The Paralyzing Effects of an “All Talk and No Action” Boss: The Dreamer Boss
Does you boss constantly talk about all of the things he’s planing to do in the future?
Do you find that he rarely (if ever) takes any steps to make his plans happen?
Do you find yourself stuck in limbo — not knowing what the future of your job holds or what direction the company is headed in?
If you feel this way, you aren’t alone.
In fact, many employees experience this where their boss is “all talk and no action”.
So today, we’re looking at how you can cope if you have a boss like this.
Before we get too far into this, if you haven’t had a chance to go through the first article in this series you should before you go much further — reading it will help give you an understanding of what we’re trying to achieve with these articles. You can see it here: https://theministerofcapitalism.com/blog/the-horrible-boss-series-helping-you-escape-their-clutches/
I’m going to be posting more of these articles so you may want to check back for more.
Then to wrap everything up at the end I’m going to have a psychologist give us *his/her* professional diagnosis as to what type of person would show all of the traits of a bad boss that were covered in the articles.
It’ll be the perfect talking point that you can bring up to others when they ask how work is going….
Anyways, I’m getting off topic — but for now I’ll tell you how you can get in on the free draw at the end of this article.
First this type of boss has to be given a name. So I’ve named this guy “The Dreamer Boss.”
(Because his head is constantly in the clouds — looking at what he might do one day in the future — rather than being engaged right now in order to take action.)
Oh look, here’s “The Dreamer Boss” right now…
“We’ll expand the shop,” Perry declares.
“Hiring more people, new locations, raises for the workers who really care about this company. All that can happen once we expand the shop.”
No one responds.
Unfazed, Perry keeps going.
“I’ll transform that storage room into a second shop. Then we can get more employees. Things will go faster. Customers will stop complaining about the turnaround time projects take, ratings will go sky high, cash’ll come pouring in.”
From her laptop, Sue looks up.
“Do we have the budget for that?”
She‘s pretty sure they don’t.
Sue is the company’s newly hired accountant, but she’s had to pick up a plethora of other secretarial tasks too.
That’s why she’s in the shop right now, typing up a report.
More employees to share the workload would be a dream.
Perry looks at her and says condescendingly, “Shouldn’t you be in your office? The shop’s no place for a lady.”
Sue briefly explains what she’s doing, and finishes by repeating her earlier question.
A few senior employees send a few pitying looks her way.
“Geez, so many questions,” Perry jokes. “Do I look like Google?”
Sue gets the message: figure it out yourself.
After work, she stays up late, calculating the costs of renovations and the new machinery.
She drafts a plan that will allow the company to expand on their current budget and presents it to a coworker the next day.
Sue’s beaming with excitement.
“Tom, the boss is planning to expand. If I show that I care about the company….”
“You think you’ll get a raise.”
Tom shakes his head.
“There won’t be any raises. Or expansions. Not in this dead-end job.”
Sue frowns at his cynicism and speaks with Perry.
“You know, I want to use this plan, I really do,” Perry says, trying to sound sincere. “But it’s just… unnecessarily complicated. We need to streamline it. Expansion should be fun and exciting for the company, not a pain to implement.”
It takes Sue a week to streamline her plan, but by then Perry has dropped the matter entirely and has moved on to the next shiny object.
“Ah, well, expanding is a plan for the future,” he tells her. “Right now, I’m looking into purchasing one of our competitors… there’s a real pot of gold to be found there!”
In the end, he doesn’t buy the competitor or expand the shop.
When Perry struts through the shop a month later saying that he’s going to buy all the workers new protective equipment, Sue doesn’t bother looking up.
“The Dreamer Boss” is easy to spot as he constantly has his head in the clouds — talking about his plans for what he will do in the future.
His plans are always out there waiting for some undefined start date way out there in the future: He’s going to build a better facility, open new locations, learn new skills, invest in training staff, give the staff more money, make the company work more efficiently and on and on.
But nothing ever gets done, and he never takes any steps towards achieving any of his plans.
If he does start on a project, he quickly abandons it to focus on something else — leaving a trail of unfinished things behind him in his search for the next “pot of gold”.
Staff soon realize that “The Dreamer Boss” never follows through on what he says, leaving him with little to no credibility.
Largely ignoring what the boss says, having no enthusiasm to get involved in his latest project and having no respect for the boss are all signs that employees have had enough of “The Dreamer Boss” and his lack of congruency between what he says and what he does.
But it goes a bit deeper than that for employees.
As they don’t believe what the boss says, staff doesn’t have any hope for the future that things will ever improve — as all they ever hear is talk.
This hits a lot closer to home as employees don’t feel that the company has good leadership, which has the potential to jeopardize their paychecks in the form of how long the company might remain in business.
So job security can become an issue for employees when faced with “The Dreamer Boss” as they begin feeling that they’re stuck in a “dead end job” where nothing positive will ever happen.
This leaves employees with little to no hope for the future a symptom of which is always feeling tired and worn out.
As this negative work environment progresses staff become resentful of the boss, feeling that their hard work only goes to enable the boss’ easy life and ability to make money. They begin to feel that they are the ones making the business work, while the boss sits around and does nothing but dream.
With the boss largely having his “head in the clouds” he is unaware of the fact that his constant dreaming is a symptom of his fear of change. He has become comfortable in not taking action and has come to the point where his dreaming is nothing more than a justification for procrastinating on tasks he should be doing right now.
Little does he know that his inaction is costing him the future of his company as leaders who stick to the comfortable status quo don’t do well in the long run.
So what do you with a “The Dreamer Boss”?
Here are a few ideas:
1) Try to attach a timeline to his or her plans. If they set a certain date by which they will have something done by, it increases the odds of them actually following through.
2) Follow up with him or her after a reasonable amount of time has passed to see if there has been any progress.
3) Offer to help or initiate the process to get the ball rolling.
In some cases, if a boss is “all talk and no action” at their core they may be just looking for people to applaud their ideas. For them, it could be a simple case of trying to build up their low self esteem by getting the low hanging fruit of accolades by coming up with the idea (or stealing someone else's), rather than putting in the time and effort to get the final result by seeing it through.
But this “all talk and no action” is often a reflection of either their inability to provide leadership, a lack of ambition or a low (or non-existent) of work ethic that has developed to the point where they don’t feel they need to be involved in the process beyond coming up with a general idea.
But the success or failure of the business is directly tied to its leadership.
And if your boss is unwilling to change there’s a good chance things won’t end well.
The business may not fall apart tomorrow, but it will eventually be overtaken by it’s competition.
So if you’re dealing with “The Dreamer Boss” I’d highly recommend working on a back up plan or your exit strategy in case it all goes sideways.
If you don’t have a back up plan, I can tell you this: you need money to pay the bills.
I know, I know…everyone knows this.
But if you don’t know where to start and you want results fast, there is a very easy way to do this!
In fact, it’s as easy as getting a membership to “The Empirical Collective” where there is a ready-made back up plan waiting for you on the inside.
“And what does this back up plan look like?” you may ask.
Great question!
The back up plan comes in the form of numerous ways to make easy money online, including:
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It’s a solid back up plan as it’s focused on creating income short term immediate income as well as long term income (what we refer to inside “The Empirical Collective” as “Blended Income”).
If this is of interest to you, your journey starts at https://theministerofcapitalism.com
Don’t forget that I’ll be putting up more of these articles between now and the end of the month, so check back soon!
Between now and then, I wish you all the success in the world.
Your Minister of Capitalism,
Brett Davison
