{"id":12311,"date":"2019-06-11T14:26:46","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T02:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/?p=12311"},"modified":"2025-07-03T01:48:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T01:48:58","slug":"how-do-i-deal-with-a-bottleneck-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psoda.com\/global\/2019\/06\/11\/how-do-i-deal-with-a-bottleneck-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"How do I deal with a bottleneck boss?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the latest “Ask a project manager” blog. This week\u2019s question is about how to deal with a boss that\u2019s a bottleneck.
\nI\u2019m a part time project coordinator\/part time EA to a great boss who manages a team of 20 engineers. They\u2019re all working on different projects and it\u2019s my boss\u2019s, aka my, job to update the various project managers. <\/em>
\nHere\u2019s the problem. My boss is a bottleneck. He digests, reworks and rewords every single thing multiple times. He also likes to make off the cuff decisions that he doesn\u2019t tell either the engineers or me about. So when we\u2019re questioned about where things are at. we often have no idea what the other person is talking about. <\/em>
\nThe result of this is that the status reports coming out of our department are woeful. They\u2019re often late, incomplete, have out of date information or in one spectacular instance, completely wrong. I regularly have people emailing me in various states of annoyance having not had any progress updates for weeks or any acknowledgment of previous emails. Not only is it making us look incompetent, it\u2019s impacting on the department morale. <\/em>
\nCan you help?<\/em>
\nThanks for the question. That sounds like a really frustrating place to be!
\nHere are some techniques to try to deal with these issues:<\/p>\n

Emails<\/span><\/h2>\n

The easiest one to take the heat out of, is the emails. It\u2019s best to respond promptly even if you don\u2019t have an update. Most people prefer to receive something rather than have their email disappear into the ether. Even if all you say is something like \u201cthanks for your email, I don\u2019t have an answer for you right now but I\u2019ll get back to you by x with a response\u201d. Just make sure you stick to the response time you gave, even if it\u2019s another stalling email. A good way to make sure that you do that is to put a reminder in your calendar. People tend to be more willing to wait if they\u2019ve received an acknowledgement of a request, even if it\u2019s a “no new information at present” one, as they know that it\u2019s in hand.<\/p>\n

Status reports<\/span><\/h2>\n

Are you directly involved in collating the status reports, or do you need to wait for your boss to pass on the information?
\nIf it\u2019s the latter it would be worth suggesting to your boss that you take over the job of putting the status reports together. That way you get direct access to engineers and can make sure you get the information you need when you need it.
\nYou just need to make sure that you don\u2019t get overworked and end up being the bottleneck!
\nA good way to frame this with your boss is to say you\u2019re noticing that his workload is getting bigger, it\u2019s your job to help and support him and that you\u2019d love to help by taking this repetitive task off his hands (even if you\u2019re not). If he is unwilling to let you take over, you may need to be a little blunt, which brings me onto the next problem.<\/p>\n

Communication<\/span><\/h2>\n

The best way to deal with the way your boss communicates is with a face to face meeting with him. You need to cite concrete examples of the problems you\u2019re facing and explain the impact it\u2019s having. When you\u2019re having the conversation, try and frame it around the damage it\u2019s doing to the department\u2019s credibility. You can even consider saying something about the damage it\u2019s doing to your boss\u2019s reputation in the organisation.
\nMake sure when you do have the meeting that you present a few potential solutions to the problem. I know it isn\u2019t really your problem to solve but it\u2019s usually easier to get changes made if you present ready-made solutions. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll have experienced your boss saying \u201cleave it with me\u201d and then nothing ever happens. This is a way to try and stop that from happening.<\/p>\n

Some suggestions to put to him, if you haven\u2019t already tried them are:<\/span><\/h3>\n