Pointy Haired Boss
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The original Pointy-Haired Boss is the fictional manager in the Dilbert comic strip. The phrase pointy-haired boss (or more usually PHB) has acquired a generic usage to refer to incompetent managers. See Dilbert for the original character; this article is about the generic concept. (Note that under a Dilbertian view, incompetent manager is redundant phraseology.)
It is also possible to speak of someone being pointy-haired or having pointy hair, metaphorically meaning that they possess PHB-like traits.
The academic version, a Pointy-Haired Dean (PHD), is similar.
Description
He's every employee's worst nightmare. He wasn't born mean and unscrupulous, he worked hard at it. And succeeded. As for stupidity, well, some things are inborn.
His top priorities are the bottom line and looking good in front of his subordinates and superiors (not necessarily in that order). Of absolutely no concern to him is the professional or personal well-being of his employees. The Boss is technologically challenged but he stays current on all the latest business trends, even though he rarely understands them.
Traits
Typical traits of a PHB:
- Does not understand what his employees do for a living.
- Enjoys using buzzwords such as synergy, leadership, accountability, evangelize, leverage, competency, collaboration, empowerment, quality, paradigm, team-enhancing, and culture-shift often to escape having to commit or be precise.
- Pretends to understand technology, but is really clueless. He often shifts towards buzzwords (see above) to compensate or change subject.
- Easily mesmerized by silver-tongued sales people peddling management or technology fads.
- Decisions seem random or capricious.
- Gross failures of logic, such as holding repeated long meetings to discuss why a project is behind schedule.
- Likes meetings because he/she does not know how to use email properly or does not want his/her bad decisions committed to writing.
- Uses his employees' ideas and presents them as his own, almost always to the same employees
- Is always right. Or at least, thinks he/she is.
- You warn him/her to do X or else Y will happen. He doesn't do X. Y happens. You somehow get the blame.
- Doesn't seem to remember anything beyond a month's range.
- Rewards employees based on how well they stroke his/her ego instead of how well they do their job.
- More focused on sounding important than being important.
Related Acronyms
The usage of PHB to refer to a character type resembles the usage of BOFH and PFY, both also derived from specific fictional characters. Less closely related is the military term REMF, which is descriptive rather than a reference to fiction.