The Perils of Complaining about Your Manager to Your Skip Boss!

A large part of my coaching practice is helping my clients deal with their dysfunctional bosses. As I have written in many of my past blogs nearly 80% of the bosses exhibit some level of dysfunction. Although this distribution of managerial behavior is near Gaussian (normal distribution), you should not view this dysfunctional behavior as “normal” just because of the preponderance of managers with such dysfunctional styles. If you consider some episodic dysfunction—during times of extreme stress, uncertainty, or personal difficulties—as acceptable then their outlier behavior during routine times needs both awareness and response. 

Awareness has to do with knowing the patterns of managerial dysfunction that is likely to erupt in known conditions of work environments, such as a looming deadline for annual budget, when their boss—your skip boss—is out of control for some reason, or some organizational crisis that squarely points to your department resulting from your boss’ actions. Under these conditions their routine behavior is likely to get much worse and their actions even more wrathful. In such cases it is best to deal with such eruptions in a calm and considerate manager with alacrity, rather than taking it out on your boss in the moment transactionally; if you do, then you are likely to make your case against your boss weaker, giving them an upper hand. 

So, if in a “normal” day your boss continues the harassment, abuse, demeaning you for no apparent reason, what choices do you have to remedy this situation and what is the best course of action to keep your self-respect and to continue to hold your job with a modicum of enjoyment? 

Here are my suggestions: 

1.    Learn how to separate everyday patterns of your manager’s behavior from the ones that result from extraordinary circumstances (deadlines, screw-ups, etc.). Although the latter are not an excuse for your manager to misbehave, making a case under those conditions and complaining about them—either to your boss or skip boss—can make your case less compelling. If you do, you may come across more as a whiner or a complainer than as someone who has a legitimate grievance.

2.    For everyday situations make a note of what behaviors rankle you and make you less productive and how. For example, if you boss constantly changes directions they give you to complete the task and does not give you a chance to complete it in a rational way and then abuses you for being late, incomplete, and sloppy you have a legitimate case to plead for a hearing and disabuse this behavior. 

3.    Evaluate where the disconnect is between how you work how your boss prefers you to work, making you less efficient. A good boss should tell you what they want and not how they want it done, unless you are not trained to handle that task. The “how” part often results from their obsession for micromanagement. Although micromanagement is a broad term, try not to use it in conversations with your boss when discussing their work habits that vitiate your ability to do good work. When bringing this up be specific about what constitutes micromanagement and ask them to change their approach in how they manage you to get the best work out of you to benefit THEM. So, instead of complaining to your boss that their micromanagement frustrates you, say, When you tell me how to do this columnar addition in Excel it takes me longer to do and I make errors because I use a more efficient approach that always gives the right answer.  

4.    Once you have a good list of your grievances with examples, dates, and context (do not go too far back in time to show that this is a frequent occurrence), seek a meeting to discuss how you can improve your efficiency by changing the way you two engage in your everyday workflow. Do not mix the meeting on this topic with the periodically scheduled status meetings with your boss. They must know that this meeting requires a different focus by virtue of how you have set it up.  If you can catch your boss on one their better days for holding this meeting you can have a more productive session. 

5.    Tell your boss the reason for the meeting, once you settle down and express your desire to do great work to help you both succeed. As you engage in the conversation give some recent examples of how your workflow was compromised by the constant back-and-forth on a particular task and also how you can work more efficiently if you get a clear understanding of the “what” and the deliverables, without the detailed “how.” Once again, do not bring the word “micromanagement” in the discussion because it shuts people down. Do, however, use specifics of how you prefer to work for a more efficient workflow and more impactful results that can help them in their work. 

6.    During this exchange your boss may get defensive, angry, aggressive (or all of the above), but do not lose your cool or your rhythm. Stay on point and ask them if you’d like to continue this discussion at another time. If they are willing to continue then tell them what is your preferred way of working and how you can be more productive in helping them in their responsibilities. If they come halfway to meet your requests then you have accomplished your mission. Tell them that during the next assignment you plan to work with them to make sure that the change will start happening and that you will remind them of it. When the boss does change their ways show them this is working for you by delivering something flawless and to their liking.

7.    If none of this works and your boss does not appear receptive to even the idea of changing the regimen back off and consider other alternatives. 

8.    These alternatives can include sharing your experiences with your colleagues who also report to your boss and asking them for theirs. Also, asking them how they deal with it can give you some ideas for changing your approach to how you deal with your boss. Remember, though, what works for others may not always work for you. Ultimately, you must make your relationship with your boss work for both of you. 

9.    If you decide to then go to the skip boss and escalate this grievance make sure that you are aware of the dynamic between the two. Many tyrannical bosses are very good at managing upwards and keeping their bosses happy, which makes escalating such grievances dangerous. They are more than likely to feed this back to your boss, which may result in your having to face passive aggressive behavior from them, in turn, making your life even more difficult. So, before taking such a step carefully evaluate your options and consequences. Whatever you do make sure that you avoid going to HR to lodge a complaint. This step can also result in a similar outcome as you might, going to your skip boss. So, be careful how you want to handle this. 

10. If you are out of options, your choice is to make peace with your boss and take it or start looking for other opportunities, both inside your company and out. But, remember what I wrote in the first paragraph of this blog: Nearly 80% of the bosses are dysfunctional, indifferent, or incompetent. So, be aware!

Dealing with dysfunctional bosses requires a good immune system and a good strategy to keep you sane. Try some of the approaches suggested here, keeping in mind it is always better to make it work with what you have than to change and chase a mirage. 

Good luck!