Wow, GoodOh!
While I respect your opinion, I have to disagree with your absolutes.
A manager stuck in a bad spot, or even in a good spot, may have excellent reasons for working hard, and sometimes long hours.
I worked for a high-tech development company on a project that was incredible. I hired nine great engineers that worked hard, not because I asked them to, but because they saw the merit in what we were doing. There was no money to hire anyone else to help.
I never asked them to work overtime. They never complained. As a matter of fact, when the project was over (18 months later), almost all of them wanted to know where I was going next - not so they could avoid going there, but because we all had a great working relationship and they wanted to keep it up.
I learned most of my management skills by watching both good and bad managers in my career. I kept my people informed about what was going on in our parent company, as well as what we officers were discussing. My door was always open. I never took credit for their work, but I was always there when something went wrong so I could take responsibility not only for the failure, but to assure and insure that we would get it right.
I supported my team, and I respected them openly for their skills and for who they were. We worked well together, we were successful, and no one (not one!) spoke about the sacrifices we all made to get the job done.
Was I a bad manager? I was not pleased that we couldn't hire more people to help, but I worked with the folks and skill sets I had. My team let me know that I was a GOOD manager and that they respected me and how I treated them.
What I'm saying here is that there are NO absolutes in business or in life.
