Brief description of me
I am in the electronics department of a medium sized engineering business, among my other five co-workers. I've been working for 4 years here in the same position, but the mileage in the team is 8 years average, with no previous experience. Our boss:
Brief description of our boss
-Our boss joined 12 years ago, and more than 25 years of experience in many different areas inside electronics.
-He is a very smart and pragmatic person with a lot of experience, but selfish when it comes to achievements, quite condescending at times and a person who seldom admits its mistakes.
-He'll cut off your question/explanation and will propose a solution that is no good because he didn't take the time to listen to the additional details.
Stating the problem
Even though we put up with the behaviors stated, I am concerned about the way these behaviors affect our morale and our development:
During his entire course in that position, he has never given a chance to take responsibilities and duties others than getting done the work he has previously explained you point-by-point. This means, "In order to provide product B, you have to first take AAA, then request quotes from BBB, design CCC and then mix up everything till you get B". And don't ever try straying from those steps too much or taking important decisions behind his back.
Due to his wide knowledge and experience in the products we develop, looks like he is able to plan each and every task necessary to create the product, including the details of almost all the tasks. It gives the feeling that he does not trust your decision-taking capabilities.
The questions
This excessively wary behavior results in us being unable to take responsibilities and design decisions because the boss does not trust in us, and therefore we (it's a general feeling in the team) feel demotivated and deadlocked in our position, while we stare at how another department's boss is empowering little-by-little his team members, to the point that he seldom calls for meetings as they have become almost autonomous!
-How can we cope with this situation, provided that he'd be too proud to take on a normal conversation about the situation?
Thank you, and feel free to ask for details. My apologies if I wrote too much.
Added: Just to clarify, this behavior is present ever since he took the department leader position (as some team members were already before the boss arrived), that is 12 years ago. Just in case somebody states that responsibilities will arrive with experience.