Learning good lessons, especially from bad leaders, is always relevant to your life and career. It can be both a preventive resource to keep you from becoming a bad leader and a palliative resource to assist you in overcoming the difficulties that bad leaders cause.

Recent research indicates that a large majority of people who leave their jobs do so because of poor supervisory leadership. People don’t leave jobs, companies, and organizations; they leave their supervisors! Good supervisory leaders make the difference between engaged and disengaged employees who are likely to exit rather than persist. According to author Bridgett Hyacinth: A Gallup poll of more than 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor. 75% of workers who voluntarily left their jobs did so because of their bosses and not the position itself. In spite of how good a job may be, people will quit if the reporting relationship is not healthy. “People leave managers not companies… in the end, turnover is mostly a manager issue.

Job satisfaction, career trajectory, and general peace of mind are greatly affected by the quality or lack of quality of one’s workplace leadership. Who doesn’t want the positive influence of a competent, attentive workplace leader to improve one’s life? Who doesn’t want to avoid the emotional and career baggage as well as the negative influences of bad leadership?

Observing good and bad leadership behaviors can happen at both the executive level and supervisory level. It’s important to address the effects of bad leaders who are higher or highest on the organizational chart and pay scale as well as supervisory leaders who hold positions just above non-management personnel.

The word “mediocre” is a good descriptor for ineffective leaders. Placed together, two Latin words define mediocre as “halfway to the peak.” Regarding how well they perform and how well they lead their teams and organizations, bad leaders only make it halfway to the peak.