Careermemos

You are one of those fortunate few with a great boss: a great bully, a great manipulator, a great idea-killer, a great credit-grabber. He knows how to evade you when you have a problem or when you want feedback. He never talks to you or meets you in the eye. He cannot even support you in a project yet when that project succeeds, he likes to take credit.

Chances are, you have been itching to tell somebody else in the office about this. Tell the Chairman or CEO? Tell the board of directors? Or go on a hate signature campaign?

Well, you can trash-talk all you like, but the chances of you coming out of this unscathed are very small. In all probability, the trash talk will backfire and you get a slap on the wrist and a few demerits. Even if you have been itching to trash-talk your boss, don’t! There are a lot of positive ways you can deal with a bad boss without you sounding like a cry-baby.

Try and talk to your boss. Be very candid in telling him what you expect from him as your boss. You want him to lead you, to direct you, to give you support, and to give you feedback on where you did great and where you failed. But do it politely and professionally.

Tell your boss that you believe in his leadership by asking him directly how you can contribute to his goals and that of the team’s. You achieve nothing by talking to the rest of the staff and suggesting everything that will make your boss fail. Some of the team members will somehow want him and the team to succeed and you can be the pariah later.

Circulate and network with other bosses in the organization. If your boss is a supervisor, seek the opportunity to ask what other supervisors are doing to make their teams work. Check out other managers’ styles of leading and managing. Try and find another manager who is a friend of your boss and talk it out with this person. Find out what he is doing differently and ask him if he can maybe suggest the same thing to your boss.

Instead of trash talking, seek other team members’ opinion of your boss. You may be surprised to know that not everyone shares your opinion. If so, seek those who share yours and ask them tactfully how you can let your boss know that you want him to lead better. Maybe your group can start an anonymous suggestion system, letters to the boss, without him identifying you as the instigator.

If all else fails, rather than starting a trash talk campaign and being branded a gossip, leave your boss. Ask for a transfer or if you can’t transfer, resign. It is not worth all your trouble and dignity to try and continue living with a boss that should have been an ogre in the first place. Leave while you still have your dignity and sanity intact.