What Makes a Bad Boss - Bad?

Nothing sparks more commentary than asking about what makes a manager a bad boss. With my Web site poll and its lengthy comments thread, I found some common themes in site visitor responses.

Want to avoid becoming a bad boss? Afraid that you may already be considered a bad boss? Just want to commiserate with other people who have bad bosses? Here are your thoughts about what makes a bad boss, well - bad?

Consensus doesn't exist, but several themes occurred most frequently in the comments the site received from readers. Bad bosses, in order of their frequency in the comments thread, do the following.

* Love brownnosers, tattletales, and relatives who report to them. They choose favorite employees and cover up and make excuses for the poor work of their incompetent favorites. They ignore selected people and discriminate against many employees.

* Fail to communicate, and may not even have, expectations, timelines or goals. Bad bosses change their minds frequently leaving employees off-balance. Bad bosses change expectations and deadlines frequently.

* Use disciplinary measures inappropriately when simple, positive communication would correct the problem. Bad bosses ignore employees until there is a problem, then pounce.

* Speak loudly, rudely, one-sidedly to staff. Bad bosses don't provide the air time for staff to respond to accusations and comments. They intimidate people and bully staff. They allow other employees to bully employees.

* Take credit for the successes and positive accomplishments of employees. They are equally as quick to blame employees when something goes wrong.

* Fail to provide rewards or recognition for positive employee performance.

These six were the top "bad boss" characteristics cited by readers. The following came up less frequently but were contributed by more than one reader. The bad boss:

* Is not qualified for the boss job by either skills or experience.

* Will not let go of problems or mistakes. The bad boss returns to discuss negative events continually and searches for faults in employees.

* Will not accept constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement. The bad boss can't deal with disagreement from employees who have their own opinions about work related issues.

* Lacks integrity, breaks promises, and is dishonest.

* Does not have the courage to deal with a difficult situation despite knowing that it is the right thing to do.

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How to Keep Your Job

By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide


In the economic chaos prevailing in the world, many employees will lose their jobs. Unfortunately, you could be one of them. Depending upon your industry, the strength of your company, your continued sales (or lack thereof), your employment role, and the decisions made by government officials, the threat of a layoff could be imminent.

Don’t bury your head in the sand and hope all of the potential threats to your job and career disappear. They won’t. These tips will help you keep your job.

* Keep your ears tuned into your work grapevine;
* Watch your company's sales and profitability;
* Observe your industry trends and employment opportunities;
* Keep a close eye on Washington or your country's government;
* Listen skeptically to your employer when you see problems not articulated.


More Thoughts About How to Keep Your Job

Now is the time to take steps to keep your job. You can keep your job, even in a bad economy. But, start soon, not later, to take the steps necessary to keep your job.

Jay Himes, Executive Director of Student Services and Programming at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, suggests you need to take a good look at yourself and your contributions. "Employees' work and accomplishments speak for themselves. Look at your organization; ask yourself, 'If I wanted to start a company that does what my firm does and I could take X number of people from here, who would I take?'

”If you aren’t on the list, why not? There are two possible reasons.

* "The company doesn’t need someone who does what you do. This is often the case for people who are far removed from the firm’s customers, or whose job is primarily rooted in the bureaucracy. If your job is about building speed bumps and not about enablement, this is a warning sign.
* "You are not providing superior value. Is this a training or education issue? Is it commitment – does your work day have work or procrastination in it? Is the issue that you have relational trouble with your coworkers?

"If you honestly evaluate yourself and move to correct the issues, there is still time. Your bosses and coworkers will notice improvement. If you wait until layoffs come it will be too late."

After you evaluate your contribution and prospects and assess the viability of your employer, you are ready to make decisions. In any case, if your current employer appears to be taking appropriate actions for these tough economic times, you will want to ensure that you keep your job – for as long as you want your job.

In a recent poll, readers weighed in on their current strategy for keeping their job.

These ten steps will help you keep your job or help you prepare for a semi-predictable, but often unanticipated, job change.


Ten Steps to Help You Keep Your Job

* Be the Go-to, Indispensible Person Who Has Needed Organization Knowledge
* Make Your Contributions Measurable and Visible to the Right People
* Make Money for the Company: Contribute to Revenue Generation, Sales, Profit
* Ask for More Work and More Challenging Assignments
* Make Sure Your Manager Likes You; Invest Genuine Time, Compliments, Attention
* Be a Low Maintenance Employee: No Complaining, Whining or Monopolizing
* Work Long Hours and Make Sure the Right People Notice
* Keep Your Personal and Professional Skills Growing and Developing
* Team Build With Coworkers: Cooperate to Achieve Goals and Success for All
* Take Your Talents and Skills to a More Recession-proof Company or Job

Switch to a More Recession-proof Job or Career

Despite your best efforts - you've done everything recommended to keep your job - but maybe the job's not worth keeping. If the information you receive, when you scope your environment at work, leaves you concerned about job security, it may be time for a job search.

Or, maybe the company's prospects leave you open for a different conversation. You're one of the lucky employees in a job and on a career path still in demand. Or perhaps it's time to consider a different career since the economy is unlikely to improve quickly.

About.com's Alison Doyle points out the twenty-five most recession-proof jobs from JobFox, the site that matches job searchers with employers. You may want to switch to a more recession-proof career or take your talents and skills to a more recession proof company.

But, in the meantime, before and while you pursue different career opportunities, focus on how to keep your job.

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Top 10 Books for Job Seekers and Career Changers

By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide


Thinking about your current job search or a career change? These books will help you find your way. Learn about the job market. Translate your most important needs, interests, and goals into a rewarding career. Find techniques for a successful job search. These are my long term favorites. Gift a favorite person with the opportunity to explore their desired future.


1. The About.com Guide to Job Searching
Alison Doyle, About's Job Searching Guide, has written a clear, straightforward, comprehensive book that tells you how to get a job. Everything you need for job searching in one handy guide, the book also emphasizes using the Internet for job searching. Doyle's strengths as both a career professional and as an online job search specialist are evident and valuable for the job searcher.

2. Rites of Passage at $100,000 to $1 Million+
John Lucht's classic job search book for executives and professionals is rewritten, updated, and includes new information on using the Internet for job searching. I have recommended this book for a long time. Great information about working with job searching professionals.

3. Now, Discover Your Strengths
Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton follow up on their excellent book about what makes great managers great by talking about 34 positive personality factors. Using their StrengthsFinder profile, you can learn a lot about what makes your talents and skills unique. Use the information to select the best field or career for you or the best job in your current field.

4. What Color Is Your Parachute?
Richard Nelson Bolles first offered this book over twenty-five years ago and it remains one of the best career search guides on the market. Rewritten every year, it stays current and fresh. It helps the newer job searcher discover careers congruent with the direction of his interests, values, and needs. It's a good overall job search manual.

5. Insights for the Journey
Obviously, I am a John Lucht fan. This marvelous little book provides insight into moving up through the ranks of management in your company. What's really important for your career development? Find out here from talks with thousands of leaders in a management and executive search career that spans over thirty years.

6. Don't Send a Resume: And Other Contrarian Rules...
Okay, your standard job searching methods aren't landing you the job of your dreams. Maybe Jeffrey J. Fox can provide some different approaches that will work for you. Read the book for several new ideas to complement the classics shared above.

7. Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want
I first read this book in 1986 and yes, I did do the career seeking and developing exercises. I've always been happy I did. This book helped me to decide to start my consulting/writing practice. I've never looked back. Thank you Barbara Sher and Annie Gottlieb.

8. It's Only Too Late if You Don't Start Now
One of Barbara Sher's best. People who read this book universally say that they wish they had read it ten years earlier. Filled with unconventional wisdom about choices we make in the second half of our lives, no matter where you draw that line, you'll use the ideas in this book. Check it out.

9. Free Agent Nation
Have you considered becoming an independent contractor? Daniel H. Pink tells us that the fastest growing employment trend is free agency. Be your own boss. Learn what it takes. Explore your options. I've never regretted my choice for a minute.

10. I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Barbara Smith and Barbara Sher urge you to live the life you were meant to live, doing the work you dream of having. You can create the work you want from what's important to you in life. These authors help you find out how. Learn more.

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How to Make a plan to find a new job

If you are starting to feel that the job you are in does not have any benefit to you anymore, start making a plan to find a new job that is fulfilling and fun.


•Step 1
Don't ever leave a job in one angry moment. Calm down and think seriously if there are ways you can make your job better. Maybe a change in your attitude can help you feel good about the job you are in. If not, know that there are probably other options and you are responsible for getting the job you want.

•Step 2
If you don't feel brave enough to leave a job, think to yourself "is this the best job I could ever get?" I bet the answer will be no. Have faith in yourself. Repeat several times a day "there is a better job for me."

•Step 3
Let your mind wander to activities or ideas that make you go "oooo" You want to have that bubbly feeling in your heart. That is a clue that you need to research that idea more. If you put some importance on what excites your spirit, you have a better chance of finding a job that you like.

•Step 4
Search the internet for ideas of the best places to work. You might as well work somewhere that is known for happy employees and most likely good benefits. Ask your friends what they like about their jobs. You may get a different outlook that some people actually do like their jobs. Just letting people know your intentions can bring up job possibilities.

•Step 5
Get your finances in order. Take the time to see exactly how much money you would need to feel comfortable while you are in transition. You may have a family or others that count on you to keep a steady income. Even if you can't leave your current job immediately, starting to make your plan will make it easier to stay until you can leave.

•Step 6
Look at the career center of you community college or go to www.careerbookstore.com for ideas of challenging and exciting jobs. Expand your mind to all the possibilities and see what excites you. Maybe you would be interested in something you don't even know about yet.

•Step 7
Notice all the different interests people have and how they rolled them into unique jobs. You are brainstorming now, don't just stick to stuff you already know. Think of people who have the job of training dolphins or tracking eagles or guiding river rafting. What if you could do anything you want with no road blocks? It couldn't hurt to fantasize! Nothing is too wonderful to be possible. Make a plan, trust yourself and go for it! You deserve to be happy! See my article on finding out what makes you happy.

www.ehow.com

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Resume Don'ts

The Don't List :

1.Lie. Just tell the truth. By all means, present your achievements in the best possible light, but be careful about stretching the truth. If you don't tell the truth, it will likely come back to haunt you. You may not be able to perform the functions of the job very well and get yourself fired. The truth may come out at some point and according to company regulations, you guessed it, you get yourself fired. It's not worth it.


2.Be repetitious. If you performed a specific task at more than one job, list it in one place only. The employer only needs to know that you are capable of handling something, not that you have done it more than once. Find something else that the employer can benefit from knowing about you and include that instead.


3.Rule out volunteer work. Consider non-paid positions where you made a contribution. You probably learned a lot from volunteering at a local charity or from the office you held in the district PTA. Those are valuable insights into your character and the employer will be glad to read about them in your resume.


4.Create your own resume format. The formats that are in use exist for a reason...they work. If you are considering starting your own resume trend, let's just pause a moment and reflect on why that is such a bad idea. Ok, the moment is over. Use the prescribed formats and save yourself some time and hassle.


5.Rush through this whole process. You will have a much more effective resume if you take the time to do it right. How does that phrase go? If you don't have the time to do something right, you probably don't have the time to do it over. You can do this! You know you better than anyone else – and that's all you need to get this task completed!

professional-resume-example.com

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Resume Do's

The Do List

1.Focus on the employer's needs, not on your own. You have to clearly address your accomplishments and skills in a way that an employer will want to find out more about you. (Read: Call you for an interview)


2.Keep your resume as short and sweet as possible. Remember that an employer is only likely to scan it for a few short seconds. It has to pack a punch right away. Use Action Keywords to bring your resume to life.


3.Proofread what you have typed. Proofread it again. Have your best friend look it over, then have your parents take a look at it. The more people who proofread it, the more likely you are to ensure it's free of typos and grammar errors.


A personal example: My husband recently decided to switch jobs. He was working with a headhunter and, of course, had to update his resume. We worked on it together, he worked on it himself and we both took turns proofreading it. We even had our 13 year old daughter proofread it. The headhunter read it, made some suggestions, we all proofed it again. We thought it was flawless. At a job fair in Dallas a few weeks later, my husband met with the headhunter and some other men to go over everything. Everything looked good. Three to four prospective employers read over his resume – and of course, he had a copy in front of himself, too. A few days later, he was contacted for a second interview and that same resume went through 3-4 other people. It wasn't until he was taking a tour of the manufacturing facility that he realized that one of the dates was not in chronological order.

You can't proofread too much!


4.Use quantifiable accomplishments wherever possible. If you increased revenues at the Super 24 Movie Complex, determine the extent to which you contributed to the monthly increase and use that number in your resume. People like numbers. If you saved the Mr. Friendly Syrup Company money by finding a better way to package their syrup, then find out how much was saved and state that.


5.Use good quality paper. Keep the color neutral, such as white or ivory. Linen paper, paper with watermarks and those with heavier weight (at least 24lb or higher) are great choices.


professional-resume-example.com

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Networking Your Way to a Great Job (part 2)

Listen to them

The easiest way to get someone to open up is to ask them a few probing questions and let them talk. You will find out more about them in a matter of moments than if you read their autobiography.

As they talk, two things happen. The first one is obvious. You learn about them. The second is not obvious, but perhaps it is even more important than the first. The other person becomes "invested" in you. The more they share, the more they like you because you actively listen to them.

Did you catch that phrase? You have to ACTIVELY LISTEN to them. Genuinely and sincerely listen to them. Do not just nod here and there. What they are telling you can provide you with the information you need to create future conversations (and situations) that benefit YOU. Networking your way to a great job means you have to pay attention.



You want a great job, right? Keep reading

People are motivated by a variety of things. When you find out what motivates them, you can help them achieve what they want in terms that benefit you, too. How does this benefit you in your job search?


Read this example:
Cara already understands the process of active listening. She knows that people like to talk about themselves and that they share the secrets of their hopes and desires when they do so.

She enters a room where a networking group is gathering and surveys the people inside. Before she gets three feet into the room, she is greeted by a nicely dressed gentleman named Brent. Within 15 seconds, Cara turns the conversation to his interests by asking him why an obviously successful man like him would need a networking group to further his career. He laughs and begins to talk.

Cara learns that Brent started the group as a means to grow his business while opening himself up to some possible new ventures. Of course, the name recognition doesn't hurt him, he confides.

Now that Cara knows a lot about what makes Brent tick, she can guide this conversation or future conversations toward meeting Brent's needs (if she chooses to follow up on it).

How could she help Brent and herself, too? The possibilities are endless, but here are a few:


•Offer Brent a handful of key ideas to grow his business
•Suggest a personal public relations campaign designed to generate additional name recognition among his peers and within the community as well
•Present a business opportunity which diversifies Brent's interests while increasing his revenue base
Cara could present any one of these ideas to Brent with a plan to see any given project through to its completion or until a specific date.

Bingo, she now has a job which she created by listening to others and fulfilling their needs.

Yes, it can be that easy
The important thing to realize is that you have to become secondary in the process of networking. It will not be about you or your needs. This is not an easy task because we are all hard-wired to think about ourselves. When you focus on others, though, you have the ability to gain some amazing rewards. Not only will you be more successful in life and in business, but people will actually LIKE YOU MORE because you are an active listener.

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Networking Your Way to a Great Job (part 1)

Some people call networking a "hidden job market". Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is not like a job fair where finding a great job is the objective of the event. In a networking situation, the goal is to get to know other people and develop mutual relationships that benefit one another. In some cases, it just happens to lead to a great job offer.

The outcome in meeting other people in any given situation can lead you to find a great job whether it is the stated purpose of the meeting or not. Everything depends on what you say and do. Networking your way to a great job is about relationships.



The first thing to realize is that very few people want to meet other people just for fun at networking events. Everyone has an agenda. This isn't a negative, just a statement of fact. Be prepared mentally to recognize this fact and use it to your advantage. Each person is there for a reason. Each person has a purpose in mind.

Everyone wants something or they wouldn't be there.
The way to use this to your advantage is to supply each person you meet with what they are looking for. How are you supposed to figure out what they are after?


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