Good Versus Bad Managers
- John Karras
- Jul 17
- 2 min read
By: Dr. Zeni Siu, Ph.D., MBA www.linkedin.com/in/zeni-siu
Fractional CRO | Scaling Growth & Maximizing Profit | AI Strategist ◉ LinkedIn Rising Star 25’ ◉ Forbes Women Forum Member ◉ HBR Advisory Council ◉ Expert in Scaling Revenue through Strategic Systems & Performance
𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘃𝘀. 𝗗𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿? 75% of Americans identify their boss as the most stressful aspect of their job (McKinsey).After 20 years in performance-driven organizations, I have observed a recurring pattern where leadership problems are rarely recognized at their source. They become visible only after employees adapt to the management environment and the organization begins experiencing consequences in performance, engagement, and turnover intentions.
The main problem is that organizations often respond to the outcomes without first exploring the leadership behaviors influencing them. Akinyele and Chen (2025) reviewed decades of research and found that toxic leadership extends beyond obvious misconduct. It includes patterns such as self-serving decision-making, manipulation, excessive control, unethical behavior, and the misuse of power that are often not assessed in performance standards.
These behaviors influence more than employee satisfaction; they shape how people communicate, make decisions, and contribute within the organization. Employees will eventually adapt to the environment they work within. When people believe that raising concerns will create negative consequences, they adjust their behavior and become more cautious about the information they share and the issues they bring forward. The organizational consequence is reduced visibility. Leaders make decisions with less insight into operational realities because employees are no longer contributing information with the same level of openness or challenge.
This is where leadership behavior becomes an adverse business consequence. This creates a blind spot for leaders evaluating management effectiveness. Some teams continue delivering results in unhealthy environments because employees compensate through increased effort. Mishra and Jena (2025) found that toxic leadership environments are frequently associated with excessive workloads, chronic pressure, and expectations of constant availability. In these conditions, performance can be maintained through individual effort rather than through management systems that enable consistent execution.
The challenge is that traditional management metrics rarely capture this distinction. Managers are typically evaluated through the outcomes they deliver: revenue, productivity, deadlines, and operational performance. Those measures are necessary, but they do not reveal whether a manager is strengthening the organization’s ability to perform or creating conditions where employees must compensate for weaknesses in the system. A manager’s impact is reflected in the capability they build around them: the quality of information reaching leaders, the ability of teams to operate effectively, and the organization’s capacity to sustain performance.
The difference between a manager and a damager is not simply the outcome achieved. It is the condition of the organization that remains after the outcome is achieved.
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