At some point in time we will be faced with the situation of having a bad boss. While this can be a deeply frustrating experience, you can and should be prepared to deal with having a bad boss. The following guidelines should give you enough background to overcome the frustration and negativity you are feeling right now and also how to turn the situation into your advantage. Remember, you (and no one else) are responsible for your career and the choices you make in your professional life.
Approach the situation as a learning opportunity. One day you may be a boss yourself, and the current experience will be a valuable input for what not to do when you get there. Think about and list objectively why your boss in not a good boss and what consequences his or her actions have in your engagement as an employee. Also think about what he or she could do differently to overcome the consequences you listed previously. This is also an opportunity to grow personally through a negative experience and to develop the mental tools to overcome it.
Be the bigger person and behave professionally. Take the high road and do not lower yourself to childish behavior. Remember, while your boss may be a bad one, he or she is still your boss and direct engagement will only work against you. Instead, you should focus on being objective and professional when approaching your boss.
Try to see things from his/her perspective. Your boss may be under pressure or going through difficult times which you may not be aware of. Try to understand what is driving his or her actions and reactions and try to learn from it. Furthermore, try to find ways on how you can help your boss overcoming what could be the reasons for such a bad performance as a manager.
Engage in meaningful and constructive dialogue. Talk to your boss. Explain her or him what your feelings are and why her or his actions are causing them. Give examples of situations where this has happened and be as specific as you can. Just saying ‘you are a bad boss’ or ‘you are highly demotivating’ is neither meaningful nor constructive. Instead, go for ‘Last week in our team meeting, when you yelled at me in front of the whole team because the report was late has made me feel extremely frustrated. Can we agree to discuss negative feedback in private?’.
Work with clearly defined objectives as much as possible. When the time comes to evaluate your performance, you are surely better off to defend yourself when you are backed up by clearly defined objectives. The more defined your objectives are, the harder will be for your boss to give you a negative evaluation. For instance, instead of having an objective defined as ‘Improve department performance’ try instead ‘Decrease the average time of incident resolution by 20% as measured by the length of the average customer call’. When you can support clearly defined objectives with accurate data, you will be in a stronger position to fight in your performance reviews.
Speak with data when making a statement. Another great tool you should put to use is getting into the habit of using data when discussing something with your boss. When he or she yells ‘I am getting complaints from customers on our department performance’ you should be ready to reply back ‘that is strange, the delivery timeliness is at 97.6% against the contract service level of 95% and our customer satisfaction survey has reached 6.2 this quarter which is 15% higher than the average of the previous 4 quarters’. When you back your statements with the right data you gain the upper hand in a discussion and you remove the chance that feelings and misconceptions get into play.
Work your network inside and outside your company. This one is a no brainer. Explore what options you have out there, both internal and external. If things get sour or you decide to leave, having a plan B is a wise thing to do. It will also provide you with some degree of emotional relief to know you are not hopelessly stuck with your current situation.
Take a hard look at yourself. This one is a tough one, at least for most people. It is a very important one too. You should be sure you are not the cause of your boss’s behavior or you may very well end up with some more like him or her down the road. Take a real hard look at yourself and evaluate your fair share on how your relationship with your boss has developed.
Exercise frequently. Working out helps, seriously. Exercise relieves stress and clears your mind. It helps putting things into perspective, blowing off some steam and unleashing your anger. Let it all out when working out and you will feel better.
Don’t give in to living a nightmare. And lastly, don’t surrender to living miserably. If you love your job and you think you can make it work with your boss then get to it. If that won’t work for you, then grab on to the hope that you can soon find a new job and start already today working to make it happen.
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