RE: 10 signs of incompetent managers

I do not fully agree with the blog post by Toni Bowers on TechRepublic, it should have been called "10 signs that may mean an incompetent manager"

Here is what I have to say:

Comments on 10 signs of incompetent managers

1. Bias against action:
Decisions taken without considering appropriate information or complete information at hand may lead to a disaster, maybe in a long-term if not short. Getting ones hands on approrpiate information may require time, the amount of time that David Ogilvey may categorize within beyond "today".
A decision may be a part of some competition that dictates urgency; in that case the decision maker should not even stick her fingers in to the competition without the availability of appropriate information, unless the decision maker has some sort of assurity for information retrieval at some appropriate and reasonable time in the future. Urgent decisions based on incomplete or inappropriate information may also lead other parties involved in the competition to damages, only if you give a dime about others.

2. Secrecy:
Being pushed for a challenge and being actually challenged are two entirely different phenomenons. An employee might believe she is challenging you based on the extent of her intellectual capabilities but that might actually not be a challenge for you that may safely be ignored; sercrecy is a better approach if you have that kind of elements within your team.

3. Over-sensitivity:
Totally cool, I can't stand "Wilting Violets".

4. Love of procedure:
Totally not in agreement! Let's break it down by "calling titles" and "rule book":

Calling by names may create a family oriented work environment that may lead to a conflict of interest for the Manager. When it comes to a "its you or the company" situation they then tend to care more about the employee rather than the company. Managers are paid to work for the company rather than for the employees, in a situation like that. In a family oriented work culture, one tends to be biased; there is always a better one and they are out there, give them a chance.

Policies and Procedures aka Rules are developed and implemented for a reason, they are synonymous to national Law. Laws are not made to be broken in any case unless otherwise stated exceptional by that specific Law. Rule enforcement is a(n) (unorthodox) method of discipline enforcement within an organization.

I would term keeping the "Rule Book" policy as the most important for organizational growth and for meeting its future objectives. This is the most difficult part of a Manager's job. Compliance with industry standards such as BS7799 require strict adherence to the "Rule Book", rule broken once may lead to a number that is within Auditor's major non-compliance list.

It is easy for hundred people to make a mess but sure not for the janitor, even worse for others who like to stay clean.

5. Preference for weak candidates:
Unless she admitted to have been threatened, it may not have been the case. Some managers prefer to hire junior candidates and build them from ground-up so they may grow as the manager or the organization see fit. Older candidates seem to have lesser tendency (or a higher resistence) to change, change as desired by the organization (or the rapidly advancing technologies?).

6. Focus on small tasks:
Agree! damn bureaucrats, shine in the eyes of your bosses.

7. Inability to hire former employees:
Maybe the former employees were not good enough for the standards the manager would like to set? or maybe the manager would like to give freshers a chance? Do agree to some extent though.

8. Allergy to deadlines:
Agree to that!

9. Addiction to consultants:
Lets define consultant first, excerpt from Wikipedia "A consultant is a professional who provides advice in a particular area of expertise.". That said, consultant is an expert that a manager would like to consultant realizing and admitting to a domestic deficiency. That expense may lead to a better and a sustainable product. If this is happening quite often then the manager is better off getting rid of the incompetent staff and sticking with the consultant. How bad is that? Frequent use of or addiction to anything may lead to undesired results. Addiction is bad m'kay.

10. Long hours:
Very true! They show up right before the bosses arrive or stay until they leave. Productivity and efficiency needs to be measured quantitatively and qualitatively rather than on the look-and-feel. WYSINWYG.