A former Amazon vice president says getting a bad manager removed is rarely as simple as escalating complaints — and doing so the wrong way can backfire.
Speaking on “The Peterman Pod,” Ethan Evans said employees often assume that raising concerns to their boss’s manager will automatically trigger action. In reality, he said, higher-ups face incentives to dismiss or downplay those complaints.
“If you come to me with a weakness in one of my employees,” Evans said, there’s a “subconsciously” calculated choice: assume the report is overly sensitive, or accept it and create a much bigger problem. If the concern is valid, that forces a leader to potentially “manage them out,” hire a replacement, and absorb the extra workload in the meantime.
“So you can see why, even if it’s subconscious, I have a lot of reasons not to listen or not to believe very easily,” he said.
Instead of having employees escalate concerns on their own, Evans recommends a coordinated approach.
“Never mutiny alone,” he said. Employees should compare experiences with coworkers to “sanity check” whether an issue is widespread or a matter of personal style. If multiple people share the same concerns, they should raise them together — or at least signal that others are willing to corroborate.
When recalling a situation involving a problematic leader, Evans said he “probably wouldn’t have listened” to a single complaint, but when “several of those reports came up,” it became clear action was needed.
In a follow-up email to Business Insider, Evans said the most effective version of this approach includes solid documentation. Employees should gather at least three clear examples, ideally backed by multiple people, and present concerns “dispassionately” as what’s best for the team — not as an emotional complaint.
That’s where many workers go wrong. The biggest mistake, Evans said, is “complaining bitterly and emotionally,” without acknowledging what the manager does well. A more effective approach is to first recognize the manager’s strengths, then clearly outline the impact of their shortcomings.
Evans added that skip-level managers are most likely to act when they believe a bad manager is driving away strong performers or creating legal or ethical risks. Otherwise, he said, complaints are easy to dismiss.
Play chess, not checkers
For employees hesitant to confront leadership directly, Evans suggested another strategy: avoid criticizing the manager altogether. Instead, make a business case for transferring teams. “Don’t even bring up the manager,” he said. “Just say, ‘hey, I was looking at this other role, and I think I could do so much more for you and the org over here because of A, B, and C.'”
Ultimately, Evans said navigating these situations requires careful strategy: “You’ve gotta play chess, not checkers.”
Many “bad” managers aren’t inherently bad, merely untrained, Evans said, adding that truly problematic managers often share a different trait — they “cannot tolerate any questioning of their authority,” defaulting to top-down leadership styles that can worsen under pressure.
His view aligns with a broader workplace reality: ineffective managers are common because organizations routinely promote high performers into management roles without preparing them to lead. Experts like economist Steve Tadelis, in a 2024 episode of “Freakonomics,” have similarly said there’s little reason to assume top individual contributors will make good managers.
At the same time, companies are flattening management layers and increasing the number of direct reports per boss, leaving many managers overstretched. Some executives acknowledge the learning curve — Figma CEO Dylan Field has said he was initially a “bad manager” because he lacked core skills like relationship-building and consistent one-on-ones.
Success isn’t guaranteed: Efforts can fail in what Evans calls “stacked flaws,” where higher-level leaders share the same blind spots as the manager in question, making them less likely to recognize a problem.
In those cases — especially when coworkers won’t speak up, or the company culture suppresses dissent — Evans said the best move may be to leave and “find a company with a culture that fits you.”
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