Should I rat out my boss?

Dear Evil HR Lady,

My manager, who is a bruiser as a personality type, has drawn the ire of managers of his rank in other departments for refusing to work on their programs or undermining the work when he does allow members of our department to participate in it. (We are a specialty department with a mission to provide our expertise within and across the organization.)

He also tends to treat employees in our department as though they are more support than professional staff. His behavior includes: micro-management of start of day/end of day, including for top performers; obsessive monitoring of the details of work in which he also has expertise; working seven days a week to both manage and to maintain his dominance in his area of expertise; reading emails over employee’s shoulders, possibly reading electronically; crowding employees physically in their offices; and losing his temper with staff as well as with other managers at his rank. The last is a persistent problem.

Basically, this is someone who does not adhere to professional or personal boundaries well. But he is, nonetheless, effective in demanding people do things and appears to present well up the hierarchy.

During this performance review season, I was asked to provide an evaluation of my boss in confidence by his boss. My initial thought was to avoid doing so, partly because I suspect he reads employee email, partly because I do not understand the dynamic up the hierarchy (who supports him, who does not, it’s not uniform). Yesterday, I got a follow up email pushing me to submit an evaluation. I could recite a laundry list of bad behavior, but I think a vague description of the anger problem is probably best. What do you think?

To read the answer click here: Should I rat out my boss?

Related Posts

Are you looking for a new HR job? Or are you trying to hire a new HR person? Either way, hop on over to Evil HR Jobs, and you'll find what you're looking for.