“How to deal with a bad boss” - the topic that elicits responses to fill up entire server farms.  And I’ve trawled through enough sites doling out advice on boss-handling to make me knowledgeable enough to add my own two cent’s worth of server space.

Before figuring out how to deal with a bad boss, it would make sense to figure out if your boss is really bad. There are difficult bosses, and there are bad bosses. And I’ve had the splendid bad luck of facing one of each kind.

The difficult boss

 The difficult bosses are just that – difficult to get along with. To illustrate, I once had a boss who was a great stickler for rules and schedule. Every meeting, every project had an agenda, which would have to be adhered to with military perfection. We were all expected to arrive on the dot of the clock. Of course, we had swipe cards, but we were also monitored by an external “eye” (the office janitor!) And anyone who was chronically late was hauled up to justice, usually in our weekly meetings. Lunch hours were just that – an hour for getting your grub. This meant all my colleagues who’d been slipping out for their drinks were forced to become teetotalers, at least during of the office hours.  Any slipshod work would be returned immediately, almost always accompanied by a scathing comment. Any misspelled email would always be pointed out in the reply – “so we don’t repeat this when dealing with customers”. And we groaned our way towards record profits.

I’ve always considered this particular person to be the epitome of a difficult boss. A crabby, sarcastic, finicky person. Of course, bosses are meant to be tough, and yes – no one gets to the top by simply handing out sweets. But it could be done without killing the atmosphere at the workplace. Our boss never did put any of us at our ease. The office functioned well, but was soulless. Nobody cared to work under the Damocles sword of skin-flaying sarcasm hanging over them. To his credit, he did give us our due. Any project well done was always commended (sparingly, it was true), and, more importantly, passed on to superiors. He did “get the job done”, but since he was so prickly, he always came across as a bad boss. He knew how to get the job done alright; he just went about the wrong way in getting it done – still does, as a matter of fact.

So, how to get along with this kind of boss? Simple – do your job well, develop a thicker hide (most of us do that, sooner or later) and have as little as you can to do with him. Of course, you’d like to move away from his domain (I did, after a while), but you could do so in your own time, and on your own terms.

The manipulator boss

Then there’s the hypocritical boss. Management consultant Harvey Hornstein describes them as “manipulator bosses”, in his book “Brutal bosses and their prey”. They are smooth, suave individuals - pretty easy to get along with. I knew one of this kind, too. I reported to him – and only to him. Any job well done was applauded in congratulatory emails sent – only to me. That’s the characteristic feature of these bosses – your ideas and activities rarely go beyond him, and people beyond him never really get to know of your work. And conversely, their views are always filtered down to you. You boss acts as an effective block between you and the upper echelon. And in a company with stringent positions and rules, with offices flung all over the world, this is really a drawback.  Your progress really comes down to this – you get along well with this guy, do your job well (goes without saying), make sure you pose no threat to his position, and you might get yourself moving. Violate any one of these terms, especially the bit about being a threat, and you might as well resign yourself to remain in your current position for years.

  To deal with this boss you’ll need to make sure your efforts are carried beyond him. Which brings us to the big N of the corporate world – networking. You’ll need a strong web of support. You don’t have to schmooze with folks, but you could forge essential contacts among your colleagues, customers, people higher up, your subordinates – just about everybody. You could perhaps find someone to fit into a mentor role – someone higher up your office ladder who’d make sure you get credited for your job. Attend every possible official get-together and drop subtle hints about your work. Don’t be cajoled into taking up out-of-town projects and meetings when a VP or a CEO deigns to drop into your office. Mark your presence assiduously.

And don’t forget to toot your own horn, because no one else is going to do it for you. Of course, you don’t have to bolster your work extravagantly, but you could make sure that people are aware of you and your talents.  

Tempting as it may seem, situations with a hypocritical, manipulator boss does not always require you to start desperately emailing your CV down your contacts list. You’ll just need to get past his filtering tactics, and move on upwards.

The Machiavellian boss

Finally, there’s the really bad, bad boss – the Machiavelli of the workplace. In the playground his behavior would be termed as bullying. In the workplace, there’s apparently another term – mobbing. Aggressive bullying, psychological abuse, threatening your personal integrity, shaking your confidence – all trademark mobbing behavior. And the bully doesn’t have to be an immediate superior – it could be any colleague or associate. You might have even got along quite well with them previously, but their bullying could be triggered anytime you start posing a threat – an unexpected pay raise, perhaps, or a successfully clinched deal, or simply a project which you insist on going about in your own way as opposed to them. Then the mobbing starts.

There’d be subtly abusive emails, or even strongly aggressive deriding of your opinions. He does not simply filter your efforts, but more often than not passes them as his own.  Any project that goes well, any event well organized, any sale successfully made would always reflect on his capabilities, irrespective of the amount of effort he’s put in. And every mistake and error on your part would be glaringly pointed out. You could perhaps be overwhelmed with an extensive workload, or not be given any projects at all. The bully’s tactics vary widely, but the ultimate result would be such aggressive behavior that quitting seems to be your only way out.

The safest way to deal with such bosses would be to stay out of their way. You could of course, put in a bit of aggression yourself, but you’d rarely stand a chance against Machiavellian tendencies, unless you’re a Machiavelli yourself (in which case, you wouldn’t be reading this article at all!). Quitting could actually be an option here. But it would ultimately be your call, keeping in mind the difficulty of the situation and your career prospects in consideration.

It’s never easy to deal with a difficult person at work, more so if you happen to work under them. But then, it’s not an ideal world.

These are just a few stereotypical bosses I’ve listed here. For ease’s sake I’ve used the masculine sense, but there are an equal number of bad women bosses, too (50% to be exact, according to studies by the Employment Law Alliance). Then there are others – abusive, tyrannical and downright lunatic. And how you deal with them - whether you stick to your guns, or you deem it wise to move elsewhere ultimately depends on your own judgment. You’ll have to be the final judge of the situation, taking in mind the level of abuse going on, and your stance against it.