April 5, 2024 • 27 mins
In this episode De Hicks deals with the critical issue of bad bosses. Drawing from three decades of leadership research, De offers practical strategies tailored to help individuals handle unfavorable workplace conditions, brought on by bad bosses, with grace and resilience.
Using a blend of humor, engaging quips, complex insights, Dr. De paints a vivid image of the detrimental effects of poor leadership found in "bad-boss-ery" and discusses how some organizations unknowingly perpetuate this. From self-checks to establishing clear, mutual expectations, he presents actionable steps to break this toxic cycle.
The episode dissects various work environment frameworks, including result-oriented, process-oriented, and task-oriented cultures. Through this analysis, De identifies the structural factors that might foster or reinforce bad leadership patterns.
De explores the typical behaviors associated with 'bad bosses,' underscoring the importance of understanding the internal needs driving these behaviors. Highlighting effective communication strategies, he guides you on how to steer your relationship with a troublesome boss strategically without jeopardizing your professional standing.
Finally, De advises adopting a graceful and cordial approach when it becomes necessary to exit your position due to an untenable boss. Valuable tips offered include avoiding badmouthing your superiors during exit interviews, and taking ample time to appraise your next boss before accepting a new job offer. Empowering listeners with the belief that they control their trust, perspective, and behavior, this episode dispenses invaluable wisdom to anyone grappling with a difficult boss situation.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Well, let's talk about bosses, bad bosses to be specific.
A quick Google search, bad bosses is going to return a tsunami of results.
It's amazing how many times that bosses and bad bosses come up whenever you throw that into Google.
(00:20):
Those results are going to include the movie Horrible Bosses and the horrible
movie Horrible Bosses 2.
As far as I know, there's not going to be a Horrible Bosses 3.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I hear you. I know what you're thinking.
I could write the movie about bad bosses.
(00:41):
Hopefully, your team and your employees wouldn't be writing the movie about you.
Hopefully you've never actually had a bad boss. And probably more importantly,
I hope that you're not the bad boss, but let's get real.
Bad bosses don't listen to podcasts like this.
They don't listen to podcasts about how to grow as a leader or a manager or a supervisor.
(01:04):
And the odds are that you may have some work to do, but you're not really a bad boss.
But odds are also that you may have had a bad boss or two.
Even if that experience is somehow way in your past,
you can probably smile and nod knowingly and maybe even grin a little bit as
(01:24):
I take a little bit of a scenic drive with you through Bad Boss Dome.
Music.
Hi, I'm Dee Hicks, and welcome to the School of Leadership, leveraged lessons
(01:47):
from high-impact leaders.
For the past 30 years, I've researched the disciplines, habits,
mental models, and assumptions of the most effective leaders. years.
This podcast takes what I've learned from over 2000 of these influencers and
distills it into practical tools and tips you can use immediately.
(02:08):
Music.
If you're into the shadow of a bad boss right now, sorry about that.
You may want to put your headphones on so that nobody can hear what I'm about
(02:30):
to share with you. Just saying. So let's dive in.
Reports and exit interviews about bad bosses are plentiful.
If you want some great late night reading that'll probably curl your toes,
get a hold of some of those exit interviews.
Even when we filter out the perspectives in those interviews from disgruntled
(02:53):
and departing employees who are themselves the problem,
and then listen for perspectives from the great employees who tried valiantly
to work with the bad bosses,
the impact of these leaders or managers or supervisors is massive.
Massive in our research we learned a few
(03:14):
things we've been invited into conference rooms and
back rooms and dive bars to commiserate with
people under the dark cloud of their own bad bosses here's a
few of the things that we have learned and maybe even
from you so buckle up number one the consistent upstream reason that people
(03:34):
are fed up at work is they have a bad boss boss here's the second thing we've
learned if people are frustrated about their schedule.
It's the bad boss that makes the schedule that they're frustrated about already nearly intolerable,
here's the third thought if they're frustrated about their inability to get
(03:58):
that mountain of assigned work finished it's the way the bad boss deals with
the problem that tips the scale here's Here's the fourth idea.
When they have to work with a difficult and underperforming team member,
it's the bad boss who's mishandling the situation that eventually results in
a toxic work environment.
(04:21):
Five, high-performing team members are the first to express frustration with bad bosses.
The dirty little secret is that they're also the first to leave when the situation isn't resolved.
It's because they have the most opportunity, the most experience,
the highest commitment to the mission, and they see the bad boss as a threat
(04:42):
to all of that, and they dip out because they correctly assume that if they stick around too long,
the reputation of the bad boss will eventually become their own reputation.
So one of my friends worked for so long under a bad boss and was tainted,
(05:05):
so to speak, with the reputation of his bad boss.
And everyone outside of his company knew that the boss was awful to work with,
that when my friend finally left that enterprise and decided to go somewhere
else, he had to travel far out of state,
go to a different industry completely to get a job because the reputation of
(05:26):
the bad boss that he worked with for so long hung around his neck like an anchor.
Here's the sixth observation. observation. I like to call it the great boss
fallacy. You've probably heard of the good driver fallacy.
That's the concept that everyone who's interviewed about how good their driving
skills are says that I'm an above average driver.
(05:48):
And if you do the math, you can't have 99% of people saying that they are above average, right?
It's just not possible. But most people think that they are an above average driver.
It may translate also to parenting. I'm an above average parent or a friend.
And then when it comes to being a boss, most bad bosses think they're great bosses.
(06:10):
And if there are any challenges at all, it's not with me, the boss.
Wow. It's with all y'all.
Here's a seventh thought. We call this the halo effect. Since that bad boss, he or she,
is really good at one thing or has some sort of singular appealing quality to
(06:32):
them, they're good at everything.
Tall people are really good at basketball, for example.
Good basketball players make good money, so they must be good money managers.
That's what we call the halo effect. and sometimes you
have a bad boss who has one particular area of
(06:53):
expertise and she's world-class at
that but all the rest of the part of her job she's so bad at it but we just
keep her around because she's good at that one thing here's another thought
if you're keeping track this is our eighth thought giving bad bosses constructive
feedback air quotes in your mind around constructive.
(07:14):
If you're sitting right across the table from me here, as I'm sipping on a wonderful
Chambers Bay bourbon and talking with you, I would have air quotes.
You'd be able to see that. Air quotes, Scotty, giving bad bosses constructive
feedback doesn't work because what they're thinking is if they weren't like this,
(07:38):
I wouldn't be a bad boss.
If they knew what I know, they wouldn't give that feedback about me as a bad boss. Oh, okay.
So you're working with a bad boss. So let's unpack this dynamic and see what
you can do about it in the next few minutes of this podcast.
(08:00):
First, check yourself. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, right?
Wasn't it the performer Ice Cube way back in the early 90s who said,
I think the actual lyrics of his song, air quotes around song.
I'm not going to be using that in polite company because he was better at it
(08:20):
than me. But check yourself before you wreck yourself.
He was talking about a microphone check, of course.
But since I'm not him and I'm not going to be doing a microphone check here,
I won't go much further with that.
But check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Anyway, it's really easy to blame your frustration on someone else.
It's very easy to find something to blame them for because, after all, they're a bad boss.
(08:44):
It's easy to ascribe pure and wonderful and virtuous attributes to ourselves
while ascribing bad intent to other people.
You're probably doing that right now as you're driving, if you're listening
to this podcast, while you're driving down the road.
Or maybe you're listening to this podcast at home and you're looking around
and seeing a mess somewhere and you're blaming someone else for it.
(09:04):
But it wouldn't be your mess, right? Because you'd clean up your mess or you'd
have a good reason for leaving your mess there or you'd have a wonderful reason
for the way you cut people off in traffic.
But if they do it, oh, so anyway, check yourself.
Even if we have the very same behavior as the bad boss, we call that a behavior
(09:24):
coming from a good motive or from a good place.
By the way, there's a term for that. Of course, there's always a term for these
kinds of things we get to talk about.
It's called attributional error. Error. That's the idea that if someone does
something that annoys me, I attribute to them bad motive.
If I do exactly the same thing, I attribute to myself good motive.
Of course, you never make that mistake, do you? But you have a friend who makes that mistake.
(09:49):
But seriously, look at yourself first. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself.
Are you proud of how you respond to, talk about, work with your bad boss?
Is your behavior an excuse for his or her bad behavior?
Do they look at your behavior and then they're off the hook?
I'm not saying you're to blame, not that at all, but often bad bosses,
(10:13):
and when they accumulate power, they do so because they're getting it from our responses to them.
Change your responses and the power that that bad boss may have over you and
others will begin to fade.
So here's the second thing you can do after you've checked yourself.
Ask this question. Is he or she really a bad boss?
(10:36):
Or is it more precisely just a really bad situation in which you all find yourselves?
If the situation changes, the behavior changes.
So usually if the situation changes and the behavior changes,
the person that you've labeled a bad boss will probably awkwardly apologize.
It might take a minute or a month or something like that to get to that place, but they'll apologize.
(10:57):
That's not an excuse, but knowing that will change your strategy.
It'll take a little pressure out of the situation.
So here's the third idea. Do you
have a clear, written, measurable set of expectations of you in your job?
And are the expectations two-sided? In other words, do you have expectations
of your boss? These are behavioral expectations.
(11:20):
Do you have them? These are result-oriented expectations.
Expectations have got to be
specific, and they've got to be ones that you could measure in some way.
And if you don't have those, it's hard to stay on track with a bad boss.
Here's a fourth thought. Are you one of those hypersensitive,
fragile people who takes offense easily?
(11:42):
Oh, no, of course not. Of course not. That's not you. I can't believe it.
You're thinking, I'm not easily offended. I'm offended you would say that.
Well, to be blunt, if you're one of those kind of brittle, fragile people,
or you take offense easily, or maybe you're one of of those fragilistas who
militantly take up offenses for other people,
(12:04):
you probably wouldn't have tuned into this podcast either.
So, all right, here's the fifth thought.
Since I'm getting kind of personal with you, let me ride that wave just a little
bit longer. It's just you and I right here. Look over your shoulder.
No one's listening. That's how podcasts are. It's just you and me.
There's nobody else here. There's not 900 or 10,000 people here.
It's just you and me. are you are you
(12:27):
bad at your job hmm are you so
bad at your job that you make
people crazy including biff the bad boss is it a little easier for you to ignore
the two by four of poor performance in your eye while complaining about the
speck of sawdust in your bad boss's eye Oof, okay, just saying.
(12:51):
Got a little too close to home there, maybe. Ah, too personal.
All right, so that's time.
Now let's move on from all that awkwardness.
Now that you've looked at yourself and you've checked your assumptions and you've
avoided wrecking yourself, let's zoom in on the truly bad boss because that's
why you actually clicked onto this podcast in the first place.
Here's some observations.
Number one, the structure of some organizations and teams foster bad bossery.
(13:18):
Organizations and teams can either be a row, result-oriented work environment,
or a Poe, P-O-W-E, a process-oriented work environment, or a Toe,
task-oriented work environment, or a low, a leader-oriented work environment,
or a foe, a feeling-oriented work environment.
(13:38):
So results, process, task, leader, feeling-oriented work environments.
It's the foe, the feeling-oriented work environment. Everyone has to feel a
certain way all the time or something's wrong.
And the low, leader-oriented work environment, those are the ones that often
result in an epidemic attraction of bad bossery.
Change the structure make it okay so that's
(14:00):
the first observation that the structure
of our organization can sometimes attract and
create and foster bad bossery i don't know what a weird term here's the second
observation their behavior can be one or a combination of behaviors of these
(14:22):
these behaviors is most evident when they are under pressure.
That pressure is usually arising from an insatiable appetite for control or
approval or a sense of personal security.
That behavior turns them into people who are like micromanagers,
(14:44):
or maybe they have a one-size-fits-all approach to their leadership and their bossishness.
They expect you to adapt to me.
Maybe their behavior is you do as I say, not as I do, because I'm in a different
class than you are, so to speak.
I've paid my dues and therefore I have earned the privilege of behaving in a
(15:05):
different way than you do.
Their behavior can also be they have a fixed mindset. That means I'm right.
And that's the end end of the story, they're rather uncurious.
Sometimes their behavior is they really have no self-awareness.
Specifically, they have no self-awareness about their impact on others. Maybe they're a blamer.
They're focused on who did this or who did that, who caused it,
(15:30):
as if it's that simple, rather than on what happened and what's the impact and
how can we now address it.
Their behavior can be, make me look good.
Your job is to make me look good. Perhaps the bad boss is a pathological optimist.
I think that's a bad boss. That's a person who focuses only on effort,
on input, and not on results.
(15:52):
Some bad bosses are fear mongers. They really do believe that fear motivates
people, and in a way it does.
What it does is motivate us to get away from the fear. We have a lot of activity,
but it's not all that productive.
And I mentioned it earlier. They have that paid my dues set of behavior where
they they sit back and think that their past work somehow gives them the right
(16:15):
to not work very hard now.
And then maybe one of the most destructive and insipid and hard to notice,
really, even behaviors that some folks have that make them, in my opinion,
a bad boss, is they have a please like me set of behaviors.
And they will do anything they can to do that. They are really anxious leaders in that context.
(16:38):
So all these behaviors arise from an inner emptiness.
And I'm not saying that in a judgmental or hypercritical way.
These are just observations.
But that inner emptiness is like an insatiable appetite for control or approval
or for or for some kind of personal gain or selfish need for security.
(16:59):
But let's not get to Dr. Phil here. I'm just saying this to underscore that
their behaviors come from a pretty deep well of need and of appetite.
Tight. But you know all that.
That's not why you're here with me listening to these thoughts about bad bosses.
What you want to know is how do I deal with a bad boss, right?
(17:21):
So let's dive right into that. Here's what we've learned.
Let's assume, of course, you've checked yourself, right? So you've started there.
You've checked your own assumptions. So let's assume you've done that already.
So what do you do? Here's a few ideas. Number one, set clear expectations.
Make sure those expectations are written and that they mean the same thing to
the boss as they do to you.
(17:41):
Make sure those expectations are measurable and they are result oriented and
get specific and use the two words so that to connect the expectation with the
result that is supposed to be achieved and then update those at the beginning
of any big thing that's new.
Update your expectations when new things happen, a new member is joining the
(18:01):
team or a new bunch of work is added to your responsibility or taken away.
Number two, here's the second thing you can do. Set boundaries.
This is a type of expectations, but set boundaries or borders might be a better
way of thinking about it.
A boundary is something you can't cross without really bad consequences, right?
But a border is here's the way you cross this. So set boundaries or borders
(18:24):
about your accessibility and your schedule and about how responsive you are.
Like, are you to respond within an hour or immediately or within a week?
How responsive are you? Set emotional borders and boundaries as well.
Specifically there, do not carry the boss's emotions.
Boy, that's easy to say, easy to write, easy to think about,
(18:45):
sometimes very hard to do.
But don't carry the boss's emotions. Here's the third thing you can do.
Communicate. Communicate directly.
Communicate and even ask the boss how they want to be communicated with.
Don't hide from the bad boss. It's easy to do.
They're difficult to be around sometimes, but if you hide and don't communicate,
(19:07):
it's just going to make things worse.
Here's the fourth idea. Use the OIC. You remember what the OIC is from some
of our other podcasts or some of our Hilt Academy on YouTube videos.
A shameless plug here. If you've not seen those videos, check them out.
Hilt, H-I-L-T stands for High Impact Leadership Training Academy.
We have a whole set of videos. There's almost a hundred of those up now where
(19:29):
we talk quite a bit about the O-I-C and a way to do it. You can learn some more about it there.
And I think I've also mentioned it in one of our podcasts together here.
So O-I-C really means the O stands for Observed Behavior. And you talk about
that first, just the behavior. What did I observe?
So you did this or you said that. So that's observed behavior.
The I stands for the impact of that behavior. What does that behavior actually causing.
(19:51):
And then the C stands for the consequences if that behavior continues.
So use that as a way of communicating.
The fifth idea is just do a good job. Meet your deadlines.
Don't let your performance become an excuses or a list of excuses for the bad boss to act out.
It gives them permission to act out. So just do a good job.
I know, I know you know how to do it. You're already doing that.
(20:13):
So you're looking over your shoulder thinking, well, he doesn't mean me.
I'm doing a great job. You must meet someone else. Yeah, you're probably right.
Here's the sixth idea. Stop gossiping about the bad boss.
Just stop it. Well, I need to vent. They probably don't.
You probably need wisdom. You need someone on the outside who you can talk to.
But when you talk about the bad boss to somebody on the outside,
(20:35):
like somebody at home or a good friend, what you're really wanting to do is
talk about yourself, not about the bad boss. Here's what their behavior was.
Here's what I did, or here's what I feel. What can I do differently? Make it about yourself.
Otherwise, it really is just rehearsing all of your bad feelings and training
your brain to feel those even more.
Here's the seventh idea. Don't give your bad boss emotional power over you.
(20:57):
This relates to one of the things I mentioned up above.
We have a video and a podcast about how to deal with difficult people without
becoming one of those. So you might want to look for that and get into that
detail a little bit more.
But don't give them emotional power over you.
You're not playing the same game, most likely, that bad bosses are.
Many bad bosses are playing the power game, and you're not playing that game.
(21:21):
You need to play the truth game, not the power game.
And you know the difference between those two. If not, check out that video
that is on Hilt Academy about bad bosses and about dealing with difficult people.
Or check out the podcast that has that same content in it. Here's the eighth idea. Deal with.
Deal with conflict directly. If it's a conflict about expectations and borders
(21:44):
or boundaries, we'll resolve it directly.
But if it's a conflict about values, you're probably going to need to get out.
Make a plan to get out and go somewhere else.
Document, use email, be clinical in your documentation.
That is, you're just talking about what you observed and what the impact was
(22:04):
on you and make daily progress toward your goal of working somewhere else.
Because we can resolve almost any conflict unless it's a conflict of core values.
That is just beyond the work that can happen in your job to resolve it.
So here's the ninth idea. Caution, caution, caution about going above his or
(22:24):
her head. Here's some thought about that.
It almost never works. If you go to the boss's boss or go to the board or someone
who's above the boss and complain about the boss and what they're doing,
it almost never works, especially if the boss has been there for a long time.
The culture has probably tacitly rewarded the behavior of the boss.
(22:46):
So if you try to address a boss who's a bad boss and has been there for quite
some time by going around him or over her head to the board,
for example, or to their boss, it simply won't work because the culture has
already adapted to that.
And like I said, it rewards it. So it won't change for you. It's not going to change.
I know that's kind of hard to hear, but his bad bossery did not occur in a vacuum.
(23:11):
Others knew about it and they tolerated it and they even applauded it openly
or tacitly, hired other people like her or like him.
If they didn't approve of the behavior directly, then they did approve that
the outcomes that that behavior apparently created, so going above his head
or going above her head, simply won't work.
(23:32):
Sorry, it just doesn't work. So make your plans.
You got to dip and do so with grace.
So remember, you're in control. Remember the locus of control?
Thoughts about the locus of control idea is that you have an internal locus
of control. That means that you are in control of three things. things.
You're in control of who you trust, rely on, listen to. You're in control of
(23:54):
your perspective and you're in control of your behavior.
So make sure that you act out on that locus of control and take control of those things.
So a couple of quick thoughts before we end here about getting out.
First thought is don't trash talk your bad boss on your way out,
on your way to another job.
That's going to be a big, big problem and it will follow you and you don't want it to. Just don't do it.
(24:17):
It's disrespectful. It's rude to yourself, to the listener, and of course,
disrespectful to the bad boss, even though I know what you're thinking.
Well, they deserve it. I can't keep my mouth shut. I want to save other people
from that fate. It doesn't work.
The new job opportunity in the interview, the interview process when you're
going to a new job, make sure you interview the new boss before you accept the
(24:40):
job, including the new boss's references.
I'm still shocked to this day how rarely people do that kind of thing.
It's amazing how rarely people who are hiring folks check references.
It's just amazing. We found the right person. I like him. We hire him.
And then we later discover that they are the wrong person on so many levels.
(25:00):
We just didn't do the hard work of following up and talking with people about
what it was like to work with that person.
So if you're going to get a job somewhere, you should probably do that as well.
Check the references. What was it like to work with Biff and find out what people
thought who have no skin in the game.
Here's the third idea. When you leave that job, do so with grace.
(25:22):
I know you know how to do that. You're a wonderful, kind.
Delightful human being. You just might be a little bit disappointed,
hurt, and bitter right now. So if you leave, do so with grace.
Bitterness never settles anything, and it's going to follow you for years,
and it'll shape how you interact with other people.
Okay, there you go. Bad boss.
(25:44):
Number one, check yourself. Number two, set your expectations.
Three, do good work. Four, Four, increase your interactions with him or her. Don't hide.
And five, if that all fails, time to get out.
I know this is not easy stuff. And if it were easy, you'd already have done it, wouldn't you?
You've got some important work to do. So you just may not be able to do it where
(26:07):
you are doing it right now with Biff the Bad Boss.
Well, I hope this was helpful for you. Reach out to me.
You can find my email. You can get my email. reach out, chat with me if I can
be of any help in this regard.
But you got this. You got this. Take care.
Music.
(26:30):
Thanks for joining me in today's School of Leadership. This podcast is part
of the Archimedes Experiment, leveraged wisdom from the world's most effective leaders.
If you're interested in more, go to my website, dhicks.com. Remember,
Remember, my first name has only one E.
Well, you'll find more short and helpful podcast books and blog posts.
(26:52):
If this was helpful, maybe even share it with some of your friends. Have a great day.
Music.
Well, let's talk about bosses, bad bosses to be specific.
A quick Google search, bad bosses is going to return a tsunami of results.
It's amazing how many times that bosses and bad bosses come up whenever you throw that into Google.
(00:20):
Those results are going to include the movie Horrible Bosses and the horrible
movie Horrible Bosses 2.
As far as I know, there's not going to be a Horrible Bosses 3.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I hear you. I know what you're thinking.
I could write the movie about bad bosses.
(00:41):
Hopefully, your team and your employees wouldn't be writing the movie about you.
Hopefully you've never actually had a bad boss. And probably more importantly,
I hope that you're not the bad boss, but let's get real.
Bad bosses don't listen to podcasts like this.
They don't listen to podcasts about how to grow as a leader or a manager or a supervisor.
(01:04):
And the odds are that you may have some work to do, but you're not really a bad boss.
But odds are also that you may have had a bad boss or two.
Even if that experience is somehow way in your past,
you can probably smile and nod knowingly and maybe even grin a little bit as
(01:24):
I take a little bit of a scenic drive with you through Bad Boss Dome.
Music.
Hi, I'm Dee Hicks, and welcome to the School of Leadership, leveraged lessons
(01:47):
from high-impact leaders.
For the past 30 years, I've researched the disciplines, habits,
mental models, and assumptions of the most effective leaders. years.
This podcast takes what I've learned from over 2000 of these influencers and
distills it into practical tools and tips you can use immediately.
(02:08):
Music.
If you're into the shadow of a bad boss right now, sorry about that.
You may want to put your headphones on so that nobody can hear what I'm about
(02:30):
to share with you. Just saying. So let's dive in.
Reports and exit interviews about bad bosses are plentiful.
If you want some great late night reading that'll probably curl your toes,
get a hold of some of those exit interviews.
Even when we filter out the perspectives in those interviews from disgruntled
(02:53):
and departing employees who are themselves the problem,
and then listen for perspectives from the great employees who tried valiantly
to work with the bad bosses,
the impact of these leaders or managers or supervisors is massive.
Massive in our research we learned a few
(03:14):
things we've been invited into conference rooms and
back rooms and dive bars to commiserate with
people under the dark cloud of their own bad bosses here's a
few of the things that we have learned and maybe even
from you so buckle up number one the consistent upstream reason that people
(03:34):
are fed up at work is they have a bad boss boss here's the second thing we've
learned if people are frustrated about their schedule.
It's the bad boss that makes the schedule that they're frustrated about already nearly intolerable,
here's the third thought if they're frustrated about their inability to get
(03:58):
that mountain of assigned work finished it's the way the bad boss deals with
the problem that tips the scale here's Here's the fourth idea.
When they have to work with a difficult and underperforming team member,
it's the bad boss who's mishandling the situation that eventually results in
a toxic work environment.
(04:21):
Five, high-performing team members are the first to express frustration with bad bosses.
The dirty little secret is that they're also the first to leave when the situation isn't resolved.
It's because they have the most opportunity, the most experience,
the highest commitment to the mission, and they see the bad boss as a threat
(04:42):
to all of that, and they dip out because they correctly assume that if they stick around too long,
the reputation of the bad boss will eventually become their own reputation.
So one of my friends worked for so long under a bad boss and was tainted,
(05:05):
so to speak, with the reputation of his bad boss.
And everyone outside of his company knew that the boss was awful to work with,
that when my friend finally left that enterprise and decided to go somewhere
else, he had to travel far out of state,
go to a different industry completely to get a job because the reputation of
(05:26):
the bad boss that he worked with for so long hung around his neck like an anchor.
Here's the sixth observation. observation. I like to call it the great boss
fallacy. You've probably heard of the good driver fallacy.
That's the concept that everyone who's interviewed about how good their driving
skills are says that I'm an above average driver.
(05:48):
And if you do the math, you can't have 99% of people saying that they are above average, right?
It's just not possible. But most people think that they are an above average driver.
It may translate also to parenting. I'm an above average parent or a friend.
And then when it comes to being a boss, most bad bosses think they're great bosses.
(06:10):
And if there are any challenges at all, it's not with me, the boss.
Wow. It's with all y'all.
Here's a seventh thought. We call this the halo effect. Since that bad boss, he or she,
is really good at one thing or has some sort of singular appealing quality to
(06:32):
them, they're good at everything.
Tall people are really good at basketball, for example.
Good basketball players make good money, so they must be good money managers.
That's what we call the halo effect. and sometimes you
have a bad boss who has one particular area of
(06:53):
expertise and she's world-class at
that but all the rest of the part of her job she's so bad at it but we just
keep her around because she's good at that one thing here's another thought
if you're keeping track this is our eighth thought giving bad bosses constructive
feedback air quotes in your mind around constructive.
(07:14):
If you're sitting right across the table from me here, as I'm sipping on a wonderful
Chambers Bay bourbon and talking with you, I would have air quotes.
You'd be able to see that. Air quotes, Scotty, giving bad bosses constructive
feedback doesn't work because what they're thinking is if they weren't like this,
(07:38):
I wouldn't be a bad boss.
If they knew what I know, they wouldn't give that feedback about me as a bad boss. Oh, okay.
So you're working with a bad boss. So let's unpack this dynamic and see what
you can do about it in the next few minutes of this podcast.
(08:00):
First, check yourself. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, right?
Wasn't it the performer Ice Cube way back in the early 90s who said,
I think the actual lyrics of his song, air quotes around song.
I'm not going to be using that in polite company because he was better at it
(08:20):
than me. But check yourself before you wreck yourself.
He was talking about a microphone check, of course.
But since I'm not him and I'm not going to be doing a microphone check here,
I won't go much further with that.
But check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Anyway, it's really easy to blame your frustration on someone else.
It's very easy to find something to blame them for because, after all, they're a bad boss.
(08:44):
It's easy to ascribe pure and wonderful and virtuous attributes to ourselves
while ascribing bad intent to other people.
You're probably doing that right now as you're driving, if you're listening
to this podcast, while you're driving down the road.
Or maybe you're listening to this podcast at home and you're looking around
and seeing a mess somewhere and you're blaming someone else for it.
(09:04):
But it wouldn't be your mess, right? Because you'd clean up your mess or you'd
have a good reason for leaving your mess there or you'd have a wonderful reason
for the way you cut people off in traffic.
But if they do it, oh, so anyway, check yourself.
Even if we have the very same behavior as the bad boss, we call that a behavior
(09:24):
coming from a good motive or from a good place.
By the way, there's a term for that. Of course, there's always a term for these
kinds of things we get to talk about.
It's called attributional error. Error. That's the idea that if someone does
something that annoys me, I attribute to them bad motive.
If I do exactly the same thing, I attribute to myself good motive.
Of course, you never make that mistake, do you? But you have a friend who makes that mistake.
(09:49):
But seriously, look at yourself first. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself.
Are you proud of how you respond to, talk about, work with your bad boss?
Is your behavior an excuse for his or her bad behavior?
Do they look at your behavior and then they're off the hook?
I'm not saying you're to blame, not that at all, but often bad bosses,
(10:13):
and when they accumulate power, they do so because they're getting it from our responses to them.
Change your responses and the power that that bad boss may have over you and
others will begin to fade.
So here's the second thing you can do after you've checked yourself.
Ask this question. Is he or she really a bad boss?
(10:36):
Or is it more precisely just a really bad situation in which you all find yourselves?
If the situation changes, the behavior changes.
So usually if the situation changes and the behavior changes,
the person that you've labeled a bad boss will probably awkwardly apologize.
It might take a minute or a month or something like that to get to that place, but they'll apologize.
(10:57):
That's not an excuse, but knowing that will change your strategy.
It'll take a little pressure out of the situation.
So here's the third idea. Do you
have a clear, written, measurable set of expectations of you in your job?
And are the expectations two-sided? In other words, do you have expectations
of your boss? These are behavioral expectations.
(11:20):
Do you have them? These are result-oriented expectations.
Expectations have got to be
specific, and they've got to be ones that you could measure in some way.
And if you don't have those, it's hard to stay on track with a bad boss.
Here's a fourth thought. Are you one of those hypersensitive,
fragile people who takes offense easily?
(11:42):
Oh, no, of course not. Of course not. That's not you. I can't believe it.
You're thinking, I'm not easily offended. I'm offended you would say that.
Well, to be blunt, if you're one of those kind of brittle, fragile people,
or you take offense easily, or maybe you're one of of those fragilistas who
militantly take up offenses for other people,
(12:04):
you probably wouldn't have tuned into this podcast either.
So, all right, here's the fifth thought.
Since I'm getting kind of personal with you, let me ride that wave just a little
bit longer. It's just you and I right here. Look over your shoulder.
No one's listening. That's how podcasts are. It's just you and me.
There's nobody else here. There's not 900 or 10,000 people here.
It's just you and me. are you are you
(12:27):
bad at your job hmm are you so
bad at your job that you make
people crazy including biff the bad boss is it a little easier for you to ignore
the two by four of poor performance in your eye while complaining about the
speck of sawdust in your bad boss's eye Oof, okay, just saying.
(12:51):
Got a little too close to home there, maybe. Ah, too personal.
All right, so that's time.
Now let's move on from all that awkwardness.
Now that you've looked at yourself and you've checked your assumptions and you've
avoided wrecking yourself, let's zoom in on the truly bad boss because that's
why you actually clicked onto this podcast in the first place.
Here's some observations.
Number one, the structure of some organizations and teams foster bad bossery.
(13:18):
Organizations and teams can either be a row, result-oriented work environment,
or a Poe, P-O-W-E, a process-oriented work environment, or a Toe,
task-oriented work environment, or a low, a leader-oriented work environment,
or a foe, a feeling-oriented work environment.
(13:38):
So results, process, task, leader, feeling-oriented work environments.
It's the foe, the feeling-oriented work environment. Everyone has to feel a
certain way all the time or something's wrong.
And the low, leader-oriented work environment, those are the ones that often
result in an epidemic attraction of bad bossery.
Change the structure make it okay so that's
(14:00):
the first observation that the structure
of our organization can sometimes attract and
create and foster bad bossery i don't know what a weird term here's the second
observation their behavior can be one or a combination of behaviors of these
(14:22):
these behaviors is most evident when they are under pressure.
That pressure is usually arising from an insatiable appetite for control or
approval or a sense of personal security.
That behavior turns them into people who are like micromanagers,
(14:44):
or maybe they have a one-size-fits-all approach to their leadership and their bossishness.
They expect you to adapt to me.
Maybe their behavior is you do as I say, not as I do, because I'm in a different
class than you are, so to speak.
I've paid my dues and therefore I have earned the privilege of behaving in a
(15:05):
different way than you do.
Their behavior can also be they have a fixed mindset. That means I'm right.
And that's the end end of the story, they're rather uncurious.
Sometimes their behavior is they really have no self-awareness.
Specifically, they have no self-awareness about their impact on others. Maybe they're a blamer.
They're focused on who did this or who did that, who caused it,
(15:30):
as if it's that simple, rather than on what happened and what's the impact and
how can we now address it.
Their behavior can be, make me look good.
Your job is to make me look good. Perhaps the bad boss is a pathological optimist.
I think that's a bad boss. That's a person who focuses only on effort,
on input, and not on results.
(15:52):
Some bad bosses are fear mongers. They really do believe that fear motivates
people, and in a way it does.
What it does is motivate us to get away from the fear. We have a lot of activity,
but it's not all that productive.
And I mentioned it earlier. They have that paid my dues set of behavior where
they they sit back and think that their past work somehow gives them the right
(16:15):
to not work very hard now.
And then maybe one of the most destructive and insipid and hard to notice,
really, even behaviors that some folks have that make them, in my opinion,
a bad boss, is they have a please like me set of behaviors.
And they will do anything they can to do that. They are really anxious leaders in that context.
(16:38):
So all these behaviors arise from an inner emptiness.
And I'm not saying that in a judgmental or hypercritical way.
These are just observations.
But that inner emptiness is like an insatiable appetite for control or approval
or for or for some kind of personal gain or selfish need for security.
(16:59):
But let's not get to Dr. Phil here. I'm just saying this to underscore that
their behaviors come from a pretty deep well of need and of appetite.
Tight. But you know all that.
That's not why you're here with me listening to these thoughts about bad bosses.
What you want to know is how do I deal with a bad boss, right?
(17:21):
So let's dive right into that. Here's what we've learned.
Let's assume, of course, you've checked yourself, right? So you've started there.
You've checked your own assumptions. So let's assume you've done that already.
So what do you do? Here's a few ideas. Number one, set clear expectations.
Make sure those expectations are written and that they mean the same thing to
the boss as they do to you.
(17:41):
Make sure those expectations are measurable and they are result oriented and
get specific and use the two words so that to connect the expectation with the
result that is supposed to be achieved and then update those at the beginning
of any big thing that's new.
Update your expectations when new things happen, a new member is joining the
(18:01):
team or a new bunch of work is added to your responsibility or taken away.
Number two, here's the second thing you can do. Set boundaries.
This is a type of expectations, but set boundaries or borders might be a better
way of thinking about it.
A boundary is something you can't cross without really bad consequences, right?
But a border is here's the way you cross this. So set boundaries or borders
(18:24):
about your accessibility and your schedule and about how responsive you are.
Like, are you to respond within an hour or immediately or within a week?
How responsive are you? Set emotional borders and boundaries as well.
Specifically there, do not carry the boss's emotions.
Boy, that's easy to say, easy to write, easy to think about,
(18:45):
sometimes very hard to do.
But don't carry the boss's emotions. Here's the third thing you can do.
Communicate. Communicate directly.
Communicate and even ask the boss how they want to be communicated with.
Don't hide from the bad boss. It's easy to do.
They're difficult to be around sometimes, but if you hide and don't communicate,
(19:07):
it's just going to make things worse.
Here's the fourth idea. Use the OIC. You remember what the OIC is from some
of our other podcasts or some of our Hilt Academy on YouTube videos.
A shameless plug here. If you've not seen those videos, check them out.
Hilt, H-I-L-T stands for High Impact Leadership Training Academy.
We have a whole set of videos. There's almost a hundred of those up now where
(19:29):
we talk quite a bit about the O-I-C and a way to do it. You can learn some more about it there.
And I think I've also mentioned it in one of our podcasts together here.
So O-I-C really means the O stands for Observed Behavior. And you talk about
that first, just the behavior. What did I observe?
So you did this or you said that. So that's observed behavior.
The I stands for the impact of that behavior. What does that behavior actually causing.
(19:51):
And then the C stands for the consequences if that behavior continues.
So use that as a way of communicating.
The fifth idea is just do a good job. Meet your deadlines.
Don't let your performance become an excuses or a list of excuses for the bad boss to act out.
It gives them permission to act out. So just do a good job.
I know, I know you know how to do it. You're already doing that.
(20:13):
So you're looking over your shoulder thinking, well, he doesn't mean me.
I'm doing a great job. You must meet someone else. Yeah, you're probably right.
Here's the sixth idea. Stop gossiping about the bad boss.
Just stop it. Well, I need to vent. They probably don't.
You probably need wisdom. You need someone on the outside who you can talk to.
But when you talk about the bad boss to somebody on the outside,
(20:35):
like somebody at home or a good friend, what you're really wanting to do is
talk about yourself, not about the bad boss. Here's what their behavior was.
Here's what I did, or here's what I feel. What can I do differently? Make it about yourself.
Otherwise, it really is just rehearsing all of your bad feelings and training
your brain to feel those even more.
Here's the seventh idea. Don't give your bad boss emotional power over you.
(20:57):
This relates to one of the things I mentioned up above.
We have a video and a podcast about how to deal with difficult people without
becoming one of those. So you might want to look for that and get into that
detail a little bit more.
But don't give them emotional power over you.
You're not playing the same game, most likely, that bad bosses are.
Many bad bosses are playing the power game, and you're not playing that game.
(21:21):
You need to play the truth game, not the power game.
And you know the difference between those two. If not, check out that video
that is on Hilt Academy about bad bosses and about dealing with difficult people.
Or check out the podcast that has that same content in it. Here's the eighth idea. Deal with.
Deal with conflict directly. If it's a conflict about expectations and borders
(21:44):
or boundaries, we'll resolve it directly.
But if it's a conflict about values, you're probably going to need to get out.
Make a plan to get out and go somewhere else.
Document, use email, be clinical in your documentation.
That is, you're just talking about what you observed and what the impact was
(22:04):
on you and make daily progress toward your goal of working somewhere else.
Because we can resolve almost any conflict unless it's a conflict of core values.
That is just beyond the work that can happen in your job to resolve it.
So here's the ninth idea. Caution, caution, caution about going above his or
(22:24):
her head. Here's some thought about that.
It almost never works. If you go to the boss's boss or go to the board or someone
who's above the boss and complain about the boss and what they're doing,
it almost never works, especially if the boss has been there for a long time.
The culture has probably tacitly rewarded the behavior of the boss.
(22:46):
So if you try to address a boss who's a bad boss and has been there for quite
some time by going around him or over her head to the board,
for example, or to their boss, it simply won't work because the culture has
already adapted to that.
And like I said, it rewards it. So it won't change for you. It's not going to change.
I know that's kind of hard to hear, but his bad bossery did not occur in a vacuum.
(23:11):
Others knew about it and they tolerated it and they even applauded it openly
or tacitly, hired other people like her or like him.
If they didn't approve of the behavior directly, then they did approve that
the outcomes that that behavior apparently created, so going above his head
or going above her head, simply won't work.
(23:32):
Sorry, it just doesn't work. So make your plans.
You got to dip and do so with grace.
So remember, you're in control. Remember the locus of control?
Thoughts about the locus of control idea is that you have an internal locus
of control. That means that you are in control of three things. things.
You're in control of who you trust, rely on, listen to. You're in control of
(23:54):
your perspective and you're in control of your behavior.
So make sure that you act out on that locus of control and take control of those things.
So a couple of quick thoughts before we end here about getting out.
First thought is don't trash talk your bad boss on your way out,
on your way to another job.
That's going to be a big, big problem and it will follow you and you don't want it to. Just don't do it.
(24:17):
It's disrespectful. It's rude to yourself, to the listener, and of course,
disrespectful to the bad boss, even though I know what you're thinking.
Well, they deserve it. I can't keep my mouth shut. I want to save other people
from that fate. It doesn't work.
The new job opportunity in the interview, the interview process when you're
going to a new job, make sure you interview the new boss before you accept the
(24:40):
job, including the new boss's references.
I'm still shocked to this day how rarely people do that kind of thing.
It's amazing how rarely people who are hiring folks check references.
It's just amazing. We found the right person. I like him. We hire him.
And then we later discover that they are the wrong person on so many levels.
(25:00):
We just didn't do the hard work of following up and talking with people about
what it was like to work with that person.
So if you're going to get a job somewhere, you should probably do that as well.
Check the references. What was it like to work with Biff and find out what people
thought who have no skin in the game.
Here's the third idea. When you leave that job, do so with grace.
(25:22):
I know you know how to do that. You're a wonderful, kind.
Delightful human being. You just might be a little bit disappointed,
hurt, and bitter right now. So if you leave, do so with grace.
Bitterness never settles anything, and it's going to follow you for years,
and it'll shape how you interact with other people.
Okay, there you go. Bad boss.
(25:44):
Number one, check yourself. Number two, set your expectations.
Three, do good work. Four, Four, increase your interactions with him or her. Don't hide.
And five, if that all fails, time to get out.
I know this is not easy stuff. And if it were easy, you'd already have done it, wouldn't you?
You've got some important work to do. So you just may not be able to do it where
(26:07):
you are doing it right now with Biff the Bad Boss.
Well, I hope this was helpful for you. Reach out to me.
You can find my email. You can get my email. reach out, chat with me if I can
be of any help in this regard.
But you got this. You got this. Take care.
Music.
(26:30):
Thanks for joining me in today's School of Leadership. This podcast is part
of the Archimedes Experiment, leveraged wisdom from the world's most effective leaders.
If you're interested in more, go to my website, dhicks.com. Remember,
Remember, my first name has only one E.
Well, you'll find more short and helpful podcast books and blog posts.
(26:52):
If this was helpful, maybe even share it with some of your friends. Have a great day.
Music.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com