“Manageing up” basically means pulling a Jedi mind trick on your incompentant boss to compensate for the fact they are a moron.
For example, I had this once fuck-head for a boss who only wanted to know the progress of the project in terms of % of 100. Why this is usefull for anything but the highest level status report is beyond me but that’s all he wanted. No issues. No timetables. So the way I would “manage up” for this guy is to give him some arbitrary number each week. “Yeah…we’re at …uh %69”.:rolleyes:
Another example was a manager who had absolutely no understanding of technology. Only problem is the project was an Oracle database implementation. She insisted we use notepad to write SQL procedures, probably because that’s all she understood. So basically, you “manage up” to someone like that by completely ignoring their instructions and do it the right way when they aren’t around.
Incompetant bosses are the worst. They have no idea what they are doing. They have no clue how long stuff takes or how much effort is involved. If you help them out, they are the hero. If you fuck up because of them, you catch the flak.
Basically, CYA (cover your ass) is always the best approach. Remember that all you should care about is getting paid. The rest of it is bullshit.
GMR - Gosh don’t make me blush…I think it takes a certain amount of understanding to be a good psych instructor. I mean when you stand outside and look in, what do people like me really do? We teach students the processes, and reasons why we feel and behave the ways we do. Compassion for a fellow human being is not a learned behaviour…you have to want to have it. The psych instructors you may have had were obviously well intentioned people. I always walk into class thinking that I am going to give a student the benefit of the doubt…unless they prove to me they don’t want it, or deserve it. And above all, I like what I do, and it shows!
Svt4Him said:
When in a clinical role you are very correct, that is what we are trained to do, and many other things as well. This woman pete is dealing with is his Boss. One generally does not council their Boss. Plus Pete worked in Marketing his entire life, he was not counseling people, he was telling advertising companies what colors entice, stimulate, and make customers buy more product. Among other things. There is quite a bit of psychology in Advertising and marketing. We are not all in the clinical realm.
I think that first sentence really encapsulates it. I’ve just noticed psych instructors tend to not have the Petty Classroom Tyrant mindset that quite a few of my other instructors have had. Very interesting.
A friend of mine worked for a boss who was a true ass. Always trying to pin his incompetence on others. Truly, he sucked. It all came to a head when my friend and the three other senior tech people (all heads of technical teams and each with many, many years of technical experience) went to the bosses boss and said “Either you fire this bozo or we’re all quitting”. The gaping black hole of cluelessness was fired within the hour.
I’ve found that intelligence has little to do with getting a mangement position, and indeed may not be a prerequisite. As has been noted, often enough timing is all you need. What IS needed in management is the ability to get people to execute a given task. Sounds like the boss in question is qualified in this regard.
It’s likely she has a read on Pete’s situation and knows she has him by the employment-world-balls. Is hers a short-sighted and unfriendly approach? Maybe. Then again she might already have guessed that he would jump to another job anyway when the job market improved, so why not infuriate him and let that drive him?
Could also be that she’s an incompetent jerk. But in any case, look who DOESN’T have the management job. Now why is that?
So to answer the OP: “What do you do when you know you are clearly more qualified than your boss, supervisor, manager etc…etc…?” You do whatever the hell you want! Do you want the boss’ job? leverage your skills, network, cut some throats and get the job! If that won’t work for some reason, do YOUR job as best you can, make sure EVERYONE knows what you do, and bring your check home to the wyfe and kids and be thankful you have a job that pays the bills.
“I’m telling you this because…” approach is a game. I think it is inappropriate to blackmail your supervisor. Managing up sounds good. It pushes aside any personality conflicts and can make the boss’ life easier.
You know, life is short. Why play games? Do your job & find something to like about it, or find another. “I’m smarter than…” is a sour grapes statement because it is irrelevant to the reality.
** Matchka** - WOW! I’m checking the boards tonight, about ready to go to sleep and you come out with this. Thank you for your post. Either you summed up the entire situation from my friends point of view or you are just a superb guess of charactor. Either way, I will direct Pete to this thread in the morning.
[sub]he doesn’t really take too much heed in message boards…I’m hoping to change his mind, as this is not your run of the mill cluck fest…[/sub]
I’d agree with Matchka. Intelligence is different from being a good manager. As Machiavelli says, nothing makes people more envious than showing off the “crown jewel” of intelligence.
As I see it, your friend has a choice between putting up with his situation, stop protecting the managerial incompetence so her flaws will be revealed or talking to those above the boss.
I dunno. I’d say that that was more of a hit-or-miss situation, based more on specific corporate cultures.
Mind you, I have certainly seen both aspects of that declaration (both shooting the messenger and managers circling the wagons), but I have also seen the situation where a good boss will kill or die to keep his/her carefully nurtured team intact. I have also seen the bad and the good management practices existing in the same company (although rarely in the same department). I have worked with several managers who were far more likely to rip someone a new one for failing to point out a problem than for being “good soldiers” and toiling on in silence.
There is a lot of bad management out there, (primarily, I suspect, because upper management (or administration) prizes administration over leadership), but any broad claim that all management has the same failings is simply too broad to be accurate.
Yeah… I have a pretty limited experience of a similar predicament, i’m obviously smarter than my boss at IT who is a graphic artist. His great ideas are usually not rooted in a good understanding of computer networks.
In my case I let the consequences of his mistakes take effect and hope that one day he will learn to LISTEN TO ME. Until then I accept no responsibility for bad decisions that I actively opposed.
Covering for your boss (or anyone) is bullshit. Let everyone see her inadequacy. It sounds like Pete is just being too nice…
GMRyujin, I once had a petty tyrant instructor. He’d go around harassing the students and making a big deal out of even the slightest goof. Once he asked me a question “name four of the…” and told me I was wrong because I named 5. Another time, he wouldn’t accept my answer because my tone of voice was wrong. He didn’t even know the material. Maybe I should ask, what do you do when you are smarter than your instructor?
This one’s even easier: do what your instructor wants, get your grade, leave, advance in life, and later come back and laugh at the poor fool whose life is so lacking in control that he needs the artifical classroom setting to have any authority at all. Remember that there is life beyond the classroom (or company), and that while you aren’t limited to that atmospere, they are.
Oh, there’s a couple things. Drop the class, if it’s an option. Suck it up and vomit out the answers he wants, if you’re that way. Or do what I did when I had one, call him “FirstName-Boy” to his face (“I don’t care what FirstName-Boy does to me”) but do so well on the (multiple choice) tests that failing you would be impossible. Of course, this requires a juvenile sense of humor and a willingness to be a complete ass, but I fit those requirements markedly well.
What I don’t understand, and I intend you no offense, is why two adults with degrees in psychology can’t follow the usual psychologically sound procedures for problem-solving of a very common and ordinary problem.
