The Complete Lawyer

We’ve all had bad bosses – creepy, crawly, hair-raising, crazy – making ones. They come in all shapes and sizes: yellers, fumers, passive, aggressive, obsessive, oblivious, and egotistical. But have you ever considered that you might be a bad boss? Chances are, the answer is no.

While working for a litigation support company, I once had a boss whose determination to improve the bottom-line was so single-minded and narrowly focused that he failed to realize the company was suffering as a result. As president of a division of the parent corporation, I participated in regular but painful executive meetings. My anguish was compounded by the fact I had to fly 2,000 miles across the country to attend these anxiety-ridden “let’s-beat-up-the-managers” conferences, sometimes trekking through heavy snow storms and icy runways to be there. At one meeting, a shaking vice-president took a big gulp and bravely pointed out to this so-called billionaire, this self-centered Chairman of the Board with the iron fist, that employees were consistently working 90 hour weeks, not paid overtime and stressed to the max. His response? “Drive the horses harder.”

“They’ll drop at the finish line,” I retorted. It was out of my mouth before I stopped to think. (Yep, true story.)

We all like to think that when we’re the boss we’ll run our firms the way we always imagined a well-oiled team is supposed to work: we’ll give lots of positive feedback, maintain an open-door policy, and eschew harsh criticisms. We imagine ourselves well liked with an adoring staff, and tell ourselves we will make few bad decisions. Promotion to the top of the career ladder—here we come!

Hel-loooo!!! Are we all on the same page here?

Are You A Bad Boss?

In A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses, author Gini Graham Scott writes that employee perceptions can be difficult for a boss to judge because employees are naturally—and understandably—reluctant to criticize their employer’s behavior, even when asked to do so. “Getting reliable feedback from your employees will be very hard,” Scott says. “Even if they like you, even if they trust you, they are still dependent on you for a paycheck and most won’t risk that to tell you the truth.”

In large firms, the effect of a single bad boss is mitigated by the firm’s sheer size. There’s always someone else to go to, a committee to complain to or a different department into which to transfer. The smaller the team of employees, the greater the impact employee disaffection with the boss can have on day-to-day functioning. Tension between the team leader and staff can dramatically hurt the entire firm through reduction of employee productivity. And those in law firms know what that means: fewer billable hours—the real career buster of most revenue-generators.

In their book, First Break All the Rules, authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman analyzed the results of a Gallup survey of 80,000 managers and one million employees. Their straightforward conclusion: Bad bosses hurt their companies. The worst effect of bad bosses was to drive good people away. “So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people—in the form of better pay, better perks and better training—when, in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue,” the authors write.

To avoid becoming a bad boss, watch your staff’s behavior. Rapid employee turnover is the number one sign of management problems. If you notice that your firm has a revolving door of paralegals, secretaries and other staff with whom you directly interact, that may be a sign that you are difficult to work for.

Bad Bosses Come In Four Varieties

There are four types of bad bosses, explained below, along with some advice for avoiding the traps they set.

#1: The Micro-Manager

This boss won’t let her employees do their jobs. She generally requires employees to obtain permission for every little action. Some problems stem from the fact that many paralegals are promoted from within. They have built up their territory, established procedures and spent a good deal of time running the office themselves. So when the firm expands and more paralegals or staff comes on board, they resist letting others make the decisions they’ve been making themselves for so long. While it’s understandable that no one wants a newcomer to rock the boat, you limit the possibility of expansion if you don’t let anyone else do the work.

The best way to avoid falling into the Micro-Manager trap is to hire the best paralegals, legal assistants and other staff you possibly can and let them do their jobs. When you have confidence in your team, you’ll be able to focus on your own job and not hover over others. However, if you aren’t confident that your staff will make good decisions, you probably haven’t hired the right people.

#2: The Mini-Manager

Can’t make decisions? Put off making decisions that are not directly related to assignment areas? Not interested in anything but productivity and quality? If you answered yes, you’re a mini-manager, which is the opposite of the micro-manager. Employees depend upon their boss for quick decisions that directly impact their work and ultimately impact their personal lives. If as a manager you drag your feet, especially on critical issues such as raises, reviews, seminars and scheduling vacations, employees tend to get just plain angry because they conclude that you don’t care. Once your staff realizes that nothing is urgent for you, their work will reflect the same lack of urgency. Timely decision-making and paying attention to decisions affecting home life all factor into your reputation as a boss. Don’t hang your staff out to dry simply because you can’t or won’t make a decision outside the scope of the assignment. Find the time, resources or support to make your staff’s issues matter.