Although it should be common sense that not everyone is cut out to manage other people, organizations often have a little too much faith in their ability to select staff that are up to this important task. Some managers aren’t really great at managing, but unless this is obvious to the person the manager reports to, not a lot can be done about it.
Organizations have great trouble dealing with subordinates that have legitimate problems about managers. Most organizations implicitly assume that a subordinate that has a concern about their manager is a troublemaker. Once you are labeled as a troublemaker, it can be difficult to get anyone in authority to take what you say seriously. These problems will also negatively influence your morale. A bad manager can be a career stopper as people’s first instinct is to try to improve the situation by approaching someone else in the chain of command about it. Unless that someone in the chain of command is a very close friend or family member, chances are that things are going to get worse. The worse they get, the worse you feel. When you do decide to jump ship, the people interviewing you for your next position will see a deflated and defeated person, rather than someone happy and raring to go.
If you have come to the realization that your manager is a problem, you should just grin and endure it until you can change positions. Once you’ve found alternative employment, you can make your legitimate problems about the manager known in your exit interview. The exit interview is the only forum where companies will accept subordinates commenting on the quality of their superiors because when people start to leave because someone is so bad, then something probably needs to be done about it.
