Working Under A Bad Manager? Don’t Fight Fire With Fire.

Have you ever noticed how your boss and your family have one thing in common? You can’t choose either. Some bosses, however, tend to think of their employees as family. An idea that Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, describes as ‘preposterous.’??

Family-thinking and team cohesion is not the same thing. You can’t un-family your family. But you can choose to leave a less-than-ideal manager and a company where you don’t fit in.

But I digress. Working under a bad boss doesn’t mean that resigning is your only option. Not-so-inspiring bosses provide invaluable opportunities for developing skills that you would never have had to cultivate if your career path were a bed of roses.

With insight comes rapport and the possibility to change the relationship.

Take this experience as a personal lesson to foster self-leadership and to build unparalleled soft skills. Here’s how:

1. Don’t just label them as ‘bad’. Identify their management style.

Labelling your boss as ‘bad’ can mean anything. What does it mean to you? A Laissez-Faire leadership style can be an effective way to manage a small, seasoned team of specialists, but it might wreak havoc in a dispersed group of newly-appointed graduates.

Elements of micro-management might even be (temporary) relevant to help a team of youngsters find their feet. (Please note the words elements and temporary.)

Define your manager’s actions and how that aligns with a specific style that you don’t prefer. Give it a name.

Now that you know what exactly you’re dealing with, you can unpack the reasons behind it.

2. Get to know the reason behind their management style.

It might feel like their main professional objective is to make your life miserable, but I’ve very seldom found that to be the case. Managers are people, and people have worldviews and baggage.

They might have been burned by an employee who didn’t come through as they had promised. Hence, their inclination to micro-manage.

They may have overtly supported and recommended an employee for a promotion, only to have that employee say hurtful things about them behind closed doors. Hence, their propensity to be unsupportive.

The only way you will get the story behind the story is to do the unthinkable: make a concerted effort to get to know them. Don’t stop reading. It gets better.

3. Let them know that you support them – then show it.

Don’t sell your soul or be a brownnoser. But you are going to have to let your manager know that you support them.

Showing interest in their success builds trust. With trust comes insight. And with insight comes rapport and the possibility to change the relationship. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

While it may sound counterintuitive to support a bad boss in becoming more successful, Dr Margie Warrell says there is absolutely nothing to be gained by making them look bad, going to war or facilitating their failure.? And I agree.

Spreading stories about their incompetence will only compound your misery and may even damage your reputation. Keep exhibiting integrity and deliver to the best of your abilities.

An entire company cannot deny excellence. At worst, the rest of the leadership corps won’t be able to ignore your contribution.