Managers are human too...

It's easy to point out the flaws in different management styles, but it is important to realise that managers are human: they have good days and bad days, they have blind spots and pet ideas, likes and dislikes, personal problems...the whole gamut of normal human behaviors. So to expect perfection or to expect that they will never make mistakes or that they will always be fair and reasonable it just a little bit unrealistic.

In Boom: 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors off Business-As-Usual, Kevin and Jackie Freiberg put it this way:

In the blurry world of business, decisions are rarely clear-cut. Leaders caught in predicaments will make judgement calls, trade-offs and compromises that aren't always right. The decision-makers in your organisation are not all-knowing. They don't have a crystal ball with which to see the future. They struggle with uncertainty - just like you. They desire a better culture, less uncertainty, and more stability - just like you. They want more time with their families - just like you. When it comes to leading major change efforts, their actions may appear to be misguided or self-serving from where you sit, but they are probably doing the best they can with the information they have. 

While this realisation should lead to a certain amount of empathy for managers, it should also make you realise that you may have to work around these failings, defend yourself against some of them and fight against others. Being sympathetic shouldn't mean becoming a victim or tolerating unacceptable behavior.

Also remember that people aren't always managers because they are particularly good at the job. They may have been promoted because of their competence in a lower level job with a totally different skill set and may be struggling either publicly or secretly to keep their head above water (the Peter Principle). In some cases, the field of applicants for a managerial job may have been restricted by requirements ( such as travel ) that better qualified people may have been unwilling to accept, and so the successful applicant may have just been the best of a mediocre bunch. Either way expecting excellence or even competence may be misguided.

One useful skill is to be able to identify a persons base level of behavior, the way in which they usually conduct themselves. I once worked in a unit where the manager appeared to be constantly angry. However, once I realised this, I was able to get along with him quite well and to detect when his behavior deviated from that baseline ( for example when he really was angry). The other guy in my unit never managed to achieve this and hated our boss with a passion.

So part of becoming more perceptive about people's behavior is so that you can work more productively with them.

Getting to know a manager's weaknesses can be useful in that you can compensate for them in order to further the organisations aims. But, if necessary, you can also target them in order to further your own aims or to protect yourself.

The most important thing to remember is that you need to deal with reality as it is, not as it ideally should be. Do what you need to do to perform effectively in your own job, whether this means working with your manager, or working around them.

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The website for Boom can be found here