The most obvious sign of the weasel boss is that he is untrustworthy, especially with the people who work for him. The weasel is looking out for himself and cares little about anyone else, unless he thinks they can help him advance his image as a great leader. Disloyalty is his middle name and he will quickly deny that he told you to do something, if it suits his purposes.
Command Sgt. Maj. Sikora was in charge of the Noncommissioned Officer Academy for the command. He was very well spoken and always looked like he had just stepped out of a recruiting advertisement. His personal goal was to be a division command sergeant major and he was frustrated at having been sidelined into his current job. He was ambitious, but more than that, he was ruthless when he had the opportunity to make another NCO look bad. This included his own subordinates. Whenever anything went wrong at the academy, he was quick to identify and crucify whichever of his NCOs he felt was responsible, even if the error was not their fault or if they had been doing exactly what he had told them to do. His personal motto was “Always keep a toad between yourself and the problem.” As a result, few NCOs wanted to work at the academy and those who did were always on edge, fearing the next blow of Command Sgt. Maj. Sikora’s ax. To his superiors, his organization looked good, but inside it was an angry hive of discontent.
“The weasel is looking out for himself and cares little about anyone else, unless he thinks they can help him advance his image as a great leader.”
Comments
Part-Time-Commander
You offer some great points, Jo.
I once had a NCO under my supervision who was a weasel boss. To me, his superior, everything looked fine. His section got the mission done, was very disciplined, and kept their issues to themselves.
Of course, that was from the outside looking in, not the inside looking out. I later found out that he treated his Soldiers badly, morale was at an all time low, and many of his Soldiers ETSd or asked to be transferred, because of his ineffective, dictator style leadership.
Looking back, I should have seen it, but I didn’t. Sometimes a weasel can fool his own boss too!