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To understand the effects of poor management from an ethical standpoint, we have to know its primary characteristics or qualities.

1. Task delegation is not performed effectively.

2. Expectations and goals are not clearly communicated.

3. Management does not see as part of its purpose the responsibility of clearing obstacles for those being managed.

4. Management does not see as part of its purpose the burden of keeping open lines of communication between different groups or within the same group.

5. Disruptive, disrespectful, or coercive tactics are seen as acceptable tools because the end justifies the means. Employees, therefor, are not actually people. They are a means to an end.

6. Management does not stick up for employees they know are "in the right". Instead, they don't want to stick their necks out. They are cowards.

7. Management does not have a life and cannot understand why others don't work overtime and Saturdays. Management then tries to guilt those being managed into such work hours by labeling them as "unmotivated", "not dedicated", or "lazy".

These are the 7 deadly sins of management. The higher up the ladder this problem exists, the more severe will be its effects on the longevity of the company. All of these sins have their root cause somewhere in the realm of narcissism. Management is supposed to set the tone for the entire organization. If that tone is narcissistic, problems follow.

If we can agree that narcissism is a predominately unethical state of mind, then we can assume that poor management is an unethical practice. We can now equate unethical management with poor management. Here is what will follow:

1. it will create an adversarial relationship between employees and management.

2. It will make the already difficult task of communication even harder, if not impossible, depending on the size of the organization.

3. It will give Human Resources high blood pressure as complaints or lawsuits are filed.

4. It may cause employees to turn on each other, depending on the type of work involved here.

5. It may cause those prone to sycophantic behavior to go into overdrive, causing "teacher's pet" resentment from other employees. Employees that deal with problems through aggressive confrontation will become volatile. Timid employees will become more timid. In short, it can have a polarizing effect on certain personality traits, exaggerating those traits to destructive levels.

6. It will destroy the drive of employees to achieve, to push the envelope, to innovate.

7. It will cause more sick days. Stress hits the immune system hard, and prolonged stress hits other systems just as hard.

8. It may inspire corporate espionage.

9. It will cause the best employees to leave. They are the best not just because they are good at what they do, but because they have the drive to be "that good" to begin with. They might be seen as a dinosaur, someone who's been there "forever". But if the reason for this is because they are game changers and paradigm shifters, they will be an immediate threat to poor management because chances are they can do management's job better and management knows it. With this threat will start a dance that will end in someone leaving...most likely the only person in the dance that really knows what they are doing.

10. Poor management destroys the foundation of the organization: its people. The fewer people there are in the company, the greater the damage will be. Employees will not trust or respect an organization that does not trust or respect them. Once that happens people either quit, become apathetic, or go to work for the competition. In some cases working for the competition occurs before they quit the job. See #8.

Learn more about this author, Michael Penner.
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