If there’s one thing the past year has exposed, it’s bad leaders…and dickheads.

You know the ones: they think working from home is an excuse for their staff to slack-off, continue to run remote meetings like it’s 2019, are still fumbling with Zoom and can’t get their head around the fact that now is the new normal. Not to mention they haven’t let their guard down once to offer genuine support or understanding, in what has been a tricky time for most employees to navigate. But are they just dickheads or bad leaders? Or are they both?

Recently one of my mentees confided that she’d just realised her boss was a dickhead.

She’d worked with him for four years and always thought he was an average boss. However given he was responsible of a team of 20, an executive and had employed her, she always (rightly) showed him the respect his position deserved. However there were things about his behaviours that had started to impact her job satisfaction and tested her loyalty.

The signs

My mentee soon realised that her Boss never listened to the opinion of others. Particularly the female staff. He was a poor communicator and was embarrassingly self-centred, often pretending he knew things he obviously didn’t. He successfully annoyed anyone he met with his inappropriate humour and arrogance. Including possessing no self-awareness to alert him to the fact that these behaviours were obvious to all. Except the CEO. For him the Boss went to great pains to ensure he only saw the ‘strong, winning’ version of the Boss when it counted. Sadly I am all too familiar with this style of management from a previous boss of mine. Sure it’s extreme, but it’s not rare.

All this aside, she continued to support him and the team and respect his role as CoVid19 raged on. It continued to play havoc with their business, repeatedly shifted the goal posts and while it sent a quiet uneasiness through the organisation, her boss did little to address this.

During her reflections on the past 15 months, she shared stories with me that exposed her Boss’s inadequacies.

My observation was that yes, the Boss was indeed a dickhead: an irritating and ridiculous man. But more importantly he was a terrible leader. My advice? Start looking for another job.

1. Ability to pivot

Firstly, the Boss was not open to new ways of working, alternative processes or new ideas. These not only made sense with remote working but with contemporary work practices. He insisted on the tedious back-and-forth and manual reviews, not even considering workflow tools that could help automate the teams’ processes and increase efficiency. The assumption from the team was that it would require him to (a) learn a new skill and (b) require him to relinquish a tiny bit of control. As such he rejected it.

Despite repeated attempts to suggest alternatives he continued to refuse with no explanation. Sometimes he’d suggest deferring to the CEO but he’d always eventually say no. The team started to feel they were not being heard.

2. Establish trust

The Boss only ever engaged with his 4 direct reports and held individual ‘spot-zoom’ meetings. These were apparently to encourage spontaneity. However the team felt they were to check that everybody was in front of their laptops at any given time. He encouraged his direct reports to do this to their teams too. The Boss had openly said that he has misgivings about people being paid a full wage when they were effectively ‘on holidays’. This was not only insulting but wrong. He instigated daily timesheets that he reviewed and commented on in detail, in some cases suggesting staff owed the company extra hours. Some of the team reached out confidentially to HR but nothing eventuated.

3. Failure to communicate

Not only did the team feel they weren’t listened to when it came to new ideas, they felt he didn’t hear them when they asked for direction or support. The Boss was so absorbed in his own reputation in front of the CEO and the things he needed from the team to support this, that it seemed he only cared for himself. He did not share updates on the company’s progress or offer feedback from the business or himself. The team felt increasingly disconnected and anxious.

4. Lack of integrity

As a direct report, my mentee met with her Boss weekly via Zoom. He openly criticised his Executive peers and the CEO but positioned it as him confiding in her. He often said he trusted her. My mentee felt very uncomfortable about it. On one occasion when he made a small error (which was not a big deal) he went to great pains to justify to my mentee and her peers why it was ‘OK’ and how under the circumstances it was appropriate to keep it between them. He did this with many small issues and it did not sit well with his staff. HIs fear and dislike of the CEO was clear. My mentee often wondered if her Boss would ever get exposed.

5. No vision

The most significant failure was his lack of vision.

The CEO held a few Zoom conferences with all staff and talked confidently about how he was planning for the company’s future. Her boss never held one for his team. The Boss had sent just two emails: once when remote working was in place in March and one at Christmas encouraging the team to enjoy time with family. He was disconnected with this broader team, failed to inspire his direct reports and was unclear about how his department would evolve. He also regularly changed priorities for the team, often mid-project. They became demotivated and disillusioned, gradually the teams trust in his capability had eroded.

A dickhead or bad leader?

This guy was clearly both.

The behaviours displayed are clearly traits of a poor leader. However, the Boss’s personal style was irritating and ridiculous which made him unlikeable. His lack of trust in his team, his pettiness, narcissism and self-absorption made him unbearable.

All in all, her Boss represented the greatest failing of the CEO in appointing him, which says something of the behaviours that the CEO tolerated. It also speaks to the culture of accountability that the CEO inspired, particularly noting HR not addressing the teams’ concerns. These are all signs of a terrible company culture and poor leadership. I am not surprised that it’s share price has been falling.

And equally unsurprised to learn today that her Boss has been fired.

therealceo