I had a manager like this.

I scheduled a 1:1 with his boss. Half hour meeting, didn't tell my boss what we talked about beyond "a discussion about my career". My manager didn't even come up in the meeting.

Instant improvement in manager's behavior. Assholes know they're assholes, and the appearance of connectedness (along with deliberate efforts to keep them off kilter) is usually enough to keep them in line.

Oh, I like this. When your boss talks to his boss about the meeting, his boss doesn't have any specifics about him, which looks way scarier. If you brought up the manager, it'll more likely wind up looking like something manageable.

"Managing up" doesn't just involve sucking up. Your knife may be smaller than your boss's, but it's still a knife -- a lot of complaints about the modern workplace would disappear if more subordinates learned to use the tools at their disposal.

I had a boss like this. Talked with his bosses multiple times, no change. When I left a couple of weeks prior to my one year vest and another colleague did the same a couple of months later (both of us key/senior people), they noticed a little bit. Eventually said individuals behavior and reputation impacted his own goals when seeking funding. That said, upper management didn't do anything until after the fact.

Yeah I've noticed that usually you need at least 4 people to quit before anything happens to the boss. Even if they know he sucks they're gonna try and keep him on. No idea why, but it has the appearance of "he's part of the mgmt club and you aren't"

It's because that boss is part of his boss army in the company's game of throne. Don't turn lightheartedly a supporter into an enemy.

It is because people prefer a known bad employee than a wildcard.

With the first you can prepare for their fuck-up, with the unknown things could be a lot worse.

I've had a boss like that and his boss didn't want to remove him because he would have to admit that he made the wrong choice in promoting him.

Excellent point. I'm pretty sure this is a thing, I vaguely remember reading something about how getting promoted gives you some "invisible leverage" (my words) because now the company has decided you are valuable and special and they don't wanna look like they made a mistake. Thanks, this actually helped me understand an instance of where several not very good managers got further promoted and it made no sense to me.

The people at level n+1 to you in an organisation are there because they have the support of people at level n+2. Your issue has to be serious enough to get the attention of someone at level n+3 or nothing will happen. And the problem of one employee not getting on with his or her line manager, isn't serious enough in reality.

The only power you have in this case is to go elsewhere.