Most of us have had horrible bosses at some point in our careers. And if we're honest, we might even admit to being a horrible boss at one point.
Related: 15 Traits of a Terrible Leader
The truth is that poor management behavior is all too common and is usually due to one factor:insecurity. All leaders have insecurities, whether they admit it or not. Good leaders want to do well for their people and the organization (What if I don't make the right decision for my employees? What if this idea doesn't work? ). But for poor leaders, insecurities often come from a personal level.
Managers with low self-awareness frequently take the impact of personal challenges and project those issues onto employees, which is the ultimate result not to appropriate insecurities. It's the equivalent of putting your insecurities in a briefcase every day and bringing them with you to work.
Here are five negative leadership behaviors caused by insecurities:
1. Bullying
This behavior usually manifests in the form of harshly inappropriate words and actions towards employees. Bullies also thrive on turning employee mistakes into public hangings – trusting co-workers and managers to condemn emails or call employees in meetings.
The justification for this kind of bad behavior is usually "this is what it takes to get the job done". Some managers believe that setting an employee's example will inspire the rest of the team to do better, when in fact it has the opposite effect. Watching your co-workers suffer public shaming only lowers morale and creates fear.
There is also often a coup at play here. The leader does not feel like he or she is in control of the situation or the people involved, and has to take the employee down a notch to prove dominance.
2. Know it all
The attitude here is one of superiority. This manager has all the answers and wants everyone to know it, to the point of putting the decision and autonomy in the hands of his collaborators.
Part of the role of a leader is to help employees to grow and develop. The know-it-all will never accomplish this task. Employees whose opinions, ideas and decisions are habitually overridden will eventually check out, become complacent or start looking for new jobs.
The leader feels threatened in their position – perhaps they are trying to prove himself as a new manager or prevent his authority from being taken away. Let me let you in on a little secret:managers who have to continually fight for their authority have no authority to begin with.
3. Lack of response
This is when the leader does not respond to requests or completely ignores the situation to avoid revealing the inexperience. The insecurity at play here is the fear of being exposed as ignorant.
This type of insecurity can come to the surface when faced with new technologies, projects that require additional skills, or when dealing with incredibly smart and capable employees. Leaders who are uncomfortable with their expertise (and their limits) will be threatened by employees who know more than they do and by situations where their lack of expertise is evident.
Management is a completely different skill than knowledge. You don't have to be the expert at everything to be a great leader. You just have to know how to get results from people.
4. Micromanaging
This leader revises details, takes projects out of people's hands, and simply renders his employees useless at every turn. Whether driven by an inflated ego (no one can do it as well as she can) or a lack of confidence in employees' abilities, the micromanaging leader is simply afraid to let go.
The leader cannot succeed on a project without stepping in to shepherd or even do the work. This often happens when a star employee has been promoted to a management position because of their technical expertise, but lacks the management expertise to really lead. Instead, she defaults to using her knowledge as a crutch, when the real job she should be doing is managing her people to success.
The hard truth is, if you're not competent to get results from other people's skills, you don't have to be a manager.
5. Avoidance
This behavior centers on fear of the unknown. Whether it's the new leader who feels in over their head or the senior leader who can't seem to make tough decisions, avoidance is a common phrase. It plays out in endless procrastination, an unwillingness to commit to audacious goals, sidestepping performance reviews, and avoiding letting horrible employees leave because of their institutional knowledge.
Leaders who operate in a place of fear will almost never make the best decisions for the team or organization. Often avoidance comes from insecurity about course corrections along the way. But in today's work environment, you'll only stay competitive if you're nimble enough to accept change when there's a better way.
Many leaders don't realize how much their insecurities are Personalities play into their management styles and how habitual these behaviors can become if left unchecked. Not only can insecurities manifest as unwanted behavior towards employees, they are often in an embarrassing way to the rest of the team – and somehow not apparent to the leader exhibiting the behavior. .
Leaders who are honest with themselves and develop stronger self-awareness can make better decisions about what they need to change to improve. Everyone has insecurities. It's just a matter of leaving them at home.
Related: 11 types of ineffective leaders
