Random musings …
This seems to be bad boss week. I’ve heard stories from friends, family and correspondents that run from irritation to outright severe emotional abuse in the workplace. From the perspective of advice: If you have a bad boss, here’s my advice – abandon all hope. Hope is your enemy, because hope is what leads employees to think their boss might one day see the light. Here’s what really happens: Your boss already h
This seems to be bad boss week. I’ve heard stories from friends, family and correspondents that run from irritation to outright severe emotional abuse in the workplace.
From the perspective of advice: If you have a bad boss, here’s my advice – abandon all hope. Hope is your enemy, because hope is what leads employees to think their boss might one day see the light. Here’s what really happens: Your boss already has seen the light! The light is that his or her behavior works. Ranting, raving, being abusive and bullying, holding unrealistic expectations and calling it a drive to excel … whatever form it takes, some bosses have never matured beyond kindergarten tantrums; many more started out as schoolyard bullies and liked the result.
Don’t hope they’ll change. Don’t expect them to change. Why would they? It’s your problem, not theirs.
From the perspective of those readers of this column who are bad bosses … what are you thinking of? There’s vast gulf separating an insistence on excellence from insistence on a deathmarch. Insisting on excellence helps employees understand what they’re capable of. I’ve seen deathmarches end in literal death. And even if they don’t, employees stressed past reasonable limits produce junk.
If you can’t increase your budget, find ways to reduce the workload to bearable levels. You can say “work smarter, not harder” all you want but unless you plan to participate in the effort to figure out what “work smarter” means in practice, all you’re doing is winning the verbal battle, not solving an actual business problem.
– Bob
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