Why is it that most people accept Bad Boss behaviour as par for the course?
Bosses aren’t meant to bully and belittle people, make false promises and become habitual and skilful liars, vacillate and rarely make decisions, disappear or sulk for long periods, and manipulate individuals for their own ends.
So, why do they?
We think it’s a relatively simple answer … they haven’t been shown a different and better way!
If you can relate to this, there are 5 different steps you can make to handle it:
1) Coping
Anyone can handle being managed by a “bad boss” for a short period of time. It is simply a matter of adopting, either individually or collectively, some coping mechanisms. This might include huge amounts of communication about activities, asking what you can do to help him or her achieve their goals, making sure the boss gets the recognition, smiling inanely at his or her embarrassing humour, or covering for him or her when they go AWOL.
2) Outliving
Whereas a coping strategy is by definition not trying to change the boss but merely survive and ensure until something changes, a strategy of outliving the boss is more proactive and is designed to contribute to bringing about his or her next move.
This is more likely to be a conspiratorial strategy with similar beleaguered colleagues, which may include the covert fostering of relationships with third parties – particularly the bad boss’s own superiors – and making sure that it is the employees who are recognised for any successes.
3) Whistle-blowing
The scariest of all strategies is to be the one who exposes the bad boss. A failed attempt at a coup will leave the employee in a worse position, in which leaving is probably inevitable. Many employees, even if they have the personal strength and integrity to be a whistle-blower, refrain because they cannot see a good end result for the organisation or themselves. So why take the risk?
4) Leaving
All our research shows that employees leave bosses, not companies. Ultimately any employee has the choice of leaving and, often, this is the only course of action that resolves an insidious situation. Experience of managing or leading others.
However, this is a very tough call for the employee to make. He or she has to find themselves another job and risk jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, and has to deal with the anger and frustration of being made to leave a job and a company he or she may love but for one bad boss.
5) Sewells!
Of course, leaders can minimise the risk of bad bosses existing at lower levels within their organisation by refraining them in the right ways. 95% of bad bosses can be saved by involving Sewells!
Interestingly, the client businesses of Sewells have cultures whereby these characters simply cannot rise to positions of authority, let alone be able to survive without being found out and removed.
