A New York City human resources manager is often greeted on Monday mornings by a boss who can’t wait to chat animatedly about her children. The boss wants to be every employee’s friend and avoids the role of bullying “bad cop,” which she leaves to the other managing partner.

Her outwardly friendly demeanor may sound like a relief from the imperious micromanagers and petty tyrants so often depicted in popular culture and complained about around the watercooler. Yet this human resources manager claims that her genial but disengaged boss is actually more difficult to work with than the company’s micromanaging partner.

“She’s never forthcoming about what she needs,” says the H.R. manager, who requested anonymity for obvious reasons. “She wants you to know what you’re doing without telling you what she wants, and when you ask too many questions, she gets defensive. Then if you get it wrong, she barks at you and you’re taken aback.”

Passive and disengaged bosses who chronically undermanage don’t get nearly as much public attention as bullying bosses who bulldoze their way through the office. But according to some business consultants and experts, they can be every bit as damaging to a company’s morale and productivity.

Bruce Tulgan, a consultant, trainer, and author of It’s Okay to Be the Boss, calls undermanagement “an epidemic” and finds many managers intimidated by a culture of political correctness, red tape, and potential lawsuits. He sees nonconfrontational leaders who want to be everyone’s friend as responsible for more workplace mistakes than those supervised by a harsh taskmaster.

Tulgan says he sees undermanagement as an affliction that impacts almost all organizations today. (The U.S. military is the rare exception, he notes.) Typically, undermanagement starts with a boss who isn’t engaged enough to know what’s going on with his or her employees. These bosses may say they’re overwhelmed by too much work to individually coach or supervise their workers, or they may just be fearful of looking like a bully or the bad guy.

“Nine out of 10 [workplace] problems that are not caused by God are caused by the lack of engagement on the part of a manager,” Tulgan says.

Disengaged managers fail to ask the right questions and let small problems fester until disaster strikes. Projects don’t get finished on time, staff members drift along without direction, goals are unspecified and go unmet. Tulgan argues that, ironically, ignoring small problems can sometimes lead to the very confrontations that passive managers try to avoid.

“I don’t understand how someone can be in management without being able to deal with some conflict,” says a former supervisor in the New York City health-care industry who complains that her current boss wants to avoid seeming like a bully at all costs. “She may not be punitive, but being passive is just as frustrating.”

This boss has a largely disgruntled staff with problems that don’t seem to get resolved. She avoids confronting difficult employees, and the resulting laissez-faire environment has led to another worker’s trying to fill the leadership vacuum, creating even greater chaos.