“If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.” – John Gotti

Managers who do not understand their employees and don’t have a clear vision to share with their employees are usually not the right one to follow. They are are overwhelmed with all the tasks they need to take care of and oftentimes will treat their employees in a frustrating manner creating an environment of fear and a subordination; a total killer criteria for creativity.

Yes, there are stupid managers everywhere and There is a wise quote how to distinguish good and bad managers:

• In times of success, good managers will look out of the window and praise their employees whereas in times of a crisis he will look into the mirror trying to reflect on what has happened and what he can do about it.
• A bad manager would do exactly the opposite. In times of success he would look into the mirror and praise himself whereas in times of a crisis he will look out of the window blaming everyone else but himself.

Luckily these people expose themselves quite often so that you can quickly identify who is a good or bad manager. The following list compiles things that only stupid managers would say:

 
1. …if you do not want this job, I can easily find someone else to do it. Of course there are simply lazy people, but the nature of mankind is to be a “Doer”. People usually only need to find the right things to do to get inspired. This is not only a sign that actually the manager himself did not manage to motivate the employee or that he did not manage to identify the right position for the employee. And if the employee is simply lazy, then such a sentence is just a sign of weakness. Because in such a case the only right thing to say would be “…You are fired”.

2. …you are not paid to think! They thought they would hire machines that simply execute their orders. They get sick, want overtime to be paid, bring up suggestions that might sometimes even be better than what you came up with…

3. …this was not a question, this was a command! You would never hear such a statement anywhere outside the job. Why? Because it is only in a paid relationship where people dare to say such disrespectful things. Hierarchies are important, but a manager who needs to needs to mention the hierarchy does not have any natural authority and needs to artificially create one. Smart bosses oftentimes don’t even have to claim anything. Their team will identify the need and solve it independently.

4. …who gave you permission to do this? If bosses treat their employees like children they should not expect them to continue using their brain. Nobody will be taking on any responsibilities anymore. The core question is whether they want independently acting people or executing subordinates. When applying for a job you should always ask yourself if you want to work in an environment of distrust.

5. …stop immediately what you’re doing and do this – NOW! Of course certain things require immediate attention but if such sentences come up on a daily basis this indicates a lack of prioritization skills.

6. …I don’t want to hear anything about your problems! This is a first steph to create a catastrophe. Of course sometimes employees simply want to cry about how overloaded they are and that they try to delegate the work they should be doing. But in such case a good manager would identify it and either fire this person directly or ask him/her to come up with viable solutions for their problem and make a suggestion to management.

7. …this sounds like a personal issue… Could be, but now it is also your own problem. Managers have HR responsibility, meaning that you should care about personal problems your employees have. If, for example someone is an alcoholic, this could possibly affect the entire company atmosphere, lead to health problems and accidents and if you ignore it this clearly indicates a lack of responsibility as well as incompetence.

8. …you should be happy to have a job at all! This is one of the worst things that a manager can say because it means that all the employees will be frustrated and living in fear, thus reducing their productivity which will immediately reflect back to the manager as the company’s performance will drop.

9. …everyone else here thinks exactly the same about you… A smart boss will provide each employee with constructive and comprehensible feedback. The feedback has to be personalized and stated in a first-person narrative, meaning such an issue has nothing to do with coworkers. A manager has to lead employees so they can further develop themselves. If everyone was perfect from the beginning, managers would be useless! Such a sentence simply suppresses the employee; in addition, the boss obviously doesn’t believe that his own words will have enough strength and therefore seeks the support of the crowd.

10. Social Media has no meaning in your job! Welcome to the 80’s. This is simply impossible. Each employee nowadays has a smartphone and if managers block social media on computers, they will simply use their phones. In addition, by blocking social media access for their employees, Managers clearly reduce the chance of having a crowd-sourced support system of customers as well as a viral marketing channel. This will make both customers and employees happier and strengthen the corporate communication. Again, managers have to train their employees to state the right thing about them. If they are afraid that they might post something bad about him or the company, then they should look for the problem inside themselves!