How can I handle my bossy manager?

My manager is so bossy and rushes to make decisions. He wants to fight even where there is nothing to fight over. All the team members in our banking institution complain about him. How best can we handle such a person? Arthur Bukenya

Dear Arthur,
The situation you are describing is a manifestation of leadership capability gaps in your institution and specifically, your supervisor. He was not adequately prepared to take over leadership and management of people before he was appointed supervisor.
Your supervisor appears not to have been taught that a leader is as good as the team he leads, hence the perpetual conflicts and disgruntlement he creates among his people. It may be highly probable that he actually complains about you, his team, to his peers and friends. This behaviour though, may not actually be your supervisor’s problem. It’s usually a problem created by the top management of the institution when they fail to purposely prepare middle level supervisors and managers before giving them leadership roles.
A leader’s major role is to remove barriers to performance and create enablers for the people they lead to release their potential to perform to their best, not to conflict with subordinates. These leadership skills have to be purposely imparted through training and exposure of the supervisors and managers before they are appointed to lead.
Your supervisor may have been very good at his former job as a banker but by promoting him to become a supervisor without adequately preparing him to lead fellow professionals has become a costly nightmare for both himself and you, the people he leads. The new job required different skills from what he possessed as a banker.

Moses Ssesanga
Head Human Resource
Monitor Publications Limited
[email protected]