Instead of moaning about it, you can help by managing upward.

You could reasonably feel that it is your manager's job to provide training, orientation, even direction—not yours. But your boss may not realize that she's a problem. That's the kind of news you need to break gently, of course, but done right you'll remove a few big obstacles from the assault course of business life.

Getting started will be the hardest part. Not only do you have to diagnose the boss problem, but you'll also have to build trust. You'll need to make sure your manager has an incentive to improve. Perhaps she wants to get projects out the door faster, or maybe he wants better recognition among his peers. You can't promise these things openly any more than you can say "Hey boss, clean up your act." But you can still make sure your fearless leader can see some return for any effort he'll have to make.

Problem First
We're engineers, so let's figure out what the problem is and find a solution. In stressful working situations, it's all too easy to end up in the whine crew. No one likes whiners, and more importantly, nobody listens to them. You need to figure out why you're having difficulties with your manager and treat it positively. You might want to consult with your peers. If you're out of line, they'll tell you—and if you aren't, they'll back you up when you try to remedy the situation. But don't gang up on the boss, or he'll get even more nervous and insecure.

Typically you'll run into four classes of boss trouble. Let's look at each one in turn:

Temper. Your boss stamps his foot and insists that you must deliver code by next week. This is a behavioral problem—he's not listening in case you might challenge his authority. He's probably committed that impossible delivery to the rest of the company because he knows programmers and analysts are just a bunch of slackers. You're going to have to try some adult communication to fix this behavioral problem.

Good engineer, bad boss. Once your boss was a great engineer, or analyst, or accountant, or something. Now she's a bad manager. You can tell by the lack of delegation, absence of career building, deathly silence on company communications. You need to put her on a stealth Management 101.

Unrealistic planning. Concepts such as time seem to elude some people. Forty hours of work can, they reason, fit into an eight-hour day by dividing it into small boxes with different labels. Well, no. Planning doesn't come naturally to many people. You have to spoon-feed the basics to some managers.

Ignorance. A good manager can manage anything, right? Maybe. Some people just don't understand technology, which is a disadvantage in that business. From blank incomprehension to willful ignorance of facts, this is a loose cannon waiting to fire.

If you recognize any of these symptoms of pointy-hairedness, check out the sections below for techniques that can help you educate the hapless honcho.

Bad Behavior
Does your manager behave like a spoiled child or a scolding parent? Business meetings should be carried out at what psychologists would call an adult level. Unfortunately it is too easy for insecure managers to lapse into behaving like a parent. Either they feel they know better than you, the expert, or they feel that you are challenging their authority. This means they show you no respect, trust or consideration, which could lead you to lapse into childish behavior.

Bad plan. Moving away from adult-adult communication is usually the result of irrational thinking, and bringing things back to a rational level is the solution. Typically those who believe in structural authority tend to oversimplify—demanding against reason simple solutions to complex problems.

It's your job to drag the discussion back to an adult level. First off you must not tell the boss that you think he's a jerk looking for the impossible. Quite the reverse. You must demonstrate that you believe firmly in his motivation (getting the work done on time) and that you accept that he is indeed the boss. Keep calm and say that you need to think about whatever it is he's asked for or say that you need to talk it over with your people. Agree on a timetable for completing this task and set another meeting. That gives you the time to prepare material to back up your position.

Sometimes you'll end up with a boss who is not just inept but malicious. Unless you want to get swept into unpleasant games—which you are bound to lose—you must make a stand and build protection. This is most likely a log of activities that you've done, showing that you're clean. Try telling your boss that her behavior seems out of line with industry practice (putting it politely), and see if that helps.

Be cautious about contacting the human resources department or more senior managers. They might see you—not your manager—as the problem.

So you may be stuck with it. In most cases, dishonesty is a deep-seated personal problem, and you're not a psychotherapist. The best you can do is avoid confrontation and defuse any difficulties that arise. Know where your hot buttons are and don't let anyone push them too easily. If things don't get better, get your resumé in order.

Run Out of Roads?
Remember the Peter Principle? Maybe your boss has been promoted beyond his or her level of competence. Maybe he was a fine research chemist, or she was a great salesperson. That's an obvious sign of management caliber, isn't it? The sad truth is that people often end up in management not because it suits them, but because they have run out of other roads to follow.

Management includes some key functions that don't come naturally to many people. First up is delegation. If you find yourself twiddling your thumbs while your boss is slaving away, you can try gently suggesting that she pass some work on to you. This will require a great leap of faith on her behalf, so perhaps you can start by offering to help rather than take over some tasks. It may not have occurred to her that you can help and it may be a great relief to pass on some work.

Alternatively, you may end up with a sharp switch into parent behavior and a sudden lecture in knowing your place. In that case, back off. Beware, too, of others singing your praises when you take over something from the boss—a paranoid manager will hate you for being better than her at something. An insecure manager will never let you do the job just in case that happens.

Next up is career development. Not all people understand the need for job reviews, plans, or even pay raises. I was shocked to find myself battling with an executive over the annual raises that my software team deserved and expected. He came from a commission-based sales environment and found it hard to grasp the need for systematic, regular performance-related pay hikes. Those who come from areas with fixed pay bands may have the same problem.

Other folks won't want to spend money on training—after all, it's just a springboard to a job at another company, or an excuse to get out the office. Such Neolithic attitudes prevail because many managers are focussed on the task at hand, and don't look at the big picture. Help them understand the need for the human side of management by explaining the benefits to the department or company. In larger companies, there are usually training policies that you can use to back up your case.

Not everyone can plan a software project in his head. Some people can't even plan them on a whiteboard. And in really bad cases, managers fail to understand that people can't do 10 jobs at once. What's really sad is that these kind of guys never learn from experience, thinking that each new project is the one that will be finished according to that aggressive schedule.

More education, I'm afraid, is required. Explain the steps you need to take to get the work done, identify how long each step will take, and show how people are deployed. You'll probably have to explain that programming, testing, fixing, and debugging all take time, and you can't compress them. Or do them all at the same time.

The twisted logic behind the kind of thinking that leads to imposed schedules starts with the sure knowledge that any work that the manager is not doing is by definition not important. Not important equates to easy. Easy equates to quick. The other even more illogical equation is that something the manager doesn't know how to do must be easy. Those who need software to make their companies work but don't come from a software background readily fall into this trap.

Some people become addicted to urgency. The adrenaline rush of tight schedules turns them on. If you're stuck with one of these managers you're probably going to have to probe him for news. Nothing will be worked on until the night before, but if you ask, he or she will probably be happy to pass over the maturing projects.

You're in for even more trouble if your executives are fuelled by the thrill of committing their group to impossible deliveries. Here you're going to have to learn to say no. It might not work at first, but after a few missed deadlines or low-quality deliveries, the message may sink in.

Hey, it takes us all our time to keep up with the latest technologies, so give the guy a break and help him understand the work he's supervising. Maybe you can prepare material and speeches for him, or even go along to presentations as a technical adviser. You can pitch this as making him look important, not foolish. Suggest that he's too important to worry about details, and should have someone to do it for him.

I had to work with someone who was determinedly incapable of even repeating technical information. Anything would be absorbed and regurgitated wrongly. Both vocabulary and structure would be altered beyond recognition. He was too self-important to learn the correct terms for things, assuming that his terminology would be understood. He would even completely redraw Pow-erPoint slides. The trick was to maneuver him away from technical presentations or discussions, certainly before customers.

For those who show some aptitude and willingness to learn, it's back to school. Perhaps you can feed them some high-level magazines that support what you're working on. Send them copies of short articles that cover the subject. Encourage discussion, offer to review any presentation material for technical accuracy.