Most Employees Say Managers Are Ineffective

Managers have hard jobs, but that doesn't mean they're doing them especially well, according to i4cp's latest study. The majority of respondents lack confidence in management's effectiveness, with a little over half (53%) reporting that they rate overall management in their companies as "so-so" or worse.

Some respondents were downright harsh. About 15% said their managers were either "barely deserving the name 'management'" or just plain "hopeless."

To find out which kind of managers people prefer, i4cp asked participants to choose between easy-going and tough. More than a third (34%) opted for "easy-going" over "tough" (9%), but the majority didn't like either of those two options. Nearly 57% selected "other" and proceeded to put in their own idea of a preferred manager. It seems people want a mix of managerial qualities, with fairness, consistency, balance and flexibility being among the most widely cited characteristics.

So what qualities are most - and least - associated with managers? Asked to provide one "positive" word to describe managers, the top answer was "leadership," cited by 11%, followed by "supporting" (5.2%) and "mentor" (5%). On the "negative" side, the main choice, selected by 10% of respondents, was "micro-manage," followed by "controlling" at 5.4% and "selfish" at 3.2%.