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Five Signs Your Boss Is Incompetent

This article is more than 8 years old.

One of the most broken aspects of our broken workplace structure is that we all feel judged at work, almost all the time.

We can't relax because we feel that someone is looking down on us, evaluating us or timing us. It is somebody's job to make sure we're doing a good job. We are always under the gun.

In a Human Workplace people talk about their difficulties. There is enough trust for those conversations to happen. People can say "I'm not sure how to do this part of my job." They can share ideas without worrying that admitting you're struggling will get you fired or shunned.

Working people find themselves in jobs that bewilder and overwhelm them every day. Nearly all of us have felt unequal to our job responsibilities at some point.

I remember starting a new job and feeling like I could barely hang onto the basic facts of the job, much less remember my co-workers' names or the details and priorities of the job. I was in panic mode for three months or more.

There was no one to talk to and say "I'm drowning!"

It's a wonderful but uncommon thing to have a person nearby to coach you in a new job.

That person could mentor you and say "It's fine - you're overwhelmed. That's perfect. That's just where you are supposed to be in the learning curve right now. You're awesome. You're doing brilliantly in the job. Just relax and know that every day it will get easier. Let me know your questions, and keep breathing!"

You may be unlucky enough at some point in your career, or even right now, to work for an incompetent manager who has no business running your department.

It's a painful experience. When you work for an incompetent boss you not only have a ringside view of the constant leadership fails your boss stumbles through but also bear the brunt of his or her obvious discomfort.

When your manager is frustrated and knows he or she is struggling in the job, everybody else in the group will feel the bad energy waves emanating from his or her desk.

On the list of energetic disturbances that slow down forward motion on a team, a boss out of his or her depth is close to the top!

"Incompetent" is a cruel word, but we all know what incompetence looks like.

Here are five signs your boss is in over his or her head:

He or She is Out of Touch

Your manager will show his or her failure to grasp the role by losing touch with the activity in your department. Everyone else will know the top three or five most pressing issues and priorities, but your boss can't keep track.

He or she will ask people about unrelated issues and when they try to say "But look, this issue is critical and we have to address it today!" the boss will get agitated or say "Yes, I knew that!" when it's obvious s/he didn't.

We know what's up when our boss mouths the right words but doesn't understand what they mean. We can tell when he or she asks a question that makes it clear he or she has no understanding of the topic.

He or She Stops and Blocks Energy

A manager's fear of failure will evoke a fight or flight reaction, and many fearful managers will think "Well, heck, I'm the manager! I'm going to install some new Rules and Policies!"

Any number of huge waves could be swelling and crashing around you - real business issues that need attention and thought -- but your incompetent boss won't be deterred by reality. He or she will say "Here are the new rules!"

You can tell a boss is sinking when he or she starts implementing policies that can only stop or slow down the forward motion of your team. Maybe the boss suddenly has to approve insignificant decisions, or he or she demands to be included in certain meetings where the boss could only be a disruptive influence.

This phenomenon is called "Fear on the Hoof." In this state your boss will bluster around the department trying to exert influence however he or she can.

Your Boss Does Your Job Instead of His Or Her Own 

I still get a chill down my spine thinking about a boss I had years ago. She had no idea what her job was supposed to be. I feel a pang of sympathy for her now. She literally didn't know how to organize her time as a manager and so she tried to partner with me to do my job.

I was a Customer Service Supervisor. It was hellish having to co-occupy my job with my eager-to-help, utterly clueless boss.

She had a common new manager's problem. She believed that because she was there in that job, because her boss hired her and put her in the position, obviously she must have the right answer to every question.

She must know the answer. She was the manager, after all!  She was in charge of all sales and marketing, but she wanted to spend her day in Customer Service helping me do my job. She didn't ask me a thing. She didn't ask my teammates, the Customer Service reps, any questions either.

She never asked "Why do you carry out this activity in this way? Why do we talk with our customers this way instead of that way?" She didn't want to know why.

She wanted to change everything we did to show that the company was smart to hire her.  I had no choice. I had to find my voice and parry her instructions almost immediately. Our customers would have mutinied otherwise.

I had to find ways to gently reinforce her helpful interest and good intentions without actually following her orders. This is a muscle every working person can grow!

When your boss isn't competent or confident in his or her own job, he or she may try to do your job, instead.

Your Boss Stops Making Sense

Nearly everyone has watched an overwrought manager say something nonsensical (in the literal sense of "Those words don't form a sentence") and nearly everyone has let the moment pass because it was so awkward.

Anybody could have a slip of the tongue, but when bosses speak sentences and paragraphs that are not based in this plane of reality and that literally don't make sense, Mother Nature has spoken. Your boss's brain has left the building and pure adrenalin is racing through his or her body.

Your Manager Has No Ideas

A competent manager is always running ideas around in his or her head and sharing them with other people.

An incompetent manager doesn't deal in ideas. He or she can't stay above water long enough to have ideas.

What's more frustrating is that your panicky boss can't listen to good ideas, either. He or she can't attend.

Could you, if your fear were so intense that every breath you took felt like it might be your last?

If we could just be honest and human at work, a floundering boss wouldn't be a big deal.

We are all incompetent when we start something new.

There's no shame in being incompetent. We learn the most when we don't know a thing about a new role or a new adventure.

When a person is thrashing about in a job, everyone can tell.

As a community we could band together to help out and in Human Workplaces, that's what people do.

Still, if a person doesn't ask for help, it's considered impolite to talk about his or her struggles, and particularly so when the struggling person is your boss.

In many or most organizations it's unwise to tell your boss "Look, it's obvious that you're anxious about your job. We can see that you're having a tough time keeping up with everything you're responsible for. You're a stress case, and that's too hard on your body and your brain. How can the rest of us support and help you?"

We have no vocabulary for this kind of conversation. We've learned since childhood how to speak to authority - humbly and with your head down.

We've been trained that you don't advise the boss, because it's impertinent even to notice that your boss is floundering. You're supposed to stick to your own job and leave the boss to do his or hers!

We are all people. We can help one another. Nobody benefits when your boss is going under. It would be great if he or she would ask for help, but many struggling managers would never ask their teammates to help them.

They'd be horrified at the idea. They're supposed to be able to do their jobs, and if they're not able to pull it off, they may work hard to pretend otherwise.

The most common problem we see among new managers is difficulty organizing the role and the responsibilities. That makes sense, because a management job is very different from a non-management position. The structure of the job and the activities in it are different.

A manager job requires you to get altitude on yourself, your role, your team and your organization and that is the part most new managers are seldom taught or coached on.

The step into a management position is a mental and philosophical exercise that requires new muscles. How will a new manager gain altitude on his or her role without support for the transition? Anyone who trusts the new manager and vice versa could lend that help. It could be you and your teammates!

What do you do when you work for a boss who can't hack the job? If your boss has a force field up and you can't say "How can I help?" you can take the opposite approach.

You and any willing teammates can proactively suggest taking a project or activity apiece off your manager's plate. You can keep each conversation easy and breezy.

The frame for your conversation is "Want me to do this thing? I have time. I can do it."

You can  say "Melanie, you know that quarterly new customer report? I can do that if you want. I already do two other similar reports."

You can keep it simple and help Melanie breathe and relax into her job.

What if Melanie's distress is so bad that she is a horror to work with? What if she won't soften and talk about her difficulties, but rather hardens and becomes the worst boss of all time?

You might have to get a new job in that case. If your HR folks and Melanie's manager haven't noticed her floundering, can we have confidence that those folks really care?

The good part of a lousy situation like this one - working for a person who cannot do their job -- is that you can construct a two-lane highway for yourself and come out on top no matter which way the wind blows.

The two-lane highway works like this. First, you start an under-the-radar job search. That's one lane of your two-lane highway. The other lane is a muscle-growing exercise you'll undertake at your current job. If it's obvious that Melanie is in distress, you'll grow your muscles (vocal cords, specifically) a little more every day.

You'll suggest taking a project off Melanie's desk and if she bites your head off for being uppity, you'll say "No problem!" You will grow your truth-telling muscles and your not-worrying-about-what-your-boss-thinks muscles at the same time.

Half the stress from a difficult boss tends to come from our own reaction to the situation.

There are plenty of unfortunate bosses out there and the more we learn to bob and weave, counsel and support, stay alert and change jobs when Mother Nature tells us to, the better for us.

Managing your incompetent boss is a new skill. You can think of this adventure as earning a merit badge to wear on your chest. Once you have the badge, no one can take it away from you -- and no incompetent boss will ever faze you again!

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