyone competent around him as they became dissillusioned or called
him out. He went from the most engauging gentleman to the most distant and
feckless asshole. Ended up one of those guys who would explain why the company
doesn't have enough money for critical infrastructure as he buys parts for his
classic muscle car in another window.

Lesson: Don't be a jerk, even when you can 'afford' to. People got you where
you are. Be thankful and continue to support those that support you.

~~~
matt_the_bass
Good use of feckless!

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jackfraser
Had a project manager who eventually became my director. The quick summary:

\- Was focused on empire building, wanted lots of underlings to help prop him
up into management, vs. actually getting his project done, to the extent where
he actively blew out the scope and made requirements gathering take almost an
entire year - for a simple IT ticketing system - just so he could hire a team
of BAs

\- Had different versions of the truth for every person he talked to, insisted
on closed-door conversations with individuals, avoided ever bringing multiple
people together, but consistently talked about people who weren't in the room
in a disparaging way. No doubt he was disparaging me when I wasn't there.

\- Gaslit multiple people to believe their experience/views (and we're talking
about a big team experienced IT professionals) were useless, wrong, that they
were out of touch, and that they should be worried about their jobs

\- Conspired to get the existing director, who rightfully questioned all of
this, fired, and succeeded, and then took his job, which he managed to have
for six months before he was fired for incompetence (which is pretty hard to
do in academia).

I hear he asked one of my former colleagues who was also a victim of his near-
sociopathy to help him find a job not so long ago; he was told to go and f __*
himself.

------
RNeff
They are never, ever wrong. Never.

They shoot the messenger. Any bad news is the fault of the person reporting
the news. Result is no one tells him of any problems. Manager: "Will the
software ship on time?", Programmer: "Yes, of course". Any other answer will
result in yelling, screaming, and abuse.

Managers with huge bonuses tied to software ship dates, not software quality.

------
oldsklgdfth
IMO the worst attribute a manager can have is low self-esteem.

I've seen it manifest as having a chip on their shoulder. This can be toxic.
I've seen rational design discussions into relentless arguments where the
conclusion is "let's agree to disagree".

I've also seen it manifest as a boss that does not have the respect of his
team and people just kinda do their own thing because he is not willing to
confront people and hold them accountable to their work.

I've also these two types work together and it makes for a very dramatic,
toxic and down right unprofessional work environment.

