During the course of business and through private events I meet a lot of people.

When professionals hear what I do, many want to talk about their jobs. A few like to brag about their importance, travels and successes. But mostly they are often basically unhappy, too.

I don’t really consider myself a therapist yet in this regard I often get treated as such.

The majority of Millennials (let’s say here graduates on up to 30 years of age) that I meet have, well, bad bosses. Typically they are tied to younger managers learning their way, often poorly guided.

Most of these managers’ problems reported revolve around entry-level troubles of inabilities to communicate well, delegate and train.

At the other end of the spectrum professionals (in this case, say, >35 years of age and up) seem to lackadaisically talk of bosses that they apparently accept as simply beyond repair. Problems here typically range from inability to articulate a big picture, failure to share information or engage employees in any meaningful way.

Many other people frankly just don’t want to talk about work and sometimes roll their eyes when others will. Some seem happy enough and don’t want to dwell on the subject. Often appearing to just accept professional life as something of a necessary evil.

So, my own empirical evidence suggests that most professionals just aren’t that happy at work. This is a truly sad state of affairs.

Worse still, in a persistently mediocre job economy, there is often little folks are willing to try that will improve their lot. Many feel handcuffed by on-going cut-backs, weak business outlooks, lack of significant job growth and a large shift towards part-time-only work.

This suggests a pretty miserable outlook for many workers. A poor work situation often affects health and well-being. No number of private-time diversions and activities are likely to offset these liabilities.

If there are so many poor bosses, why don’t they do something about themselves? Certainly many are statistically likely to suffer in the same ways as do their reports. Yet surely if they upgraded their skills their own situations, well-being and self-esteem (and thence health) must all benefit.

So why don’t managers and Execs simply take appropriate action and improve their ways? The same old reasons always persist when people fail to change. These bosses just either:

Don’t Know How

Lack Awareness of the Need

Or, Are Lazy

It’s not common for anyone to fix their problems without having awareness of the need to do so. From my own observations it’s quite likely that if you are leading and managing people you probably require some level of self-improvement help. Even if you believe you’re an above average (or better) leader it’s reasonable to suppose you still have many opportunities to upgrade management skills and so substantially enhance your career outlook.

Should it be that you are just lazy, or feel too exhausted to make the effort there’s many life-quality reasons to upgrade your situation. Improving your lot will take effort and personal investment.

Now, on a more positive note…

If you don’t know where to begin, try this easy, hands-on guide to developing managerial skills. It will work for you regardless of your seniority or profession.

Let’s give all those people I meet and their colleagues a break. Upgrade those skills and make your employees lives that much better. Improve your own situation, career, life and health.

If you spend most of your waking hours at work it only makes sense that they become the best experience possible.

Ian R. Mackintosh is the author of Empower Your Inner Manager Twitter @ianrmackintosh