10 Traits of a Bad Leader That Many Managers in S’pore Have

Have you ever wanted to tell your manager what they are doing wrong because you absolutely can’t take it anymore?

Perhaps your manager picks on you constantly, or he/she annoys you so much that the mere sight of their face incites irk in you?

Perhaps you have lost sleep thinking of the countless ways you could, one day, chokeslam your manager, or if you prefer a more silent approach, slip a tasteless venom into your manager’s daily coffee?

Or you have one of the bosses as listed below:

Well, I don’t exactly have the solution for you (also please don’t follow the steps I listed above), but here are 10 traits of a bad leader 80% of managers in Singapore have, just so we can relate and suffer together as a nation:

1) Blame it on the employees, but not so secretly take credit

Ah. Don’t lie, you know what I’m talking about.

You’re trying your best at your new job, heck you’ve even performed some absolutely stellar work, but one slip up somewhere that’s not even remotely your fault (but somehow related to you) and your manager descends upon you like a bunch of aunties descending upon an empty bus seat.

All because your manager is a Tai Chi master who has learned the ways of shifting the blame so he/she can avoid the ire of their own bosses.

According to the laws of Yin-Yang, having the ability to shift the blame also means they have the ability to shift the credit, oftentimes to their own benefit.

2) Time management can eat one ah

Lunchtime? Meeting.

Just finished work? Meeting.

At home? Never mind, come Skype meeting make use of 2018 futuristic software.

The manager with bad time management never seems to know the concept of free time or the importance of having a ‘life’.

Here’s my solution to this: Set him/her up with a date and watch as your manager becomes inundated with future dates, having to spend time with their significant other.

And (even better) having kids so they have to take care of them instead of ‘taking care’ of you!

For the life of me please don’t be stupid and openly push them to a date; an ‘incidental’ meetup or any alternative will work fine. Of course, I also don’t condone this.

3) Egoist

It’s the manager who has three cars on their sunroof that they use as armchairs for their private pool, or the manager that has done so many things in their life you wonder why they’re still stuck in this shitty job.

Also, the manager has climbed Mount Everest in under an hour wearing nothing but a thong, and also somehow managed to rescue a fellow mountain climber who otherwise would have died under the crushing snow.

Yes, that manager. The one who knows all and has done all.

Are you here from point 7? Maybe you’re an egoist.

4) Micromanager

It’s the manager that has things to say about how you send your emails, organize your desktop, maybe even the way you file your documents triggers them.

Micromanaging isn’t a good thing (except when it comes to matters of branding and policy, in which case that’s on you).

Try to see the bigger picture and give your employees some autonomy, it will be easier for you and them, and you’ll both work more effectively in turn.

5) Never listening, perhaps partially deaf

You’ve got a great idea that you’re sure its implementation will result in 5000% returns for the company.

Unfortunately, you’ve also got a manager that tends to say “No no no no” like his life depends on it. Perhaps they’re more comfortable with sticking with what they know, because if it has worked for the past few years, surely it would work now right?

You scream internally as you watch your company descend into bankruptcy, you lose your job and your manager is smiling saying ‘This is fine’ as his office burns down around him.

6) Bad communication skills

It’s a solid project. The only problem: What on earth are you supposed to even do?

The roles aren’t even properly handed out, and instead, your manager just tells you to figure it out for yourself. I mean, that would be great, but why did they tell you to do task D when there isn’t even a task D, to begin with? What even is task C or A or B for that matter?

Miscommunication is a problem that can lead to severe consequences.

How is a team supposed to function properly and be expected to deliver great results if their instructions have been unclear from the start?

7) Unreasonable demands, please go to the moon and bring back some moon dust

Have you ever been tasked to do something that would normally take a few hours, in under one hour? Or perhaps even less.

Or maybe you have been expected to do the jobs of three people, because of budget constraints and layoffs.

Maybe I’m mistaken and you’re a superhuman who can do these things (and more), or perhaps you have a time machine that buys you even more time to accomplish these feats.

In which case I implore you to read point 3 and read it once again if you still don’t get it.

For the rest, let us suffer in silence and faux peace.

8) Picking on an employee

Okay, I’m pretty sure you have either been a victim of this or have witnessed this. You might even have been the one committing this.

There are two ways to see this: One, it’s a team bonding event where you pick on one person and everyone else bonds except for the person being picked upon.

Two, the manager just hates that person’s guts and can’t fire them for whatever reason, so they decide to make their life a personal hell.

Either way, it creates a toxic environment and really isn’t beneficial for the company.

9) Not recognizing efforts

You’ve completed that project 3 days before the expected deadline, academic scholars scream praise and Einstein come back from the dead to congratulate you for such excellent work, but the moment your manager receives it, they simply say, “Here’s your next assignment.”

That can be such a downer that it discourages you from going beyond for future projects, and I don’t have to explain to you why that’s bad.

10) The lazy one

This is the manager that knows how to delegate way too much. Sometimes they even delegate their own managerial role away.

Meanwhile, they spend days in their office kicking back and watching Netflix while earning the salary for the job that their employees are doing.

In which case maybe it’s best to slip a note under the door of their superior and pray away.

I hope you enjoyed suffering together with me on this one because I sure didn’t enjoy it.

The most common solution for all of this should be to tell your manager either directly or indirectly.

You might or might not lose your job depending on how you execute this, but hey, it’s better than suffering in silence, right?