Managing your disorganised manager

Do you have a disorganised manager?

It is fair to say that across anyone’s employment history they will face periods of overwhelm in the workplace, especially when managing multiple tasks, projects, and individuals, coupled with high pressure – as is typical in a management position.  However, some managers will have more effective strategies for dealing with these challenges, and working with a constantly disorganised manager can present its own difficulties for employees. This could impact workplace productivity, your well-being, and your ability to carry out your own role effectively.

In this article, we discuss the typical traits of disorganised managers, as well as offer some helpful hints and tips on how to facilitate your own management needs.

Typical characteristics of a disorganised manager

Whilst individuals will have their own style of leadership, not necessarily showing all of the characteristics outlined here, a disorganised manager may display the following in their work habits:

• Failing to see the bigger picture: This could include a lack of strategy or failure to set clear tasks and goals, which ultimately will impact on the performance of their team.
• Improvisation: Disorganised managers may need to rely on their ability to improvise if they do not plan ahead, which risks their team not having allocated time to plan, review and evaluate their work.
• Misplacing work assets: A manager’s disorganisation may appear in different aspects of their work life, but a potentially recurring habit may be looking for key objects and information when they are urgently needed. This may result in staff needing to re-create content or re-order products.
• Lack of delegation: An avoidance of delegating tasks could be for multiple reasons – from potentially protecting their team, to fear of letting others take the lead on work tasks, and from not knowing their team well enough to allocate work effectively, to arrogance about their own abilities in the workplace. Regardless of the reason, this can cause frustration for team members.
• Indecisiveness: Your disorganised manager may show a high level of indecisiveness in relation to tasks and projects. Their lack of commitment to making a firm decision will result in a state of limbo for team members, who may feel undermined if a decision ends up being reversed when they have acted upon something.

Reasons they may be a disorganised manager

Whilst their disorganisation is likely to present multiple challenges to you as an employee, it is important to consider potential reasons why they may show particular tendencies in their work. This will assist you in identifying how you might work more effectively with them:

1. Not being taught proper organisational practices: You may have a new manager who is adjusting to the work context and/or a colleague who has recently been promoted to their management position, so they may be awaiting further training opportunities to learn effective practices when managing others.
    
2. Overwhelming workload: We will all inevitably experience an overwhelming workload, whether we are in a management position or not, so showing some empathy for your disorganised manager during particularly busy periods will be important.
3. Personal stress or issues: We all have a life outside of work and some colleagues, including managers, may be more forthcoming when sharing this information with their team than others. Avoid making assumptions about their personal circumstances, but also be mindful that their personal situation could be impacting on their ability to perform their role effectively.  
4. Lack of organisational systems: It is worth considering whether there are systems that are not operating effectively in the workplace, which may be impacting on your manager’s performance in the workplace. If you recognise this as an issue, ensure you feed this back through the appropriate organisational channels.
5. Neurodivergence: This includes a range of neurological differences that affect how individuals think, learn and interact with the work environment. Conditions such as ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, and dyspraxia will each bring their own cognitive strengths and challenges, sometimes creating workplace barriers due to sensory sensitivities, different communication styles, or the need for structure. As an employee, commit to increasing your understanding of neurodiversity, enabling you to support your manager in building an inclusive environment that enhances individual and team performance.

A clear guide to addressing your management needs

Given the potential challenges working with a disorganised manager may present, it is important to consider how you can facilitate your relationship to make the most of your position and the work environment.

Aim to identify and focus on your manager’s strengths – whilst they may not be organised, there may be other aspects of their work they excel in, for example, offering new ideas, being a real “people person”, and/or having a positive working relationship with senior leaders. By focusing on some positives, this will put you in a stronger position when needing to manage and overcome the challenges posed by their disorganised approach.

Make sure you prioritise and keep things simple. When meeting with your disorganised manager, start your discussion with the most important items first if there is a risk that their focus may be easily diverted. Avoid overwhelming them with too many ideas at any one time, and ensure you keep your needs and actions easy to follow for everyone.

If your manager’s workstyle is already chaotic and they often forget important information and details, it will be beneficial to put everything in writing. Reflecting on information presented in writing, rather than being conveyed verbally can assist some employees with organising and processing their thoughts. Use bullet points and subheadings to organise the information and summarise any decisions taken and agreed actions.

Whilst you may experience frustration when working with your disorganised manager, the potential gaps in their approach may offer an opportunity to “lead-up” within your team. This is not about covering up any mistakes or taking on their workload, but it may give you exposure to processes and tasks that you might not otherwise be party to. Commit to identifying opportunities in the workplace, rather than always focusing on the challenges and ensure any action taken is beneficial to the whole team.

Overall, it will remain important to have empathy for your disorganised manager and the pressures they may be facing in their role. It will, however, also be essential to establish clear work boundaries, so that their approach does not negatively impact on your health or well-being.

Focusing on the wider good of the organisation and what you can, personally, do to contribute to its success will be essential. If you feel strongly that your manager’s approach is negative on you and your team, carefully consider how best to address this with the individual concerned, and/or draw on the support of colleagues, including your HR representative, to determine a fair and collective approach to raising concerns and working towards solutions.

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