Bad Managerial Advice is Everywhere, So Take What You Read With a Grain of Salt

Editor’s Note: I’m occasionally republishing some of my classic posts here on The Skeptical Guy. Here’s one that was originally published back in August 2012.

HERE’S A STORY I SAW saw over at Forbes that was so odd that it caught even my cynical and jaded eye — Six Lines Your Boss Should Never Cross.

Ok, I’ll bite. I’ve managed and supervised a lot of people during my career, and I’ve worked for some bosses who were, to put it mildly, a real piece of work. So I wondered: does this Forbes list of those uncrossable managerial lines jibe with my own experience?

Here’s the Forbes list; take a read and decide:

1. Your boss makes references to your salary in front of other staff.
2. Your boss reprimands you in front of other employees.
3. Your boss has unreasonable expectations.
4. Your boss shares too many personal details.
5. Your boss makes inappropriate references.
6. Your boss implies that sex, race, age or religion is a factor in work performance.

Why is this list so lame?

I CAN ALMOST HEAR what you’re thinking: “That’s it? That’s the list of lines the boss should never cross? How lame.”

Yes, it IS lame, and that’s because it veers between what is managerially unacceptable (something a good manager should know to never do), and what is just simply boorish behavior for a manager or anyone else.

For example, learning that it’s bad form (and legally suspect) to ever make public references to salaries is a lesson one should learn in Management (or HR) 101. Praising in public and criticizing (reprimanding) in private is part of that lesson, too.

But sharing personal details, making inappropriate references, and implying that sex-race-age-religion is a factor in work performance are all things that are just boorish and inappropriate for anyone in the workplace to be discussing in a public setting — whether it is a boss or someone else. It’s just too much information and too polarizing for a discussion on the job.

When “unreasonable expectations” are the norm

THERE’S ONE ITEM on this list of boss “don’t’s,” however, that confused me mightily, because it is something that just about all hard-driven and demanding bosses do all the time — that is, having “unreasonable expectations.”  As the Forbes article explains:

“This one is tricky, as it may be difficult to determine whether the boss’s expectations are unfair. The bottom line is that managers need to communicate their expectations for work performance clearly, they should assist employees when needed, and set reasonable deadlines for projects.”

I’ve worked for both good bosses and bad bosses, and a common denominator in both cases was the notion of setting “unreasonable expectations.”

With bad bosses, those out-of-line demands came with browbeating, verbal abuse, and (frequently) threats and bullying. I had one boss who spent the greater part of our last year together telling me that “I don’t think you’re up to this challenge,” and, “I don’t think you are able to make these changes” even though I had never, ever not been up to the task of driving change while working for him.

That left me with the implied “and this means we’ll have to replace you” that was both menacing and frightening — and not the way a manager should ever treat a trusted subordinate.

But I’ve also worked for really wonderful bosses who also had “unreasonable expectations,” but they didn’t see them as unreasonable. What they saw, instead, was that they were “setting the bar high” in the hopes that it would motivate me to hit it or get pretty close in the process. In their mind, “unreasonable expectations” were what good managers asked of their people because it drove them to push harder and give a better effort.

How good and bad bosses differ

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN how good and bad managers handle over-the-top expectations is how they react when you don’t hit them. Do they yell and scream and threaten to fire you, as the bad bosses do, or, do they use it as an opportunity to mentor and coach you about how you can get closer and perhaps even exceed what some might view as unreasonable?

Good bosses (and HR professionals) know all this. They understand that setting the bar high is what successful managers do — just as they know that setting the bar high may mean that those working for them will fail to hit it when it is set at a level that many would view as “unreasonable.” It’s how the boss reacts to that failure (if it even is that) that is the key.

Yes, there are lines out there that managers should never cross, but you won’t find a meaningful discussion of that here at Forbes. My guess is that you can come up with better suggestions for those never-to-be-crossed managerial lines than this Forbes writer did.

It also reminds me of some wisdom you have probably heard before — “Take what you read with a grain of salt.”  

That has never been more true than it is right now.

Other trends and insights 

And your latest dose of AI news … 

• When Will the Trillions Invested in AI Pay Off? Sooner Than You Think (From JoshBersin.com)
• CEO Poll: Where Is AI Really Adding Value? (From ChiefExecutive.net)
• More people are using AI to hire and be hired (From HRBrew.com)
• Israel launches multi-million initiative to attract top global AI talent (From CTech)
• Why Is It So Hard for AI to Win User Trust? (From Knowledge at Wharton)
• Strategies to build an AI-enabled workforce (From Forbes.com)

Stories That Got Lost Because of the Olympics 

• So, Human Resources Is Making You Miserable? (From NYTimes.com) — The subhead says it all: “Get in line behind the HR managers themselves, who say that since the pandemic, the job has become an exasperating ordeal. ‘People hate us,’ one said.“
• NBC Boasts Olympics Broadcast Is Hurting U.S. Workplace Productivity – “And We’re Here for It” (From TheWrap.com). It’s not a giant surprise that the 2024 Paris Olympics were wildly popular, but so much so that it is causing workplace productivity declines in the U.S.? NBC, the network that broadcast the Paris Games, thinks so, but the lack of any data or specific survey data tells me this is just another case of BS from the NBC PR and marketing department.
• Declaring a “Crisis,” South Korean Firms Tell Managers to Work 6 Days a Week (From NYTimes.com) — This is part of a “demographic crisis that looms over the economy” in South Korea, as the NYT puts it, but it may be a trend that takes hold in some other places too.

Management insight of the week

Let’s Quit the Quiet Quandaries

“Stop it. Really. Let’s stop calling normal employee issues and behavior ‘quiet.’ There is no such thing as quiet quitting (doing the bare minimum), quiet vacationing (doing the bare minimum someplace else), quiet firing (setting employees up to fail), or any other iterations of the quiet nonsense.

It’s all workplace performance and communication issues that have been around since somebody first paid somebody else to do stuff. ‘Quiet’ also implies that someone is being sneaky and dishonest, which often isn’t true at all.

One of the best things about remote work is that it offers people flexibility. You can’t give employees flexibility and also require them to give you their constant, undivided attention for at least 8 consecutive hours, five days a week. And it doesn’t happen — even when the employee is at a worksite.

It’s a double standard.

If employers are going to give employees flexibility, they need to be flexible. Measure performance based on the quality of the work and whether it’s done when it’s needed. If so, it’s working great. Leave people alone. If not, it’s a regular old performance issue that requires some compassion, conversations, and coaching. None of this has anything to do with quiet.

Here’s a great article on the potential legal and practical issues when employees work on vacation and excellent advice on how to approach them. I agree with every word except ‘quiet.’ “

– Heather Bussing, in the Salary.com July 23, 2024 Newsletter

Dear Readers: I’ve been compiling this weekly wrap-up for over 20 years — from Workforce.com to TLNT.com to Fuel50 and then here at The Skeptical Guy. I’d love to know what you think, so reach out with comments at johnhollon@yahoo.com or johnhollon@theskepticalguy.com.