I was very lucky coming up in the business world. I worked among smart and ethical people for many years. I only had a few lousy managers during that time.
It wasn't until I started writing columns and hearing from working people around the world that I saw how many inept and morally-challenged managers were at large in the corporate, institutional, startup and not-for-profit worlds.
I started an online community in 1999. The community grew to be very large. I talked with working people every day, and the stories I heard from them were horrendous.
There is a great deal of fear in the workplace. There is fear at every level. Fear is the glaring and ubiquitous business topic that almost never gets talked about. We talk about plans and schedules. We obsess over metrics and yardsticks.
No one ever says "How are you guys feeling? How am I doing as your manager? Is there anything I should be doing that I'm not doing? Are there sticky or unaddressed topics we should get out on the table?"
If you want to understand an organization and its culture, look no further than the employee handbook. The handbook is the window to the corporate soul. Fearful managers rely on bureaucratic rules and policies to keep people in line and keep them guessing.
Real leaders say whatever they need to say. If a true leader is unhappy with you for some reason, he or she will say so. S/he'll get it out in the open.
Cowardly managers would never be so direct. They'll stab you in the back and you'll have no idea why.
When I started traveling around the U.S. and abroad talking about healthy workplaces, I met quite a few fearful managers. They would not describe themselves that way, of course.
No one every said "I know that the things I do and say at work are beneath me and unfair to my employees, but I'm in a state of great fear right now. I'm afraid to buck the system and I don't know what to do." I never heard that.
What I heard instead was "We have policies in our company for a reason! Don't ask me what those reasons are -- it's not for me to ask. My job as a supervisor is to enforce the policies - I don't ask questions. I just do my job!"
The genius of bureaucracy and the top-down organizational framework is that no one has to take responsibility for anything he or she does. The hierarchy lets anybody pass accountability up the line.
"Don't blame me for the soul-crushing policies here!" is the weenie whine I heard over and over. "What am I supposed to about it?" I have even heard CEOs blame their broken company cultures on someone else. It is easy to pass the buck.
When we were little kids we would never have let another kid get away with bullying or sneaky behavior. Back on the playground we knew which kids were good to their word and which ones couldn't be trusted.
As we grow up and go to work we forget that the playground rules are still in effect and that our trusty guts know the stand-up people from the toadies and boot-lickers.
Still, it is easy to buy into a broken system. Still today I get mail every day from folks who say "I hate my job. I do as little work as possible. I just dial it in. That's not my fault! It's a horrible company."
The folks who write this kind of message to me don't see that they are part of the problem. They feed Godzilla every day.
Here are six policies and practices that cowardly managers love. These policies keep employees on edge and drive great people away, but fearful managers need policies like these to retain the control of the troops they so desperately crave.
If a fearful manager didn't have these command-and-control policies in place, he or she might have to tell the truth. He or she might have to stand up for something or make a leadership decision, and that is what cowardly managers hate to do.
Big Brother Software
There are software applications that will count your employees' keystrokes and report them back to you.
There are applications that will measure the number of minutes and seconds your employees spend at every website they visit, from the website of the funeral home where their grandma's funeral is being organized to EPSN or
If you trust your employees, you don't need to count their keystrokes or snoop on their online browsing. You trust them to get the work done, and they do. If your employees need a mental break, then maybe the work is badly designed.
Zero-Sum Salary Raises
Many of us grew up with annual performance-and-salary-review systems based on the dog-eat-dog notion that if you get a few pennies more in your paycheck at review time, I must get a few pennies less.
It is poor management to pit employees against one another that way. In healthy organizations each manager submits an annual salary budget including the raises he or she plans to give team members, and the budget gets approved or it doesn't.
It is lazy and foolish to tell managers "You get a four percent increase to dole out as you see fit." It is even worse to say "And don't even think about giving everybody four percent!" That would be too easy. That would be too human.
360-Degree Feedback
360-degree feedback is one of the worst management practices ever to come down the pike. It abandons honest, person-to-person coaching in favor of sneaky behind-the-back reviews that employees submit anonymously for one another.
If your company is using 360-degree feedback incorrectly to give employees a back channel for reporting inappropriate managerial behavior, then your feedback mechanisms don't work.
Cowardly managers love 360-degree feedback not only because it keeps co-workers from trusting one another but also because it puts the burden of managing people on the employees themselves, leaving the manager free to bluster and whine.
Insensitive Bereavement Policies
There are many organizations that require their employees to bring in a funeral notice in order to get paid for two or three days of time off when a family member dies.
Here is a Human Workplace bereavement leave policy:
"If someone in your immediate or close family should pass on, please take a few days to attend to your family and to grieve before coming back to work. Please let your manager know your requirements and please accept our condolences on your loss. We leave the definition of family up to you."
If you don't trust your employees, why do you have them on your team?
No Reference Policies
When you are interviewing for a job, it's important to ask "Does your company provide references for people after they leave your employment? I ask that not because I'm planning to join your firm and leave any time soon, but because the presence or absence of a no-references policy is an important cultural marker."
Indeed it is! Companies that won't give references for former employees because they don't trust their own managers not to slime people are not places where you want to work.
Paper Trails
When a fearful, weenie-tized manager wants to get rid of someone, they'll start a Paper Trail. They'll start to document the things you say and do, and they won't tell you about it until you're practically out the door.
Paper trails are disgusting crutches for people who should never have been promoted in the first place. If you trust your employees, you'll sit down and talk frankly with them when something goes wrong.
