Have a bad manager? Science explains why.

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  NPR.

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  The entire world of work can basically be divided into two kinds of people, the managers and the managed.

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  And those of us who've spent our days toiling in the managed class have probably experienced our share of bad managers.

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  I think a lot of people secretly feel like their managers are sort of extraneous to what they do.

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  Well, often they are.

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  I mean, so just because management is necessary doesn't mean that everyone who's doing it is doing it well.

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  David Deming is a labor economist and dean at Harvard College.

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  Bad sometimes is because bad coordination feels wasteful because it is wasteful.

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  Would you say you're a good manager?

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  You know, it's funny.

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  I would say that I'm average to below average manager unconditionally.

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  I think I've worked hard to become average.

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  David has also been working hard to understand what makes a good manager.

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  Like, are there specific traits that can be measured in a scientific way that actually predict

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  who will be a good manager?

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  And in a study published earlier this year, David and his colleagues found the answer is yes, there are.

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  And they aren't what you might think.

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  This is The Indicator from Planet Money.

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  I'm Adrian Ma.

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  I'm Ricky Mulvey.

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