Unfortunately way too many things are psychology-related according to workplaces or HR "professionals". This is a trend. A trend that HR sets in most companies, but there is also a fashion of finding a sentence in any book written by Freud to anything and do an HR policy from it. In most of the cases, it will not work.
People are unpredictable. So with or without psychology, HR will be unable to fully control them.
The below "behaviors" from managers are to be decoded by the employees. They are, in most of the cases, not simply assholes, their disgusting "behavior" means something else or has a very simple cause: fear or weakness of the managers.
Most of these manager behaviors have one thing in common: they don't trust you as an employee. Because they know they are rich (as compared to simple employees) without merits and they are constantly living in fear that they could actually loose those advantages that they didn't get with their talent.
So some of the signs the weak managers are producing and their meaning:
The manager doesn't want you to be able to blackmail her when the company does mass lay-offs once again. If you had a task that is meaningful and has an actual impact, and you had developed skills to do this task, then in case of a lay-off event you have leverage against them (against your manager and HR, too). They don't want this.
They think it would "hurt" the power balance. The power balance (according to most of the companies) is: they can do anything, they have limitless power over you - you cannot do anything, except if yo do something they want you to do.
When managers want to control every little aspect of the employee's life, for example our blackmailing ability towards them, that means she does not recognise you as a person, she thinks you are a child and the company probably thinks you are their property (that they can control) or their child (that they can control).
When your manager is not letting you work by not giving you anything significant, or is controlling you other ways, or is sabotaging your career, she is being conservative. Any time a conservative manager preaches or does something, I compare it to Margaret Thatcher (UK prime minister in the 1980s).
Their way of thinking: The rich to be richer, the poor employees getting poorer and poorer, and if they don't agree, fire them - somehow that is all I can see when it comes to Thatcherism or todays managers who want full control over their employees.
This happens when managers are managers for more than 10 years for the same company. She says no one can fire her, not even the CEO, she (the manager) says she has all the power. Do not even try to get a promotion or do not even start making steps (i.e. learning something) that you could benefit from in the future - because your manager becomes envy of it, will see you as a threat, and threats are to be eliminated by the manager.
They like to see employees that are more knowledgeable then them as an enemy. Some pitiful managers see enemies everywhere.
Even when she states she has all the power and is strong and has spent 20 years with this company, she is afraid inside, so she is ready to expel you any time and with the filthiest of her methods.
"Me, myself and I" - that's all I got at the end of the day. And knowledge.
No one will help you find a new job, when they fire you. No one will give you positive feedback or references when they fire you. Your knowledge is the only thing you can trust.
Knowledge could be of great help when you are looking for a new job. You could be in advantage as compared to others. Your manager does not want this. Your manager wants that your only "chance" in the workplace is them, the company. They want you to be unsuccessful without them.
Your employer does not want you to have anything that is an advantage in the workplace - because it would mean there is something about you that they cannot control. That you can actually use to have more chances to find a new job. They don't want you to find a new job, because if you can, then they cannot blackmail you to stay with them.
She is not paid to have favorites. She is paid lead a team, to bring the potential in the team to its full. A manager who actively practices favoritism ruins motivation of the majority of the team (who are not favourited).
When she does not trust normal employees because she wants full control over them, but she realizes she cannot have this, why does she have trust in her favourite person then? How does she know what the favorite person does behind her back?
Well, the favorite person usually looks for another job behind her back. Because the favorite person can do this unnoticed, because the silly manager trusts him/her blind.
It is not healthy to do the same thing over 5 years or even 10 or even 20. If you are manager for this long, you will believe no one can fire you, no one will ever. You will not have any experience from the outside world, just from inside the pitiful company you are working for.
The "10 years with the same company" manager will think she can do anything and there will be no negative consequences ever. This is what the rich managers think in general.
They have lost all that connected them to reality. They are living in another universe, not this world.
Managers with 10 or more years at the same company and their new employees have nothing in common. How could she manage them? When she does not understand fuck about the real world, they are just living in their distant universe.
The gender of the manager is not of particular importance in this article - gender itself does not have a meaning in this article. I consider the manager who lost ground and is living in another universe is a female. Sometimes it really is. But the idiot, untalented and mean manager can be male as well.