Incompetent bosses - unskilled and not aware of it.

Incompetent bosses suffer a dual burden. Not only do these bosses reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. As a result incompetent bosses tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains despite logic and statistical evaluation of their skills defies their views.

This seems to be quit a catch21 and unfotunately we are all prone to a similar imperfect apraisal of ourself as illustrated by the fact of the average person to believe he or she is above average, a result that defies the logic of descriptive statistics. Yet, an incompetent Boss is exceptionally difficult. Tough you don't need to obey to unreasonable order you still have troubles dealing with an incompetent boss for serveral reasons :

1. an incompetent boss can't possibly realize by himself that his order was unreasonable or unfortunate.
2. they won't accept any advice from their subordinates because of their bold self-esteem
3. Since he is the boss there is no supervisor who will correct his erraneous decisions

Problem #3 gets even more difficult since bosses usually have strong networking skills and high social position. Considering that abilities of socially high standing persons are evaluated less critically as their competence is considered to be immanent to their position, this means that refusal to obey to an unreasonable order of an incompetent boss will most likely be interpreted as insubordination, no matter what you do. Yet, if you comply to an unreasonable order this will problably have adverse side effects. The incompetent boss will not understand that these adverse effects are the result of his unreasonable order since his lacks the ability to realize this fact. As a result you will be accused for doing a bad job. As a result you are in a loose loose situation when dealing with an incompetent boss.

To deal with a bad boss I can think only of two possible strategies.

1. You can try to make the boss more competent. Provide him with additional training and information. You have to do this very carefully so he isen't aware of what you are doing. Due to their overly favoerable view of their own person they won't accept advice from other individuals. If you get trough to them the boss might get insight in his shortcoming. Of course you will not be acknowledged for this because the boss will hold the strong belief that he accomplished to identify his error on his own and he just saved you from doing a terrible mistake.
   
2. If strategy 1 doesen't work your best bet will be to find and other job a.s.a.p. or the incompetent boss will ruin your career. To continue working for him would be deleterions to you.
   

Since most likely all competent employees of an incompetent boss will eventally choose to quit this will leave the boss alone with incompetent subordinates. These incompetent subordinates will, like their boss, lack the ability to realize how unreasoble the decisions of an incompetent boss are. As a result they won't complain working for an incompetent boss. Vice versa the incompetent boss can't be aware of the incompetence of his subordinates since he lacks the cognitive ability. In the end an incompetent leader can cause considerable damage to a department, corporation or even country.