The Effects of Bad Managers

Leadership

Managers who lack leadership skills hamper workplace efficiency and morale. For example, leadership consultant John Baldoni notes that efficiency suffers under indecisive managers. That's because there may be little or no teamwork to accomplish common goals that should go forth with a manager's guidance. Managers who fail to lead also may let the people they oversee take the blame when things go wrong. That kills morale among employees who know they received few instructions from their manager on how to carry out various tasks.

Some managers make protecting their own interests a top priority when hiring new employees. In such cases, Baldoni notes that a manager may only hire people who appear to share his views on business or have personalities that are similar to his to avoid having people challenge his decisions. The problem with this hiring tactic is that it squashes diversity among employees and potentially hampers productivity. Employees who have opinions and backgrounds that differ from a manager's can provide new ideas that may improve the way the workplace functions.

A large number of resignations in one department may be due to a bad manager. For example, insecure managers whose skills may not be as sharp as the people they oversee sometimes consider highly talented employees to be a threat to their careers. As a result, they hinder the progress of those employees by not giving them opportunities that could advance their careers. People who know they have top-notch skills to get a job elsewhere will usually do so instead of sticking around to deal with a manager's insecurities.

Bad managers may adversely affect the health of employees as well. A 2011 "Psychology Today" blog article by Ray Williams notes a study by researchers in Sweden published by the "Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine." The researchers found that employees are 60 percent more likely to suffer a heart attack or other serious heart problem if they have managers who exhibit incompetence and other bad traits. A 2011 "Health" magazine article by Matt McMillen also notes that managers play a big role in employees' well-being, because bad managers often increase employee stress levels.