Why so many bosses are bad

For a long time, one of Canada’s largest residential landlords, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (CAPREIT), admittedly did better at managing its properties than its staff did. Its workers were disengaged and unhappy, and their managers were not providing the right sort of feedback. “People didn’t feel they were being recognized for their efforts, they didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment, and the work they did was kind of just seen as, ‘Oh, that’s your work,’ ” says Jodi Lieberman, vice-president of human resources.

... One explanation has to do with the fact that many managers are in their 40s and 50s, and they learned their skills back when conventional thinking had it that companies should be hierarchical, with a top-down management structure and a chief executive who made all the decisions. But many of the ideas underlying that approach are now obsolete. “The speed of change in the world has gone nuts, and there’s a lot of research showing that corporate management has not kept up,” says Karl Moore, an associate professor at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. “Some companies seem to get this, but a lot are just waking up.”

Read full article: Maclean's, November 10, 2014