This is the Worst Kind of Boss

I’ve been pretty blessed and/or lucky depending on your perspective regarding the bosses I have had in my career. Most of them were really good people. Some of them were really, good and smart. A couple were good, smart and caring – those were the best. I thought about those great bosses after reading an article in the Washington Post about the worst kind of boss.

Surprisingly the worst bosses are not the ones who act like jerks all the time. No, the worst bosses are the unpredictable ones. The ones who catch you off guard with things you didn’t see coming. Thankfully I have never personally had to deal with a boss like this, but I have certainly worked with enough people to have had colleagues who were inconsistent in their approach to work related issues.

I remember one of the bad bosses I had at a telecom company in the mid-90’s. He was a consistent jerk. Passive aggressive. Smile in your face but will later tell another co-worker something unflattering about you. You want to just ask, what is that about? But you need your job so you file that piece of information in your memory to remember not to trust him at all. This is a situation where both exercise and mindfulness would be helpful. Back in those days I didn’t know going outside to take a walk around the building and get fresh air could help so much. I brought home extra tension when I could have deployed some simple options to make things better for me.

I can see where not knowing or being able to gauge how your boss is going to react to a problem or whether you’ll be blamed for something can make work pretty ugly. Research lets us know that the #1 relationship we have at work is with our immediate supervisor. If you don’t like your boss, you are more likely to look for another job than someone who likes the person they report to on the org chart.

Have you ever left a job because of a bad boss?

 

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