This Is The One Trait That Bad Bosses Have, According to Thousands of Employees Who Have Dealt With One

Thousands of European workers have said their piece and this is what they have to say about the qualities bad bosses have.

Worst Quality

The bosses who scored lowest were those deemed to have failed at ‘getting the job done’ by their employees

As it turns out the worst bosses aren’t those who are disrespectful or unsupportive towards their employees. A consensus of 28,000 working people from the European continent agrees that a bad boss is someone who just doesn’t seem to know how to do their own job.

This was the finding of a study that asked participants to score their manager on seven categories pertaining to their brand (or lack thereof) of leadership. Among the categories bosses were scored on is the ability to support their staff, encourage employee development, and provide feedback.

In the end, this finding was found to be consistent with the idea that a bad manager is someone who is not sufficiently competent to perform their duties, according to Amanda Goodall. The tendency of some bosses to fail in this regard is also attributed by the researchers to the concept of the ‘Peter Principle’, which stipulates that managers tend to be promoted to a position that’s one level higher than their current skill set.

Effects on the Workplace

One upside of being under a less-than-stellar boss is that an employee would be motivated to set their own deadlines to keep projects running

As can be expected, having bad bosses in the workplace can spell trouble. It can cause a negative ripple effect on the rest of a company’s staff as people under them are left to their own devices to make things happen.

In situations like this, workers are advised to be proactive and seek out their boss for a professional conversation. Career expert Blair Decembrele particularly suggests that one tries to frame this talk as a means to help both an employee and their boss in improving their performance.

Meanwhile, another career expert Vicki Salemi points out that having a bad boss may be a telling sign of much bigger things that may be wrong in one’s workplace. This hunch can be an opportunity for an individual to look for better prospects in other companies.

An Important Aspect

A majority of workers say that they are more likely to stay with an employer longer if the company is committed to helping them learn, according to a LinkedIn report.

Another interesting thing the study pointed out is employees’ desire for a boss who is invested in helping them to advance their careers. The bad bosses described in the findings of the research also scored low when it comes to how much they pay attention to their workers’ development.

Professionals who belong to the Gen Z and millennial generations reportedly put a prime on their opportunity to grow and learn at work as an important deciding factor when thinking of staying with a company.