ENGLISH
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seagull manager

idiom
Meaning

A manager whose presence is rare and usually motivated by problems


Origin

first recorded 20th c.

The term became popular through a joke in Ken Blanchard's 1985 book Leadership and the One Minute Manager: "Seagull managers fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, then fly out."

Examples
SIMPLE

Our boss is a seagull manager who only appears when things go wrong.

CONTEXTUAL

The team felt frustrated because their seagull manager only visited the office to criticize their work after a project failed.

COMPLEX

Rather than providing consistent guidance, the seagull manager arrived only to create chaos and leave, forcing the staff to clean up the resulting mess.

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