Work life isn’t always pleasant and neither is it easy (Working 12 hours a day, sometimes more isn’t beans). One thing that can now make it even more unbearable is working under a horrible boss. You spend most of your time at your office, so working under a bad boss can greatly affect both your work life and your home life. It can even go on to affect your health.
Learning how to manage a terrible boss is important to avoid stress and damage on your overall well being. Bad bosses really leads to bad performance.
In this article we’ve narrowed it down to 5, the worst types of bosses you could have at work and how to handle them:
Horrible Boss #1: The Jealous Boss
The Jealous boss is the boss who always makes you ask yourself ”..wait, is it just me or is my boss actually jealous of me?”
It’s something you constantly ask yourself because it’s hard to believe that your boss would really be jealous of you.
If you suspect your boss being jealous of you, your work and your talent, chances are they will make sure you’re stuck in your current position, because they literally can do that. The hard truth is, when someone who has power over you and has the ability to influence your career is feeling jealousy towards you, you can’t exactly ignore it.
How to handle a Jealous Boss:
It’s weird to have a boss who seems jealous of you, and once you identify that energy, it immediately puts you in a tight spot but what you can do firstly is to look within yourself and check your work behavior: do you give credit to others when its due? do you share success with your team members and the people who contributed to the success of a project?
These things are important to ask yourself before you 100% make the assumption that your boss is jealous of you and your success.
Handling a jealous boss is very tricky but there are some things you can do/say to ease things.
When working on a new project, let them know you have some ideas that you’ll love to run by them because of how much you admire the work they do. (We aren’t saying to start kissing a** to help their ego, but just to make sure they recognize that you respect their guidance and input).
Also, whenever you experience success at work or you’re being praised for a job well done, acknowledge any help or support you got from your team/boss.
Horrible Boss #2: The Boss Who Has No Respect
Also known as the boss who lacks empathy, and the boss who is always negative. These ones are plenty in Nigeria.
This is the type of boss who doesn’t listen to feedback, who doesn’t put in as much work as his/her employees (but remembers to collect all the praise) and just quite frankly doesn’t care about their employees.
How to handle the boss who has no respect:
Can you really handle a boss who has no respect for you or for anyone?
Short answer: No, not really.
Long answer: Anything you say to this type of boss is most likely to be ignored. The best thing you can do for yourself if you work under a boss like this is to focus on yourself. Work on sharpening your existing skills and building your own future so you can go on to work at a better office environment with better managers that respect you or even better, you can go on to become your own boss.
Horrible Boss #3: The Blame Game Boss
This is the type of boss who is always so quick to place a mistake on somebody’s head.
Everybody makes mistakes. Yes, even at work. No matter how much planning goes into certain work projects, mistakes do happen. When you now have a horrible leader, of course there are bound to be even more mistakes.
Instead of identifying the root of the problem (bad management, duh) this boss will find the person responsible and possibly even give them a query/punishment.
How to handle the blame game boss:
Fear based leadership can never work because good leadership requires a good amount of respect and communication. If you have a boss who constantly blames everyone and everything for every mistake, then its possible you can get them to look at the real root of the problems. It could be bad communication, inefficient delegation etc.
Horrible boss #4: The Micromanager
The micromanager has this insane desire for control, that’s how you can easily spot one.
This is the type of boss no employee wants to deal with, for obvious reasons: They want to be cc’d in every email, they will most likely ask you to re-do all your tasks/deliverables, they always add their own finishing touches to your latest client proposal, amongst so many other things. Nothing is ever good enough for a boss like this, their perfectionism is through the roof.
How to handle the Micromanager:
You can’t rebel against this type of boss because if you do, they’ll micromanage you even more. The key to dealing with a micromanager is to also over do. Always ask questions and always over communicate. You absolutely always have to deliver, and deliver in a way that will get them to see that you don’t really need their help. This might ease their impulse to always get involved unnecessarily.
Horrible Boss #5: The Know It All
There is absolutely nothing worse than a person who believes they know it all, because they will never take to correction.
Now, imagine working under someone that has managed to convince themselves that they do in fact know it all.
Chai.
Also known as the boss who wants you to be just like them, the know it all will always insist you do things his/her way (because ”they know best”). Even if they make terrible decisions with horrible outcomes, this boss will always insist that they know what’s best, but of course when things go wrong, its suddenly your fault.
How to handle The Know It All:
The best way to handle this type of boss is to remember to write down everything. And we mean everything.
Even the things you think are unnecessary, write them down.
So that if your boss ever says they didn’t tell you to do something after yet another project fails miserably, you’ll refer to your notes.