The things bad managers value in their employees?
* Technical skill
* Lack of complaints about stupid ideas managers foist on staff in their bid to be relevant, innovative, responsive to the market
* Obedience
* Initiative aligned to organization goals, but not too much
* Patience while company takes forever to adopt what is obvious

Those are my takeaways from watching managers work. But I like this bit of wisdom from Doug “Blue Skunk” Johnson:

> …[it is not] the best worker (engineer, teacher, mechanic, nurse, etc.) that gets ahead, but the person who is able to manage and lead good workers and so create an effective workplace.
>
> Goal setting, project management, problem resolution, budgeting, evaluations are done by educated people – not trained people. **[source: Blue Skunk blog](http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2024/4/9/trained-or-educated.html)**

### Update
Special thanks to Cass M for the suggestion of the word “bad” above