Almost everyone has had the misfortune of having a leader who should not be in a position to lead others. Unfortunately, I found myself in that position. I've had bad managers and supervisors not just at one job, but at two completely different jobs. One of the jobs was as a nutrition worker in a hospital kitchen. The other job was at the Cracker Barrel restaurant, as a hostess. I will use my experience in both jobs to explain why these leaders were not right for the position they held and what they could have done differently to be a more effective leader. When I worked at a hospital, I had a supervisor who didn't really understand what it took to be a leader. He felt like he was part of the team rather than the team leader. He gossiped with his subordinates about other employees. There was a time when I heard her call one of her employees an idiot while he was in the next room. She would also play favorites with workers who would gossip with her. This created a divide among his workers. For workers who were not among his favorites, they were expected to work harder so as not to be criticized. Even though they did a great job, they received no recognition for a job well done. However, the favorites could have gotten away with doing substantially less. These employees were allowed to do shoddy work. This favoritism did not earn my supervisor any respect from me. I basically saw her as a teenager in high school wanting to be the leader of the cool clique. There is a way he could have resolved the situation. The solution is simple; stop being immature and gossiping about others. I don't think there's anything wrong with communicating with your employees and... in the middle of a sheet of paper... with people standing, which led to them standing and feeling confused. I think to resolve this situation, the managers needed to trust their employees to do the work themselves. It's not that the hostesses didn't know what they were doing, the managers simply felt that their help would make things better. They didn't realize that they didn't improve the situation at all, but actually made it worse. I think trying to communicate with the manager about how we felt might have helped. I think most micromanagers don't realize that their help is actually making situations worse. If we could make managers understand that we worked better alone, perhaps they would loosen up on micromanagement and trust us more. I don't think any manager or leader can be perfect. There will always be someone who doesn't like the way you handle something or the way you lead in general.