How to Cope with Terrible Bosses and Painful Endings

Many of my clients have experienced ‘bad’ situations.

This could be dealing with a “bad” boss, a toxic workplace, an unforeseen redundancy, burning out to the point of having to quit or being let go of.?

In reality, “bad” situations are something that all of us will face in our careers.

A survey of Millennial and Gen X workers in the US found that 74% and 79%, respectively, have encountered toxic situations at their jobs. Meanwhile, in the UK, 70% of the 1,000 workers surveyed reported experiencing harmful toxicity in their workplaces.

When you’re in a toxic work environment, we often feel like we can fix the situation on our own if only we could do more. In reality this usually doesn’t work and we end up leaving or being let go which we can take very personally because our identity is often so tied up in our careers.

Not only is it draining when you’re stuck in an environment that doesn’t work for you, but company culture can impact our mental health, can result in physical pain and memory problems to name a few.

There are, however, some things that you can do to take care of yourself whilst you’re navigating your best strategy in a hard or difficult work situation - even if you’re not in a position to leave right away:

1. Prioritise your mental health and engage in activities that recharge you outside of work
2. Keep a record of your interactions at work. This not only can help to protect you, but will highlight patterns that are contributing to poor workplace culture
3. Find support among your trusted colleagues. This isn’t about causing issues where there aren’t any, but if you’re struggling with your boss or in the workplace environment, you’re likely not alone. Having a united front can make a difference
4. Don’t hesitate to seek counselling or mentoring to navigate tough situations. Sometimes an outside perspective or just someone that you can be completely honest with can help

For more on this topic and how poor workplace culture is contributing to poor mental health and how you can deal with painful endings at work, head over to episode 109 of The Aligned Achiever podcast at https://siobhanbarnes.com/109