31 mistakes bad bosses make that annoy their employees

Bosses behaving badly: 31 things your employees hate

Nobody wants to work for a bad boss. The following shocking stories were sent to nonprofitwithballs.com by disgruntled employees (and republished with permission). 

Click or scroll on to see the things bosses do that drive their workforce to distraction.

1) Involve themselves in every decision

“Don’t let any decision be made without weighing in, no matter how small, and no matter how long it will be before you have time to review the matter. You’re not too good for the small stuff, you are a man/woman of the people!” 

2) Make everyone run on their schedule

“Be 20 minutes late to every meeting, leave early, and then get angry when a minor decision is made without your input […] Insist on being the final decision maker for every aspect of every project, but then don’t make decisions in a timely manner. Wait until it’s the eleventh hour and make everyone scramble to get the work done.”

3) Correct small mistakes to demonstrate that they're smart

“Review and approve letters. Then change your mind over inane word choice once they are printed. Randomly ‘correct’ already correct grammar or spelling on documents given to you to sign in pen, ensuring that even once you understand it’s correct, your staff has to reprint it.”

4) Refuse to give any feedback

“Don’t give any feedback, either positive or negative, ever. But do overreact when people fail to correctly intuit what you want.”

5) Spend time on less important things so that they can ignore more important things

“Insist on doing tasks someone else could do while unmade decisions pile up on your desk to the point of nearly halting anything getting done.”

6) Refuse to let people do their jobs, then punish them for it

For example, “Hire me to be your legislative director, then forbid me from calling certain legislators’ offices directly, and then give me low marks on my evaluation for not developing those relationships.”

7) Don’t learn new skills or improve existing ones

You’re the supervisor, why should you learn stuff when you have people to do stuff for you? “Fail to learn even the most elementary technology like email attachments; make your young staff do that in addition to their work.”

8) Treat people the same, regardless of their experience

“Manage your employees with 10+ years’ experience with the same scrutiny you would apply to your interns. And then tell them that their interns are much more open to feedback.”

9) Never communicate about anything unless it’s trivial

"Focus your communication on small, insignificant things. Don’t tell anyone about challenges such as delays in payroll, changes in the budget, elimination of departments, or an awesome new staff/consultant you just hired!"

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10) Be inconsistent and unpredictable

“Keep people on their toes by being totally inconsistent in terms of communication (both style and content), expectations, feedback, and long-term vision for the organisation. Everyone loves a good game of workplace Russian roulette!” 

11) Be inconsistent and unpredictable (2)

Also “Change the expectations every time you meet with your employees. Berate them for not meeting the new expectations you just told them about and for instead wasting all their time trying to meet the expectations you set last month. Then constantly ask your employees to validate you.”

12) Build a sense of importance by talking about how busy they are all the time

“I had a supervisor constantly telling me how she worked late and on weekends. As if they are busier and thus work harder than everybody else. Often the same people who talk excessively at work!” 

13) Evaluate employees on goals they have never seen before...

"...during a performance review. Bonus points if some of those goals are actually physically impossible to achieve.”

14) Belittle their team over things both significant and insignificant

"When a soft draft deadline is missed, raise it at a staff meeting by throwing your hands up and shouting about how everyone’s incompetence will ensure the closure of the organisation. Keep telling everyone in staff forums how the whole organisation and its success is based on what you downloaded from your head 15 years previously. Keep saying loudly how you’re the only one with any ideas and it’s clear that no one else can think.”

15) Don’t set clear priorities

“Always imply that latest idea is top priority but don’t ever reschedule existing deadlines.” 

16) Passive-aggressively remind people of the power they hold over them

Make “jokes” often about firing people, then laugh it off. It’ll remind your team that you have a great sense of humour.

17) Active-aggressively remind people of the power they hold over them

“First staff meeting (first day of supervisor’s new job): ‘I know you people have won all sorts of awards for being the best in the business, but I want you to know I have no problems firing anyone who is not doing their job.’”

18) Cross personal boundaries

“'I was taken out to drinks by one of the senior people and got very horribly and embarrassingly drunk with her. We had a great time being very friendly and joking around though and I thought we had bonded. When I returned to work on the Monday she acted as if we had never gone out together or interacted as friends.' Or “Shout ‘but I love you!’ through the office wall at your development director who is trying to be blissfully engaged to someone else.”

19) Physically invade people’s spaces

“Hug all your employees every day, and get really close to them when talking. If they have told you they don’t want to hug their boss at work, hug them anyway. If you’re standing up talking to them and they take a step backward to get some personal space, definitely take a step forward.”

20) Delegate autonomy, but don’t really mean it

“I want you to make the decision. I don’t want to be involved. You’re experienced and you are driving this project. [Later:] You made the wrong decision. Here’s what I really wanted you to do. Now go and change everything.”

21) Play favourites with team members, and make it obvious

“Gave Christmas gifts to favourite employees, but not everyone was a favourite. Keep them wrapped and with tags in your office so everyone can see them.”

22) Criticise people in front of their coworkers

"Don’t pull them aside and give feedback. Public humiliation [means] everyone gets to learn. When applicable, use reply-all to unleash your fury on a team member."

23) Send subtle messages to employees that their role is not a good fit for them

“Leave job posting announcements on desks of employees with notes saying, ‘You should look into this.’”

24) Refuse to learn anything about their employees’ leadership and working styles

"Why would you assume that people have diversity of perspectives and ways of working. You’re the boss. Make sure people adapt to working with you, not vice versa."

25) Become defensive at the slightest constructive feedback

“Ask for feedback in meetings and then bully and belittle everyone who opens their mouth. Then when people don’t contribute to meetings, act passive aggressive about it ‘I guess no one has anything to add and we’ll just have to go with my plan.’ Solicit feedback on said plan in emails and other meetings until someone finally says something rash and then give them a written warning for insubordination.”

26) Multi-task while interacting with others

“[My] executive director browsed her phone during every staff meeting, typed on her phone during staff presentations/discussions of issues, always took phone calls from her kids.”

27) Take credit for employees' ideas and work

“Ask others for ideas on a project, then pitch those ideas as your own, then make others carry out the grunt work of their project idea while getting all the credit for having ‘thought’ of it.”

28) Be completely insensitive about pay

“Tell staff about your raise and bonus when they are receiving little or none.”

29) Be paranoid that their employees are out to get them

“Change the password to the shared hard drive and refuse to give it to any employees that you deem ‘untrustworthy’ regardless of their need to access said drive for their jobs. After employees hand in reports to you, hide them and accuse others of trying to steal company secrets. Forbid the entire office from speaking to certain employees because you ‘don’t want them to be distracted.’ 

30) Be paranoid that their employees are out to get them (2)

"Important: don’t tell the employee that no one is allowed to speak with them and wait for them to go crazy from the paranoia.” 

31) Get drunk at a company event

“Get drunk at our gala while wearing a strapless dress that simply won’t stay up so that I get to have a conversation with the most intimidating and rich board member about how I need to DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW about that shameful spectacle.” Also, “Get drunk at our gala wrap-up meeting, drop your crystal wine glass into the pool, throw up on the host’s custom-painted powder room walls.” 

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