You just started a new job and you discovered that your manager is too busy to manage; they’re not available to provide you with any sort of orientation, thorough understanding of the expectations they have of you or the resources you need to achieve those expectations. Sound familiar?
We hear it in every job interview: hiring managers say they’re looking for a “self-starter” who can “jump in” and “run with the ball.” We should run… for the nearest exit, but how many of us can afford to these days? “Self-starter” terminology is the calling card of a “drive-by” manager who will have zero time for you from day one, but who’ll expect you to hit it out of the park while blindfolded.
You’ll spend too much time hunting them down to get clarity or direction on a project; sometimes you’ll need to catch them on the way to the bathroom, and they’ll wave you off by telling you to look for stuff on a network drive filled with hundreds of mysteriously labeled folders or the company’s poorly designed intranet site, which has limited search capabilities.
Sometimes, they’ll tell you to reach out to “Jack” or “Cindy”…and neglect to tell you their last name or function. This is how EVERY major company in the U.S. runs these days.
Often, there isn’t even someone on your “team” who can provide you with any guidance in your manager’s absence. I remember when companies filled departments with people who served a specific function. Today’s masters of the universe assign one person to handle the workload of three or more people. That’s why the corridors of Corporate America are filled with bleary-eyed zombies who frequently miss lunch and subsist on 10 hours of sleep a week. It’s a wonder any organization can run at all.
Limited or non-existent support personnel are not the byproduct of the wonders of technology; they’re the result of bipolar leadership enamored with achieving “economies of scale;” translation: if they hire fewer people, they get to keep most of the money. And they do.
Data from annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) found that in 2014, senior executives made 949 times more money than the average worker; a far greater margin than the 271:1 ratio the Economic Policy Institute reported last month. How far have we fallen? Fifty years ago, the ratio was only 50:1.
Dis-organization Structure
You may have noticed that your company has a boatload of executives who make fat salaries and either do nothing at all, or they spend their days behind closed doors with other senior management/executive colleagues reviewing PowerPoints of plans or strategies that will never be implemented (either because of lack of funds or because other priorities emerged to make that 
priority obsolete before they broke for lunch).
Sometimes, they’ll forget to tell the minions putting in late nights and weekends working on the now-obsolete priority project that it’s been scrapped until days (and many work hours) later.
Most mid-sized or large organizations have a C-suite Chief “Something-or-other” Officer who reports to the CEO. The unpopular member or idiot of the C-suite bunch is undermined with a “non-C” title of executive vice president; reporting into the ruling classless are too many senior vice presidents, vice presidents, assistant vice presidents and directors—this is where all the “Game of Thrones”-like activity takes place.
While the execs indulge in leadership turf wars and useless, daylong meetings, the managers, specialists or coordinators (who are excluded from the Big Dog huddles) handle the day-to-day activities that keep the lights on, despite not being involved in any key decision-making discussions.
This would all be laugh-out-loud funny if wasn’t so physically, emotionally and, yes, fiscally detrimental to the well-being of all employees. C-suite wannabees are so caught up in the politics of managing up and jockeying for position that they don’t lead their employee(s) or keep them up to speed on important company- or industry-related issues; often, worker bees get their company information from external media sources.
But somehow, they are expected to know all and to deliver on a moment’s notice. Sometimes, you’ll get a call or email at some ungodly hour of the night or on the weekend with an “urgent” request to handle something in an hour that would ordinarily take a week.
The odds are good that your boss received the information or request more than a week earlier, but they just got around to opening the email…or they knew about it, but were so busy with other “priorities” that it fell through the cracks and now they’ve made it your monkey at (literally) the eleventh hour. Obviously, you should have been included in the meetings on the issue.
Dysfunction Junction
At some point after a couple of months on the job, your drive-by manager may become inpatient with having to “micromanage” you, because you run everything past them before sharing it with high level stakeholders. Because of their lack of sleep, they forget that the week before they told you to run everything past them. How do you manage sleep-deprived, malnourished, overwork-related psychosis? And how can you not be paranoid that your contributions might be off the mark?
Should you point out to your boss that they are habitually unavailable to provide appropriate guidance to help you get to the level where you can feel comfortable with your output, or do you shut up, wing it and hope you get it right? Lose-lose. If you miss the mark too often, you’re out of a job. And if you tell your boss he or she is a lousy manager, you’re out of a job.
What happened to “working smarter?” It seemed to begin its slide into oblivion around the 2008 financial collapse, and now it looks like they finally slapped the toe tag on it. That’s too bad.
I recall when a well-staffed team led by a capable director got things done quickly and efficiently. Companies that are top-heavy with low- or unproductive executives, drive-by managers and one or two disconnected worker bees are spending a whole lot of money to yield little or nothing in return. We’re not overachieving; we’re just overworked…and overdue for smarter, focused and attentive leadership.