July 30, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Lynn Pettis (7/30/2012)
SQLRNNR (7/30/2012)
SGT_squeequal (7/30/2012)
Having managed teams of variouse types for over 10 years I feel that to be a manager you but need to follow a few simple rules.Never expect anyone do do something that you would never be prepared to do yourself
and
Lead by example
Set a good example in the workforce and get a good result, set a bad example and you get a shit and unhappy workforce. I have seen too many bad managers who follow the rule; do as i say not as i do.
remember 1 person can not let a team down however, a team can let one person down 🙂 :w00t:
A happy worker is a good worker an unhappy worker will just leave 🙂
I agree. I have seen plenty (ok just 3 come to mind) of managers that would rather not lead by example and are just worthless.
Another thing these bosses tend to have in common (bad bosses) is that they probably should not be bosses in the IT field since they don't have a very good understanding of it.
Like the supervisor I had years ago who thought he'd save money buying refurbished 9-track magnetic tapes that would be used for holding critical database backups? I can't (don't want to) remember how of those tapes didn't have BOT and/or EOT markers, or really weren't refurbished.
Or the bosses that say "What is SQL?"
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
July 30, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Or the bosses that say "What is SQL?"
Not sure if you meant that as a joke, and I'm sure some think you did. Honestly, I told my boss I needed to use a CURSOR, she said, "what's a cursor?"
July 30, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Not sure if you meant that as a joke, and I'm sure some think you did. Honestly, I told my boss I needed to use a CURSOR, she said, "what's a cursor?"
Wouldn't that be a customer/user having a bad experience? :hehe:
*Sorry, couldn't resist*
July 30, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Core6430 (7/30/2012)
The worst bosses I've had (a good boss is extremely rare), were promoted because they talked the loudest, and bragged the hardest, and took credit for things that weren't there's. The good bosses just do their job, and give credit to the person who actually did the work. It seems like the qualities that will get you promoted are the qualities that make a bad boss. The egotistical, narcissistic, qualities that get the employee noticed as a "leader" who is worthy of promotion are the qualities that make someone a bad boss. We reward the loud mouth, selfish, morally questionable people with promotions.And even when upper management is well aware that talent is running from their company, they leave the bad bosses in place. They would rather sacrifice 100 top notch employees than remove one bad boss.
Now, there is a man that knows how it works in the "real world". The government arena is literally paralyzed by this nowadays. The Peter Principle at its finest, If you can't fire them, then just promote them to get them out of your department or division. Then, their incompetence becomes someone else's problem.. I have seen this more times than I care to count. "Talent flight" is a real issue in the government sector today for many reasons, but this is a big contributing factor. Unforunately, in today's "entitlement society" rewarding hard work and competence is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Instead, it is safer to grade and reward everyone the same so that the company won't have a lawsuit put on them. Sad, but true in today's world. Success is being punished today, while those fruits of labor are distributed/given to other people that feel they are somehow enititled to it for whatever silly reason, other than just earning it the old fashioned way. Hard work and paying your dues first...This prevalent philosphy today is literally bankrupting our country.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
July 30, 2012 at 1:54 pm
WolforthJ (7/30/2012)
Or the bosses that say "What is SQL?"
Not sure if you meant that as a joke, and I'm sure some think you did. Honestly, I told my boss I needed to use a CURSOR, she said, "what's a cursor?"
Nope - not a joke. It has happened to me.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
July 30, 2012 at 2:48 pm
TravisDBA (7/30/2012)
Core6430 (7/30/2012)
The worst bosses I've had (a good boss is extremely rare), were promoted because they talked the loudest, and bragged the hardest, and took credit for things that weren't there's. The good bosses just do their job, and give credit to the person who actually did the work. It seems like the qualities that will get you promoted are the qualities that make a bad boss. The egotistical, narcissistic, qualities that get the employee noticed as a "leader" who is worthy of promotion are the qualities that make someone a bad boss. We reward the loud mouth, selfish, morally questionable people with promotions.And even when upper management is well aware that talent is running from their company, they leave the bad bosses in place. They would rather sacrifice 100 top notch employees than remove one bad boss.
Now, there is a man that knows how it works in the "real world". The government arena is literally paralyzed by this nowadays. The Peter Principle at its finest, If you can't fire them, then just promote them to get them out of your department or division. Then, their incompetence becomes someone else's problem.. I have seen this more times than I care to count. "Talent flight" is a real issue in the government sector today for many reasons, but this is a big contributing factor. Unforunately, in today's "entitlement society" rewarding hard work and competence is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Instead, it is safer to grade and reward everyone the same so that the company won't have a lawsuit put on them. Sad, but true in today's world. Success is being punished today, while those fruits of labor are distributed/given to other people that feel they are somehow enititled to it for whatever silly reason, other than just earning it the old fashioned way. Hard work and paying your dues first...This prevalent philosphy today is literally bankrupting our country.:-D
Very, very, very well said.
Dave
July 30, 2012 at 3:44 pm
cksid (7/30/2012)
I was one of those horrible supervisors. Twenty years ago out of college, I was a manager of a Domino's Pizza and I was horrible to my employees. Why? I was taught how to run a store, but I wasn't taught how to manage my staff and the franchisee I worked at didn't know how to show me a way that suited me. He wanted me to be like him, but it wasn't me. I was an angry mean manager who mamaged through fear and anger.But I changed and, IMO, changed dramatically. I knew I had to change. I took classes on supervision, read books on supervision/management and really worked on changing who I was when I managed people and who I was as an employee and person.. My supervisors told me I had changed. I apply my management skills even as a non manager in my current job.
One of the best management books I've read is Love Works by Joel Manby. It's available through Amazon. It takes the values for love as stated in 1 Corinthians 13 in the Bible and show how they can work in the business field. It is not a religious book. It helped me to see that managing people can be done with the principles of love - patient, kind, trusting, unselfish, truthful, forgiving, and dedicated.
Kudos for recognizing that and doing something about it. I'll have to check out the book you mentioned.
July 30, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Just a sidebar... my favorite bosses are the ones that hire people for their talent and then get the hell out of the way and let those people use the talent they were hired for.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 31, 2012 at 7:27 am
From reading all the comments about bad bosses perhaps to move up the ladder we need to become rudish at what we do. well, thats decided, im going to be a total waste of time, talk bullshit and move in to the banking sector after all they seem to get massive bonuses for failure 😀
***The first step is always the hardest *******
July 31, 2012 at 8:21 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/30/2012)
SQLPhil (7/30/2012)
Those that survive, or perhaps thrive, get promoted.
An interesting observation there Steve. Unfortunately I've seen too many examples where bad managers are promoted to get them out of the position they're in. Those that are good at their jobs are held there and not given the opportunity to move on to bigger and better things. Of course, this is usually because of the bad boss at the helm, a culture that has developed over time, or the fact that it is too much hassle to sack someone.
Why is that? I've been trying to tackle this issue, but haven't come up with a good way. Why can't we let people go for being bad managers? Or bad workers? It's odd, to me.
Often, we don't let bad managers/personnel go because the person who hired/promoted them then has to face "I was wrong" issues. I've seen a lot of people kept on in order to maintain egos intact for those who made the mistake in the first place. Seen a previously very successful business die because one of the owners hired a complete idiot as the VP Marketing, and then couldn't take charge of the mistake when sales started declining as soon as she started working.
Add in the ego factor of "Joe doesn't get a good product, but I'm a good manager and I should be helping him more" instead of "Joe doesn't get a good product, and I've tried to help him, but it's not working". The second feels like you're insulting yourself, and pride kicks in.
Also, most businesses don't really keep solid performance metrics for personnel, managers or otherwise, and really can't figure out how to do so. That makes it hard to terminate underperforming people, when you can't easily, objectively identify them in the first place.
Plus, there's the human tendency to sympathize with other people and to want to defend the weak/helpless. Unfortunately, someone who is struggling to get a job done does generally push that button, often pretty hard. Add that to guilt for making someone hunt for work, and knowing that people "fired for cause" don't get unemployment benefits, and it feels mean. The kind of ruthlessness that makes that kind of thing easy to do is also the kind that makes for a really bad manager in the first place.
Add those together, get the situation you're talking about.
Edit: Fixed typo
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
July 31, 2012 at 10:06 am
Jeff Moden (7/30/2012)
Just a sidebar... my favorite bosses are the ones that hire people for their talent and then get the hell out of the way and let those people use the talent they were hired for.
And, very important, recognize that we don't all fit the same mold. I know bosses that hire for talent, and pretty much stay out of the way, but that demand everyone in IT have "people" skills! Duh! If technical people had as good of peopel skills as front office people, we would suck at being technical just like all of them do!
A bit of a generalization I know. There are tech folks who can talk the talk, but that is somewhat rare. Since I have consulting experience I can do both sides, but I am not as good at either as someone who specializes in one or the other. I know it is not possible to be an expert at everything, why can't managers understand that?
Dave
July 31, 2012 at 12:57 pm
What is interesting is reading the LinkedIn profile of previous "bad" managers. Their perception of themselves appears radically different from the way their underlings remember them.
Has anyone suggested to their manager a way in which the manager might improve?
July 31, 2012 at 1:06 pm
David.Poole (7/31/2012)
What is interesting is reading the LinkedIn profile of previous "bad" managers. Their perception of themselves appears radically different from the way their underlings remember them.Has anyone suggested to their manager a way in which the manager might improve?
Worse than that. The field I'm actually educated and trained in is metamanagement analysis. That means analyzings groups and their leaders, policies, workflows, culture, communications patterns, data analysis styles, and so on. Never have had any formal training on being a DBA, but I've got more hours on group dynamics, team building, morale analysis/repair/enhancement, et al, than an MBA does.
So, yeah, I've let both past and current managers know what they're doing well, poorly, and so on. I know how to do it without insulting anyone, so it's usually well-received. When it's not, that's my fault, and means I failed some point of analysis. That's only happened to me once, so I guess I'm doing okay on that point.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
July 31, 2012 at 1:12 pm
The best boss I had only one thing that really stood out. Common sense, I can't being to explain the difference it made to the work culture. The worst boss I had ( i quit and started my own company because of him and I guess I should thank him for that) was stubborn. So i guess they both helped me get where I am today.
August 1, 2012 at 7:59 am
The worst boss I had went to jail and I am still proud today to say I helped put him there. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
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