Sometimes you just don't like your manager, sometimes you just disagree with changes or ideas. This article is not about such situations, it is about what is often called 'toxic leadership'. I'll avoid that specific wording for the remainder of the first part of this article, but will return to it for a bit in the second part.

So what do you do when you have a bad boss? Eventually, you leave, either due to being forced out, or due to realizing its not going to be fixed and finding a better alternative.

This matches well with advice you will often find for dealing which such a situation, this typically comes down to:

• keep a low profile and bide your time
• leave when you see an opportunity to do so

From an individual perspective this makes a lot of sense. Many people cannot afford to risk their source of income and will try to keep that safe while looking for a place without such trouble, hopefully with new and more fitting challenges.

This often comes with the assumption that it should be obvious to those above your manager that you and your team have a bad boss and since that is being allowed, it is better to look for something else.

Dealing differently with the negativity and stress caused by a 'bad boss' situation is not something most people would do, especially not in a world where it is commonly held that in order to become happy, you should focus on possitives and don't spend energy on negatives, this again argues one should not waste time on fixing the problem, but should keep a low profile and move on.

The result is that most people will not try to do much about such a situation beyond ensuring their own financial security and trying to move somewhere else. Or to put it differently, the number of people who will try to address a 'bad boss' challenge by engaging the organization and getting the actual problem addressed tends to be low, often very low.

Quite a few people find their way to for them more interesting challenges this way, so this is all good, no?

Put yourself in the position of hiring people, would you want to hire someone who leaves when facing some trouble or would you prefer someone who informs you about this and tries to get it fixed?

Also, you should ask yourself: is it indeed a case of a bad boss? or do circumstances leave her very little room to act differently?

The difference is usually easy to tell by looking for needlessly rude or abusive behavior. Someone yelling at people for no good reason, public shaming, taking credit for work done by others and passing blame are some very good indicators here. All of those can happen with any boss at times, but when they become consistent, its a clear sign of trouble.

But at times its not actually your boss causing that issue.

For example, not allowing yourself to be managed does not make your manager a 'bad boss' automatically, rather it creates an impossibility, and moving somewhere else will often not address this. Finding that one manager who can manage you might, but looking at yourself might help a lot more. This may still result in the conclusion you are not allowing yourself to be managed because of how your boss treats you, but at least you know why, and how solving it will require work from you as well.

Another example, senior management might not leave your direct manager much room to act differently. If that goes all the way to the top of the organization, leaving is very likely the only option, but do not assume it does go all the way to the top. While it is true the boss of a bad boss is allowing the behavior, this does not automatically mean they approve of it or are even aware of it. Awareness requires people speak up, and from my experience that is not a given.

For that matter, your boss himself might not even be aware he is being a bad boss.

Determining if trying to fix a situation is worth the effort or it just being a waste of time is often difficult, but without trying it certainly won't be fixed. You may no longer experience the challenges, but its unlikely you were the only person having trouble because of it. You are not alone, and especially when looking at abusive situations, this is something to keep in mind. Those others can be the key to a different solution.

Of course, this kind of situation isn't just an issue for those who end up with a bad boss, it will also cause damage to the organization they are part of.

Damage to the organization:

• Skilled people leaving
  
  Skilled people have better opportunities on the job market typically, and hence will also be the first ones to leave.


• Reputation as an employer
  
  People are social animals, and bad experience gets shared. This will make it more difficult to hire skilled people and to retain them.


• Loss of cohesion
  
  Bad bosses tend to maintain their position and thrive by driving wedges between parts of the organization, making sure those parts are too busy fighting each other to notice the real problem. This has a huge impact on productivity and efficiency but also on the ability of the organization to deal with big challenges.
  Additionally the loss of skilled people often results in loss of people who keep things together.


• Loss of productivity
  
  People will be wasting time on working around issues, will have higher levels of stress, and lots of time and energy gets spent on infighting.
  Additionally loss of skilled people will make things go slower and results in lower quality.

Those are only a few of the ways in which a 'bad boss' situation can cause damage, but to me, the first 3 are especially important because the effect of those is long term, and addressing those issues is quite time and resource intensive.

Employer and employee, different perspective, same goals?

One difficulty I have seen more than a few times is how what seems blatantly obvious to those reporting to a 'bad boss' is very hard to see for those not directly involved. There are various ways in which a 'bad boss' can hide, and there is the different perspective which comes with different positions.

Yet all should have some shared goals in this: ensuring a safe and inspiring workplace which allows people to achieve their full potential.

This often seems to get clouded by too much focus on short-term results and too little attention for the longer term cost of those results.

Seeing the issue

Waiting for the clear signs of damage is costly, as the prominent signs take a lot of time and effort to address. That means lost opportunities, lower income, higher cost, and potentially long term loss of reputation with your customers.

Before I can define some solutions, it is important to understand some of the prominent reasons why signs of a 'bad boss' situation may not get through until after it did substantial damage. The following list is far from complete, but does include some of the most prominent ones I encountered.

The complaint free zone trap

The idea of complaint free zones is motivated by not wanting to get bogged down by the inevitable grumbling of people about anything you do. Its easy to get bogged down by complaints which are impossible to address, or where addressing them does not do much if anything for achieving results.

This idea is not wrong in itself, rather, whatever you do there will always be people who complain about it, and bothering with that just means you won't get to do the things you actually need to do.

But there are complaints just because people tend to grumble and complain about whatever, and there are complaints which actually point at a serious problem which does get in the way of achieving your goals. When the immediate response to complaints is to dismiss them and accuse the person filing the complaint of negativity, you have just created one more reason why people will seldom if ever report on a 'bad boss' issue. Considering how this is already not something most people would do, chances are you just reduced it to something nobody would do.

So, the difficult part here is telling those 2 apart, picking up on the serious ones, and prevent the distracting ones from becoming a real problem.

Alternative explanations trap

Often there exist alternative, legitimate explanations for some of the prominent signs of a 'bad boss' situation. For example, a high number of people leaving can also be the result of changes in strategy or culture which do not go well with those people, sometimes due to actually disagreeing with those, but quite often also due to inertia, the desire to maintain the status-quo.

In a situation where change is being implemented by a 'bad boss', it can be very difficult to tell if people are leaving due to being unhappy with the change, or due to a 'bad boss', typically it is a combination of both, and the first rather clouds the later.

Part of the people having trouble with change in general is a problem which should be dealt with before one starts to implement change. One way to deal with this is giving people a fair choice, either participate in this change, or take our very nice offer to leave and have some time for looking for something different.

Certainly such an approach costs money, a fair chunk of it even. But, dragging along those unwilling to change is also very costly, as many will eventually drop out anyway but in a much more difficult to anticipate and plan for way, robbing the organization of the possibility to transfer important skills. Additionally, it causes long term unrest and negativity.

Those who decide to stay also made a choice to support and implement the needed change, which makes it a lot easier to actually move on that change.

A very similar argument can be made about people not liking their manager. It is certainly a legitimate explanation for many cases, but, but it just as easily works as an excuse to not look any further. When looking at the 'bad boss' challenge, it often involves abusive behavior towards people, which gives them every reason to not like their 'boss'.

#metoo?

One of the things made blatantly evident by #metoo is how intimidation makes people shut-up and not report on things they consider wrong, but also how people are quite willing to stand up and report on things when they feel they are not alone, not the only ones and can't be singled out as a target for intimidation and revenge.

Anonymous reporting, an important tool with its limitations

One way in which many organizations try to deal with the aspect of intimidation and fear of retaliation is by creating ways to anonymously report abuses. This can be quite helpful for those, as its obviously difficult to retaliate when not knowing whom to target, and because of this, its an important tool, but one with a number of prominent limitations:

First of all, it is difficult to have a conversation with someone who reports anonymously. Often investigating a report of abuse involves asking more questions, but whom to ask when not knowing who filed the report? Additionally, often details of the report, or answers to follow-up questions reveal enough information to expose the person filing the report.

Another thing to consider, especially for global organizations, is how anonymous reporting does not sit well with some cultures, and for example in my part of the world, its considered 'not done', and hence, people will not consider it as an option.

Hence, creating a way for people to anonymously report on this kind of issue can be a very good idea, but it needs some help, more about that in the second part.

Whats next?

In the next part I'll be looking at some things I found very helpful in organizations which dealt well with this kind of challenge.

• dealing with the negatives of positive thinking
• dealing with intimidation
• trust and relationships
• organize your employees

Do you recognize this? tell us about your experience.