3 Easy Ways To Deal With A Bad Boss

Source: Forbes

While in the job, you encounter various types of characters in the workplace. It could be hostile co-workers, difficult clients or at the worst a bad boss. Bad bosses are of different natures and only you knows what category they fall in.

Whatever kind of bad boss you are working under, here are 4 ways to endure.

How To Deal With A Bad Boss

1. Know their ‘Why’: Identify prime motivations.
The better you understand what your boss does, and more importantly, why, the better positioned you are to deliver results, manage expectations, and avoid lose – lose situations. Try to put yourself in their shoes and see the world, and your workplace, as they might.

Try finding out what they care about or what they would want on a daily basis and how they measure success or their though on failure.

When you know what drives your boss you can frame your opinions and use language in ways that line up with his core values, concerns and priorities.

2. Support their success: Work around their weaknesses.
While it may sound counter intuitive to support a bad boss in becoming more successful, there is absolutely nothing to be gained by making him look bad, going to war or facilitating his/her) failure. If he is as bad as you think, he will likely do a pretty good job of that all by himself.

You can support your boss by to helping them focus on their natural strengths, work around his weaknesses.

If you have a boss who’s disorganized, help him/her to be on top of things rather than complaining about his lack of organizational skills.

If your boss is slow to respond, continue to work on a project while you wait to hear back from him/her.

3. Know their preferences: Adapt to them.

Observe your boss’s behavioral style and preferences. How does he like to communicate – via e-mail, in person, or lengthy memos?

The more you can match your style to your boss’s style when communicating, the more he will really hear what you’re saying.

Working with his preferences is an obvious way of managing your boss without his ever knowing it, and it’s a key leadership skill to develop regardless of the kind of boss you are working for.