When I was in the corporate world, I was amazed by how badly some people treated their staffs. There was one junior manager who referred to her reports as "kids," as in, "Hey, kids, let's start our status meeting," and the department head who never heard a question she couldn't scream the answer to (and the answer screamed on Monday was usually different than the answer screamed on Tuesday).
That was years ago, sure. And today you keep reading about how management is becoming more enlightened by the day. But now along comes a survey saying 64.2 percent of respondents said "that either nothing at all or something positive happened to the bad leader", a result the study's authors called "rather remarkable - remarkably disturbing."
Disturbing? Sure. Remarkable? I don't know. Sometimes the worst managers seem to have their eyes fixed surely on their own bosses: They're playing purely up, and they understand it's all about presentation. When I think about bad managers I've endured, they've all had wonderful self-promotional skills. Over the years, some flamed out at the limits of their actual business performance became apparent. However, others are still moving up and terrorizing departments - or, if not actually terrorizing anyone, they're certainly making some lives miserable.
So, what do you do if you're working for one of these louts? The obvious answer is find another job, but you still have to make your way through the days until you get one. So, in the meantime, I've found the answer is a simple "Do good work." Whatever they're like on the surface, loutish bosses still have departments to run or clients to appease, and often appreciate someone who keeps their head down and does their job.
It's not a perfect answer, which leads me to point number two: Keep yourself at an emotional distance. Here, I'm being something of a hypocrite because I have trouble with this one, as I suspect many people do. Still, if you can keep yourself from taking someone else's bad behavior personally, you'll go a long way toward keeping things like insomnia, headaches and upset stomachs out of your life. And use their behavior to reinforce your determination to get out of this abuser's sights and into a work environment that's more in line with the way you think an office should be.
Bad bosses get promoted, not punished? [Reuters]
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I can't speak for all of them, but the one I had was basically a bully who matured physically yet remained an adolescent bully mentally.
He never made the intellectual advances of the other males in his family and few were able to work with him. If something didn't go his way or if he couldn't grasp something he would sling his authority around, cursing, slamming doors, threatening to fire whoever, usually based on skin color.
I suppose he got what he wanted short term, but has no friends, no respect from his teenage children, wife or family and certainly no one at work. Perhaps he can buy a night out with a professional who will at least pretend to be impressed.
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