How to Deal with Bad Bosses

Dealing with difficult people is a skill many of us don't develop, feeling little need to. In daily life we can choose to ignore or walk away from someone who is being difficult. But when that person is your boss, freedom of choice is limited. The skill is dealing with a bad boss is learned, like any skill. To save needless grief and frustration, here are some basic pointers.

1. Identify what makes your boss difficult. When we label someone as temperamental or hard to handle, what we really mean is that some aspect of human nature has become magnified and persistent. In that light, here are the main categories that difficult people fall into.

* Tyrants, rageaholics, and aggressive types magnify anger.

* Control freaks, perfectionists, and nitpickers magnify the need to be in control.

* Ditherers, fence-sitters, and other forms of indecisiveness magnify fear and insecurity.

These are the three main types of bad bosses. So it helps to know which one you are dealing with, because they aren't all handled the same way.

2. Don't try to fix what's wrong, and don't psychoanalyze your boss. It's a waste of time to think you can change deeply ingrained behavior. Likewise, trying to get at the psychological root of the problem is generally futile, even if you get a measure of satisfaction by thinking you know what's really wrong. Assume that your boss doesn't know or care about his bad behavior. If he has enough self-awareness to see that his behavior needs fixing but can't do anything about it, the end result is still the same.

3. Focus on contact and communication. Bad behavior isolates people because it drives others away. The most common tactic with a bad boss is to keep out of his way. But you will never learn how to deal with him (or her) until you make contact. In most cases the isolated person secretly welcomes human contact. The next step is to start communicating. This generally begins by listening and watching. Don't approach your boss with the notion of giving advice or venting your feelings. The main object is to find out what your boss has to say and how much he will be willing to listen. Communication takes time, and you need to be patient, keeping an open channel without a personal agenda.

4. Learn to avoid having your buttons pushed. We all have our own personal set of buttons, and while one person can shrug off a display of anger, someone else may be overly sensitive to it. If your boss pushes your buttons, you will not be in a good position to help yourself when you react negatively. Nor is communication likely to occur. But on the positive side, you can learn to interact during those times when the bad behavior isn't flaring up. Remember, the bad behavior isn't about you, even though it may push your buttons.

5. Don't participate in undermining your boss and making the situation worse. Don't gossip or join complaining sessions. Don't drag your feet following orders--passive aggressive responses only worsen a bad situation. Keep in mind that your role is to maximize what's positive and minimize what's negative.

With these steps in mind, you lay a foundation for the most important decision you can make, which is either to walk away or not. Sometimes a bad boss is more than a difficult person. Sometimes he or she is impossible and goes too far crossing the line. In that case, you no longer have the option of handling him or her. In the next post I'll discuss how to judge when a bad boss has gone too far. There are definite guidelines that everyone in the workplace should know but which are often not expressed or known.

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Chopra is the author of more than 80 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His latest books are Super Genes co-authored with Rudolph Tanzi, PhD and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. www.deepakchopra.com