I had a boss like this about 20 years ago. She was very incompetent. I kid you not, she would sit in her office working jigsaw puzzles all day. That was a strange job for me, in that I was able to basically do whatever I wanted by just playing to the boss' ego.

What I figured out was that she did not want to work, but demanded respect. I played to her ego, then did what I wanted when she wasn't around. Fortunately for that workplace, what I wanted was to be a competent professional. That place ran smoothly the whole time I was there.

After I moved away and was no longer there, a couple of my former customers from that place contacted me via email and let me know the whole place had gone to hell after I left. The way they put it was that it very quickly became obvious who was doing all the work.