MOTW: Deer in Headlights Manager

Extremely competent, a good person and with above average skills, this manager is the antithesis of Smooth Talking Manager. Deer in Headlights Manager’s downfall is the inability to articulate a viable sentence when innocuously questioned by Senior Management. Any innocent starter query such as, “How is it going?” by a Senior Vice President is enough to send Deer in Headlights Manager into a catatonic state, from which he/she emerges (after a long, painfully drawn out silence) sputtering inanities which even a pre-kindergarten child would describe as nonsensical. Finally, after a laborious tongue-tied engagement, Deer in Headlights Manager mutters a corporate platitude, but it is much too late. The Senior Manager has already mentally labeled Deer in Headlights Manager as a loser, a difficult to shed moniker which will ultimately lead to said manager working inside the company’s walk-in vault, never interacting with anyone other than the cleaning staff and an occasional bean counter.