Dictators.  Every company has them.  They are the managers that make your life a living hell.  They are the ones that give you superhuman workloads and scoff at your need for food and sleep. They are the ones that pass down their will to you and are disgusted by your need for discussion and consensus.  They have a short temper, a shorter attention span and a practically non-existent tolerance for what they perceive to be ineptitude.  Organizational behaviorists attempt to make dictators sound less menacing by labeling them “Drivers,” but it’s mostly a ploy to avoid being accused of criticizing.

The reason why people have so much trouble dealing with these dictators is because they’re afraid.  Dictators are menacing and sometimes bullying.  It is much easier to build rapport with your coworkers by complaining about a mutually despised boss than to do anything about it.  Because a dictator is also incredibly stubborn, fixing the situation seems like an impossible task.  However, all the fear, all the hesitancy and all the barriers fall away once you get into the dictator’s head.

Managers become dictators when they’re worried about task completion.

It’s not necessarily that dictators don’t care about people; it’s that they care about tasks more.  Dictators are goal driven.  They see goal achievement as the only measure of their “success.”  Once you realize this, it seems logical that dictators get on their pulpit when they are worried about the team’s ability to complete the task to the satisfaction of higher-ups.  As such, everything else—including your feelings—take a back seat.   You can turn Mr. Hyde back into Dr. Jekyll by giving him tangible assurances that everything is on track.  If you are working on schedule and are making progress, provide the dictator with status updates regularly without being asked.  If you are falling behind, give the non-fluffy reasons why you are (i.e. that there is 40 hours of work and 2 days with 24 hours in each to do it in versus you’re tired and overworked).  What you’ll see is that the dictator will become a little more relieved and if he is relieved, he’s not going to ride you.