What I Learned from My Bad Bosses
Leadership has been on my mind lately. With all that’s going on in the world the question keeps coming up. Where is the leadership? Who is guiding us through our crises? It’s caused me to reflect on my own leadership skills and on the managers and leaders I’ve encountered throughout my career. I had 18 managers during my corporate career and only six of them would fall into the bad category. And bad is a scale. For me it ranges from bosses who I’d hide from to bosses who were completely harmless but totally ineffective. The rest were great or neutral in terms of their management skills, their ability to lead a team and their interactions with their peers or direct reports.
I've learned from everyone who has managed me. The bad ones, however, left an indelible mark. Along with funny anecdotes I can tell or inside jokes I can share with my former colleagues, I took away tangible skills from those experiences. If it weren’t for these bad bosses, I wouldn’t have honed these essential skills:
Network Building: When you’re working for someone who won’t be your advocate or your coach, it’s important to make connections with other leaders inside or outside your organization. Bad bosses typically don’t leave so it’s up to you to make a move elsewhere. The best way to do that is through networking. I made a point of getting to know people outside of my department and built relationships with my manager’s peers. And I always got to know my boss’ boss. These are all no brainers. Letting others see your skills and get to know you for yourself will give you plenty of opportunity to eventually make a move. Having a network to leverage is important in any work situation, good or bad.
Feedback Seeking: A lot of my interactions with bad bosses were confidence killers. I remember one moment when a manager who’d known me for all of 30 days told me that I didn’t seemed stressed enough at work. To him, that was a bad thing! It meant I wasn’t working hard enough, which was not the case. I had another boss who "no-showed" every single one of our one-on-one meetings and never returned a message or an email from me. Confidence killed! Look for feedback from your bad boss and from others. Get a broad view of how you’re doing and take an introspective look at your own performance. When you’re working in a bad environment it’s easy to let the toxicity of that situation color your view of how you’re doing. Getting feedback and input can help give you a balanced view of how you’re doing and where you can make any necessary adjustments.
Career Management: One common thread I saw with all of my bad bosses is they were out to make their own career marks. They were ambitious and driven. They were all about them, which is an important lesson in work. There are some rare cases where a mentor or an advocate will help usher you along in your career. But most often, you’re on your own. Your boss, especially the bad one, is not going to help you get the next promotion/raise/big project. You have to be your own advocate, ask for what you want and make your own career moves. If you don’t know how to do it, there are so many resources available from blog posts to podcasts to career coaches that will offer practical advice for navigating the chess game that is your career.
Do you have bad boss stories to share? Let’s discuss!