Bad Boss in Bad Time

There is a saying, “in good times, employees are in the driver seats; in bad times, managers are in the driver seats.” Fundamentally, this comes down to the freedom and control you have over your options and opportunities. There are many examples of bad times, such as after the tragic event of 9/11, the 2008 financial crash, a company merge and acquisition, a company workforce reduction, a major reorganization, the loss of your sponsorship, or now in the middle of a pandemic. A “bad” manager doesn’t mean the manager is a bad person, but rather they handle difficult situations motivated by human survival instinct instead of human empathy in bad times.

In this article, I will use my own personal examples (in most cases, names and personal information of those involved have been removed to protect anonymity) to explain my personal struggles, the lessons learned, the striking differences between good and bad managers, and the strategies to overcome hardship based on human nature and wisdom I have gained over more than twenty years in this fiercely competitive and dynamic high-tech industry as a female minority.

First, let’s revisit some of the unspoken rules in organizational psychology: 

#1: A peculiar kind of imbalance often exists in that poor leadership is more visible form below than from above which means that those responsible for evaluating leaders—usually their superiors—are poorly positioned to do so. 

#2: The single most important relationship you have at work is with your boss. People don’t leave a company or an organization, people leave their boss.

#3: Most of time you don’t have the choice of selecting your boss, so you very likely will run into a bad manager in your career (even as Jack Walsh did). It is not a matter of if, but when.

My Stories

Now let’s look at the three real examples in dealing with “bad” bosses in my career.

Story 1

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the American economy hit one of its lowest points in the last century. Many people I knew lost their jobs and people who had jobs all had their heads down in order to not make any noise as they were worried about job security every single day. At the time, I was a tech lead at a large manufacturing client engagement. Believe it or not, that was when I started my DevOps practice. We released features every three months to production, and my team’s success enabled my company to win the recompete the following year. I had a fantastic relationship with my PM, BA and technical team. I was a Java lover and Java skill was in demand at the time. 

Right after we won the recompete, the client decided to move to a different technology that I had no interest in investing in at the time. I communicated my reasons with my PM clearly that I would move on to a new engagement where I could better leverage my skills and my passion. Even almost twenty years ago, I had a mindset of being excellent at one thing instead of mediocre at many things. In fact, I found a new engagement immediately, and many of my Java team members wanted to follow me. To resolve conflicts, my manager was pulled into the discussion, and I had many lengthy and sincere discussions with him regarding a resolution. For example, since none of us had knowledge and skills in this unfamiliar technology, we needed suitable resources to accommodate the new needs. I could stay for the transition period to make sure we had a proper transfer of knowledge, and there would be no impact on billable work.

My plea and my thoughtful proposal fell on deaf ears. My manager was military personnel before joining IT and he kept his distance with most of us to maintain his authority. He told me there was no negotiation, that I must stay where I was or else find something outside of the company, period. His language was hurtful, disrespectful, and bullish. Even until today when I make any difficult decisions, the long-lasting memory reminds me to handle problems with care and empathy because I had been on the receiving end of a painful experience. 

Again, this was after 9/11 and no place was hiring, so my manager played my weakness at the time. I was absolutely miserable. I was bullied when I was young, and I knew that when we tolerate bullying, we cause actual psychological damage to our self-esteem and self-acceptance, damage that we can sometimes never recover from. Here was my boss—a very powerful man in the organization—who told me to shut up or leave in the most difficult time in recent US history.

I started to read to look for resolutions and ran into the book Winning by Jack Walsh. He too had a bad boss, and his strategy was to avoid his boss for as long as he could while focusing on what was important for the business. In his book, he warned readers that reporting to your boss 95% of the time was suicidal, so there was about a 5% of chance of survival by going above your boss.

Story 2

If you have worked for a consulting company, then you know that in most of these companies, utilization is the essentially the only metric in your business. Utilization is simply the amount of time you charge your client in billable hours. Your performance and your bonuses are based on your utilization of the year. It doesn’t matter how great your utilization was last year; you could have been a top performer last year due to your high utilization and yet become a low performer this year due to low billable hours. In good times, we all have good utilization, in bad times, everyone is desperate to find billable work. Normally the pressure starts from the top, then pushes down layer by layer all the way to the individual performer.  At the time I was in an architect group, and I was the top performer for several years, always maintaining a 120–150% billable rate.

Unfortunately, the company started to struggle, and I happened to not have billable work after my previous project ended at the time, so I sat on the bench for a little while to look for my next assignment. I still remember my manager pinged me at least three times a day asking me if I found any billable work. I was actively looking, and I was hoping that as a manager he would have more access to opportunities. He ended up finding one for me to teach a Sybase database course—which I had no expertise in—in a country known to be dangerous for lone female travelers. I obviously rejected it, but he was not happy about it. At the same time, I was working on his key internal initiatives that would enable him to fulfill his VP’s top agenda to bring in more future business, but every single day, he desperately disrupted me again and again to see if I was able to find billable work. The distractions he caused made it impossible for me to do any deep work. I was a mental distressed, and I was ready to walk out.

Story 3

Many close colleagues consider me as an entrepreneur and innovative person in large corporate environments. Personally, I love ideation, innovation, and novel solutions to create differentiators. I can be seen as disruptive to those who believe in the status quo, or I can be seen as enlightening to those who believe in progress. I was fortunate in getting a job as chief technologist in a business strategy group to work on product-centric services for a truly intelligent, efficient, and supportive boss for more than three years. Our product-centric services were even promoted by the CEO of the company in an all-hands meeting.

However, it is said that whatever is good or bad cannot last long. My boss was asked to handle a troubled business unit (BU) due to his success in our BU. That’s where the trouble started. We got a new boss who was a salesman from another BU. All he cared about were sales numbers and pipeline while our group was all about building technology strategies and solutions. Our people were not salespeople but rather technologists and strategists, yet all we were asked to do was sell, sell, sell. In a short period of time, our most experienced and talented members were either asked to retire or laid off, or they left. It was devastating!

As Albert Einstein wrote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

My Resolutions

Now let’s look at how I pivoted from these challenging situations to greater places.

Case 1 Resolution

Case 1 was about my manager bullying me in an extremely difficult time in US history.

Early in my career, I believed that wherever there is bad in this world there will always be good at the same time. I found I was not the only one who strongly disagreed with my boss in his approach toward handling people issues. In fact, behind his back, his peers and his subordinates had the same sentiment that I had. He was good at managing up, but very authoritarian in managing down, as well as arrogant in managing across.  People with decency and fairness were all outraged by his bullish approach towards me. They were willing to help me, including some who were senior managers. The first thing I was asked to do was to keep calm and professional. My supporters shared with me some critical info that my skip and my VP were good managers. In fact, my VP was a female leader who had a reputation of fairness, so she would be more considerate in handling this conflict. We decided to take the 5% chance to raise the issue directly to my manager and my skip in writing. My supporters helped me draft an email that was quite effective in articulating my case, and my skip quickly answered the email. A few days later, my VP assigned another manager outside of the management chain to comprehend the situation. Within a week or so, my VP made a recommendation: I could go to the new client engagement with three of my team members while the rest of the four would stay with the current account and bring more suitable resources to support the current account. 

I continued to excel in the new account, and my manager stopped giving me hard time. In fact, he gave me good performance review at the end of year, which I thanked him for. However, the next year I moved to an architecture organization under a boss who appreciated and respected me, and by then I had pivoted from a tech lead to an architect.

It is worth noting that if the management chain in my case were all part of an inner circle, I would have failed in my attempt. Since my support system understood the situation, the risk I took was successful.

Case 2 Resolution

Case 2 was about my manager desperately pressing me in finding billable work without leveraging my expertise to create value.

In the case 1 resolution, the female VP witnessed and understood my struggle as a female minority who was seeking for justice in an extreme difficult time. She appreciated my courage, and she got to know more about me and my strengths. This planted a seed that later sprouted when she had an opportunity to send me to a Harvard leadership program where I gained tremendous knowledge in leadership. In this 2-year program, I learned about strategy, bias for customers, developing others and innovation. This helped pave the road for me to take a chief strategist role in another BU a few years down the line.

Back to the story, my manager was driving me nuts when he constantly checked if I had found a billable project even during my first month on the bench. I knew it was time for me to leave, but what was I supposed to do at this crossroad? I reached out to the VP for her advice, and she said that before I reached out to her, she had submitted my name in consideration for a strategist role in another BU. Because I had finished the Harvard leadership program, she believed I was ready for a new change. It took about four months before I was finally accepted as a strategist in a different BU. Patience is what saved me. I knew that the strategist role was the best next step for my career, so I continued to take short-term billable assignments to satisfy my manager while not getting stuck too deep to move on to my dream job. By then, I had pivoted from an architect to a strategist.

Case 3 Resolution

Case 3 was about my manager destroying a great team for short-term gains (operational cost) in a major reorganization.

This might be the most painful experience in my entire career as I watched a manager destroy an incredible team in just a few months after more than three years of hard work and investment. Our product-centric service was the best seller and most wanted innovation by our partners and customers. One after another, the best architect, the best technical lead, the best marketing lead, the best PM and the best engineers were gone, just like that. There was no logic or explanation of how those decisions were made. Those people were like family to me, and every departure poured more salt on the wound.

As my mom always said, “The world is not fair, but the world needs the best! Be the best version of yourself. People are watching.” When I shared my status with my connections, I immediately had numerous responses. In less than three months, I received three offerings from my connections’ companies.

By then, I learned more from bad bosses than from good bosses. Because of those lessons, I was determined to become a good leader and I would never repeat the things the “bad” bosses did to me. 

My Learnings

A few years ago, I decided that I would never publish anything at LinkedIn if I did not think my write-ups could help others. So, the main purpose of this article is to share my learning gained on how I was able to pivot in the most difficult times so that when you face similar challenges, my stories might provide you with some hope and preparation.

1: Network Across and Out

In her book “ACT LIKE A LEADER, THINK LIKE A LEADER” by Herminia Ibarra, she strongly suggested that you network across and out. We have the tendency to be narcissistic and lazy in networking. Our primary determinant factors are similarity, physical proximity, high status, intelligence, and how much people can help us in our immediate job.

The bad news of focusing only on internal networking is precisely described in this Chinese proverb: 墙内开花墙外香. The direct translation is, “when flowers bloom inside of a wall, there are only fragrant outside of the wall.” The real meaning is that you will be always more valued and appreciated outside of your wall.

As shown in my stories, we will run into good and bad bosses in our careers, and we will undergo many changes. Some changes will put you in a difficult situation, so you cannot only invest everything inside of your wall. You will need to be prepared and invest outside of your wall before you would need it.

Herminia suggested that we must network across and out, and this includes networking outside of your immediate BU and outside of your company. Networking across and out enables you to:

1)     Sense trends and see opportunities

2)     Build ties to leaders and talents in diverse areas

3)     Create more value through collaboration

4)     Avoid groupthink

5)     Generate breakthrough ideas

6)     Obtain career opportunities

You also need to understand that there are three types of networks: operational, personal, and strategic networks.

Most of us have good operational networks, which include the people on whom you depend in order to get your job done. But you have little discretion in the composition of your operational networks because it tends to be prescribed by the job and the organizational structure.

Personal networks include relationships with the people that you feel closest to and trust the most. This network can be internal, cross-BU, or external. I heavily invested in this network. I like to use Warren Buffet’s suggestion, “Surround yourself with people that push you to do better. No drama or negativity. Just higher goals and higher motivation. Good times and positive energy. No jealousy or hate. Simply bringing out the absolute best in each other.”

Strategic networks can be internal and external and can be medium and long-term focused. I spend time with these connections to generate strategic ideas and receive support from them. For example, I have many connections in product management space in startup, high-tech, product and service companies, so not only I can sense trends and opportunities, I can also receive support from them.

In my three cases, it was people outside of my operational network who helped me. Some were from personal networks; some were from strategic networks. The helpers were all outside of my immediate organizations or companies. Without them, I would be stuck in miserable situations, and my life would not be enriched with my smart pivots.

2: So Good They Can't Ignore You

In one of my favorite books “Deep Work” by Cal Newport, he described two core abilities for thriving in the new economy:

1)     the ability to quickly master difficult things

2)     the ability to produce at an elite level, both in terms quality and speed

When you can achieve both, you become someone so good that people cannot ignore you.

In my three cases, while I was being bullied, pressured, or sidelined, someone from far distance was appreciative of what I could offer to the world. They all helped me pivot to a better place. Honestly, at the time, I thought it was a miracle when it happened with such perfect timing. Later, however, they told me that if they did not help me, someone else would have stepped up to help me. Because they saw me do difficult work that produced outcomes with both quality and speed, they just could not ignore me.

So, my message here is to be good at something, whatever it is, so good that people will not ignore you, that people will lend their hands to help you. The world is not fair, but the world needs the best. We are all capable of being the best at something.

3: Allyship

Ally: a person who makes an intentional decision to understand, empathize and act in support of others. It is not a person’s identity, rather, it is a lifelong commitment and practice.

How do my personality traits impact my allyship approach? Let’s look at the SCARF model. This model involves five domains of human social experience: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness.

1)     Status is about relative importance to others.

2)     Certainty concerns being able to predict the future.

3)     Autonomy provides a sense of control over events.

4)     Relatedness is a sense of safety with others, of friend rather than foe.

5)     Fairness is a perception of fair exchanges between people.

Fairness is number one in my list. Because of this mindset, I tend to be more vocal about social justice and more willing to help less powerful and less privileged people so that they can have the chance to advance.

However, the world is not fair, we all see inequality in our careers and lives. However, the bright side of unfairness is that we will learn a person’s true character during the most difficult and unfair situations. One always measures friendship by how they show up in bad weather. I met the most admirable, most trustworthy, and most inspiring colleagues and friends during my most difficult times. My life has been enriched because of their allyship. 

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” 

Final thoughts

We are still in midst of a pandemic right now, and some of you might be suffering from the bad management in these bad times, but I am hopeful that good times are on the horizon. Until then, if you are a manager and you have tremendous pressure from the top to meet your operational metrics, I ask you to read this story about a good manager so you understand how you can be respected by both your people and your business.

I started as a consultant in EDS. My first assignment was in Adobe to build their eStore. Charles Mag was my second manager at EDS. He would call me each month to check on me if I needed anything. Like any consulting company, billable work was the priority in our organization. However, in my memories, we barely talked about billable-related matters, instead focusing on my desires and my future plans. One time I expressed an interest to take a WebLogic class at BEA, but I knew it was not going to happen, given that I was billable full-time. Charles had an idea: since I was in San José working on an Adobe project, he talked to my project manager Michelle to get her permission to allow me take care of client work in the evenings and on weekends. That way, I could take the week-long classes in BEA at the San José location during the workdays. He navigated through the system to get me a free pass. Six months later right after I finished the Adobe project, there was a WebLogic project. Since no one had WebLogic experience in our region, I was the only one who attended the class, so I was automatically qualified. I had a year-long billable assignment to work on my favorite project using my favorite technology. This example shows how good managers operate: they invest in people, they listen to people’s desires, they bring the best out of people, they find creative ways to support their people, and they pave the way for their future needs. Interestingly enough, those managers normally have the best utilization in their team.

If you are an individual performer and struggling to deal with your boss, I ask you to consider my lessons: network across and out, become so good they cannot ignore you, and stand up to be an ally to those treated unfairly. You will realize sooner rather than later that you have an army behind you during your difficult times. 

Much love and all the best wishes to those who are in a difficult time now. Be safe, be healthy, and be strong.