“People quit people, not companies.”
John Maxwell, Leadership Gold
This is a tricky situation. In an ideal world, your direct supervisor is someone who empowers, develops, and helps you feel engaged in the work. But sometimes the world isn’t ideal. Sometimes work environments can be toxic.
While you are working in a toxic environment, you have choices. You can:
- Fight it, push back, display passive aggression, circumvent your boss, go into battle daily, etc.
- Mitigate it, work within it, stay detached, ignore it as best you can, etc.
- Leave it for greener pastures elsewhere
Let’s assume the following: you need to work, you want to work, you don’t hate where you work, but you are having serious problems that, from your perspective, are due mostly to your boss’s bad behavior.
Let’s assume that you don’t want to jump to the nuclear option of quitting your job (yet), but things need to change.
Four Steps Toward Improving Your Relationship with a Bad Boss
Step one:
Start with the person in the mirror. We all know that it takes two to tango, so before seeking behavior change from others, see what you can (or even should) change in your behaviors and reactions.
Reflect on past battles with your boss. Organize your thoughts into three categories:
- The specific badness that occurred
- The impact of the badness on you, the team, the project, and/or the company
- Take a deep breath and logically consider the question, “What, if anything, could I have done differently”?
Below is a table with some sample statements
| Badness | Impact of badness | What, if anything, could I do differently? |
| My boss completely altered the scope of the project in the middle of doing it. | Delays, frustration, rework | Schedule meeting with boss to complete a project scope document and get signoff before work begins in earnest |
| I finished the assignment. It was successful, and all the feedback that my boss gave me was critical. | Frustration, disengagement from work | Create an after action report when every project ends. |
| Boss introduced several “surprise” stakeholders and said that I had to get feedback from them when we were almost at the finish line. | Delays, extra time bringing them up to speed, pressure/stress, rework | Ask boss for the list of stakeholders/reviewers up front |
| Boss wanted input and/or approval in unexpected places | Disempowerment, potential rework, delays, feelings of incompetence | Plan for more face time with boss as the project progresses |
| Boss doesn’t answer emails but still wants to micromanage project | Passive aggression, Quiet Quitting | Sign off on your emails with a phrase like: “Unless you say differently by X date, I am going to proceed with this course of action.” |
| Boss criticized you in a public setting | Embarrassment, threats to your brand/reputation at work, defensiveness, permanent damage to relationship | Have a boundary setting conversation with boss. |
Step Two:
Re-center your emotions and take stock of your priorities. Enter a pragmatic mindset and implement the easily implementable stuff from your “Table of Badness” like the one above. Assess the impact of the changes you made.
Did the badness reduce to a manageable level? If not…
Step Three:
Have a crucial conversation with your boss.
There are lots of books written about how to have a crucial conversation. Below are a few recommendations I’d like to highlight.
Get feedback from trusted advisors. Seek advice from your HR business partner (if you have one). Talk with your mentor or accountability partner who will help you honestly appraise your situation and your next steps.
During the crucial conversation with your boss, here are some recommendations
Use I-statements liberally. As much as you would like for them to just change their behavior, accusations (even when completely accurate) will put them on the defense. It is unlikely that the relationship will move past the issues once accusations start being hurled.
Set clear boundaries. This is a job for which you are paid for your knowledge, skills, and abilities. You have every right to be treated with respect. Unfortunately, some people don’t respect boundaries. In those cases, you clearly specify what’s okay and what’s not okay.
Step Four:
Assess and manage the impacts of the crucial conversation, if badness continues, you have options:
- Use a Q-tip. Not in your ear. In this context, it stands for Quit. Taking. It. Personally. Uncoupling your feelings from the work environment may make it easier to stay, but it may not be how you wish to operate.
- Reevaluate your commitment to the position. Is this a job, a career, or a calling? That makes a big difference in your decision to Q.T.I.P., or just…
- Leave the job.
“People leave managers, not companies”
Marcus Buckingham, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
Most of us spend the bulk of our waking hours at work. It’s a sobering realization that we may even spend more time with our bosses than we do our families. When that relationship is bad, things can feel really, really, well…bad.
As I’ve said before, the one thing that is 100% in common between your current job and a potential new job is…
You.
My best overall advice when working for a bad boss is to take the highest road possible. Use the circumstance to showcase how amazingly awesome you are. Stay calm. Stay focused. Don’t allow yourself to be abused, certainly, but do your best to ensure that your behavior is something you’ll be proud of in the future.
Who knows, maybe the bad boss gets the boot, and you get a promotion.
Are you ready to prioritize tasks, address time challenges, and master your information?
Buy the Crazy Productive series and you will receive all six books at a discounted price.
Melissa Gratias (pronounced “Gracious”) used to think that productivity was a result of working long hours. And, she worked a lot of hours. Then, she learned that productivity is a skill set, not a personality trait. Now, Melissa is a productivity expert who coaches and trains other businesspeople to be more focused, balanced, and effective. She is a prolific writer and speaker who travels the world helping people change how they work and improve how they live. Contact her at getproductive@melissagratias.com or 912-417-2505. Sign up to receive her productivity tips via email.
So incredibly insightful! Sending this to a couple of friends and personally reflecting on times that this information would have been useful.
Thank you, Tammy. This post was inspired by a good friend of mine who is going through a similar situation.
This REALLY resonates with me. In the end, I solved the problem 22 1/2 years ago by starting my own business. (My boss may be a bitch, but she lets me sleep in most mornings!)
When I worked in my prior career, I had several good, empathetic, wise bosses who did not put their egos first. But I had two who were, in the end, too toxic to bear.
One was a narcissist who demanded that anyone/everyone should do his bidding no matter how impossible, illegal, immoral, or insane. He respected no boundaries and felt that he “owned” people’s time, 24/7/365. He broke promises, he lied, and people regularly left meetings in his office looking shaken and disturbed, as though they could not believe the conversations they had just had. He was known for complaining that someone had not yet completed a task that was just assigned during the conversation they were still having!
This was early in my career, and after making every effort as you describe above, I “traded up” for a better job, a much better boss, and a better life.
Years later, I worked at the management level for a boss who showed red flags (lack of awareness that he was asking illegal interview questions, requests/demands for actions that were not possible/kosher, lack of leadership or management skills, etc.) from the start. He was a better human being than the other boss, but as he went through several personal challenges that encroached on his work relationships, eventually, one-by-one, employees left to maintain their sanity. As did I. (But not before we had a fight about ethics that ended with me uncharacteristically screaming and slamming his office door with a loud BAM! From the other side of the building, a colleague was heard shouting, “Oh, lordy, I think she finally shot him!” And no, that’s not at all funny, but gallows humor was all we had left at that point.)
In both cases, the boss didn’t find fault with my work, only with my unwillingness to break (or they put it, “bend”) laws and regulations. I learned valuable lessons — that I need to focus on intrinsic and not extrinsic validation, and that one cannot spent all of life “managing up” without it taking a toll on mental and physical health. I also learned that my boundaries are note merely important to me, but essential. I also learned that money is not a key motivator to me; ethics are.
In the end, I tried as hard as I could with the QTIP and then set myself free. That career had been a calling, but by that final four-year job, it was no longer my only calling.
I absolutely love your table of badness! It is transformative!