“Fake Work” managers are incompetent. But in my time consulting I much preferred the “fake work” manager who was just trying to hide the fact that he was doing nothing to the manager who was just as incompetent but who thought he was a genius and wanted a say in every decision. I’ve dealt with…
= Managers who insisted they needed a $30,000 accounting package because they “only wanted the best” and ended up foisting layers of complexity onto a company that would have gotten by on Peachtree.
= Managers who arbitrarily decided to upend a project because of a positive article they read in the NY Times or WSJ.
= Managers who insisted I get all my info from them and not their underlings (even though it was clear they had no idea what was actually going on and their underlings did).
And so on…Much of this behavior ended up putting money in my pocket as a consultant but it was unquestionably destructive to the companies that employed these people.