Let’s Chat: Bad managers are out there

By Linda Tooth on March 19, 2025.

Have you ever had a bad manager? I have experience working for businesses where bad managers were or are still working. I will not bore you with the details but let me tell you they are out there.

I have to believe that for every bad manager there is a good one waiting in the wings to either take over, or they work in a different department or even a different company. I recently came across articles identifying what we should do when we encounter bad managers, and the following is a summarization.

First, poor leadership can cost the business whether it is a profit or non-profit business. The cost can be financial, and it can also be human. If we work for a business and are witnessing behaviour unbecoming a great manager in a culture that is toxic, we as employees will either take time off/call in sick, or we will leave and find employment elsewhere.

Second, if a manager lacks vision, direct goals or even set policies and procedures they are a bad manager. Strategic goals must be set for a business, and they must be adhered to. If you work for a business that does not follow or have strategic goals, then why are you staying there?

Policies and procedures are in place within a business for a reason and a good manager would ensure that everyone follows them.

A bad manager has no vision, direct goals, or policies and procedures and does not think long term.

Third, managers just like everyone else need proper training and they need to be accountable for their actions. Lack of accountability leads to a bad manager continuing on a path that sees good employees leave or they take time off because they just cannot put another day in with a culture that is toxic.

They (bad managers) also shift blame to others when really it comes back to them. Now you may wonder who they are accountable to and that would be people who occupy a CEO, board of directors, or any higher role.

I recently saw two ladies I have known for quite a long time, and I asked them how things were going at their place of employment. They both looked at me and said they went into work three weeks ago and were both handed termination packages after 20-plus years of working for the same organization.

Management and those above them see the need to terminate long term full-time employees and go to a part-time employee model. Good luck to them.

Keynote speaker Gifty Enright’s article titled Why Bad Managers are Killing Workplace Productivity, Time for a Change sums it up beautifully. Quit killing workplace productivity, get rid of bad managers.

Have a Meowtastic Day and keep reading.

Linda Tooth is a part-time communications instructor at Medicine Hat College

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