6 ways to handle a toxic boss
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Working for a toxic boss can be an absolute nightmare. It can really affect your mental and physical health. Not only do they impact your professional career, they also negatively affect your personal life.
We all have experience of having worked for bosses with different leadership styles. We got on with some better than others. It really depends on your personal preference and personality style. However, a good boss will know how to bring out the best in you, irrespective of your working style. A toxic boss doesn’t know how to do this – it’s their way or the highway.
One study suggests that up to 80% of people quit their jobs due to toxic bosses. Let’s look at some of the common signs of a toxic boss before we look at how you would go about handling them in a professional way.
Signs of a toxic boss
1. Never gives constructive feedback and always criticizes
Healthy, constructive feedback from a boss is vital for development in a job. It also helps with finding out if we’re meeting expectations when our performance is being assessed, especially for annual performance reviews, rather than being blindsided.
However, some bosses are nothing but critical in a negative, non-constructive way. This isn’t conducive to personal development – if anything, the opposite. The constant criticism leaves you feeling deflated.
2. Micromanages you
Depending on our exact roles and responsibilities, there is an expectation that our bosses should give us some degree of autonomy. Basically, once we’ve been shown what to do, we should be just left to get on with it, for the most part, right? But no, they do the exact opposite.
They essentially breathe over your shoulder wanting to know an update more often than is required. It’s not uncommon for a micromanaging boss to start to intervene and even do some part of your work when you’re more than capable of doing it.
3. Has unreasonable expectations
A toxic boss is often extremely demanding in their expectations in both volume of workload and speed at which they expect tasks to be turned around. We’re human and sometimes don’t get things right. As long as we learn from our mistakes and it wasn’t negligent then our bosses should be understanding. They’re not perfect either. But toxic bosses expect perfection.
4. Poor communication
Any important messages that should be communicated to the team, from the boss, simply doesn’t happen consistently. Toxic bosses often communicate messages when it suits them or when they’re criticizing subordinates.
5. Disregards your work-life balance but prioritizes theirs
With toxic bosses, it’s often one rule for them and another for you. If work needs to be completed, they’ll expect you to pull in the additional hours during your personal time. But they’re unlikely to do the same.
6. Unpredictable behaviour
Some, not all, toxic bosses have volatile mood swings. They could range from explosive outbursts out of the blue, which are never warranted, to being “nice” when you least expect it. Sometimes there isn’t really a pattern to their behaviour.
7. You feel like you’re walking on eggshells (insecure)
With the poor communication, unpredictable behaviour along with other toxic traits, these can leave you feeling insecure and uncomfortable. You may feel as though you’re walking on eggshells around your toxic boss, worried about doing something to set them off.
8. Doesn’t listen
Irrespective of how many times you voice your opinion or suggestion on a particular task, or even the rest of the team’s suggestions, they simply do not listen.
9. Is untrustworthy
Due to their unpredictable behaviour and how they make you feel, you’re unable to trust your boss with most things, including what they claim when being briefed on work. This leaves you having to document everything to a tee via email or otherwise. They have also lied in the past to you or you’ve witnessed this.
10. Over-promises and under delivers
They claim and think they can do many things, especially if they report into someone else. However, reality ends up being the work being put on your plate with your toxic boss stepping back.
11. Takes full credit for your work
No matter how much effort you put into your work, they will never give you recognition for this or very little if they do. Instead, they’ll present your work as their own and claim it was all their effort.
Tips for dealing with a toxic boss
1. Stand your ground in a professional capacity – be authentic with yourself
Communication is incredibly important. Give your toxic boss the benefit of the doubt that they may not be aware of how they are coming across. If you remain quiet and accept their behaviour, they won’t know how you feel.
It’s important to be professionally assertive and be authentic with how you feel based on their actions and behaviour towards you. How you deliver the message should be calm, based on clear examples and in a non-accusatory tone as much as possible. Also, rather than diving straight into their behaviour, it’s worth asking them “is everything ok” as they’re likely to ask “why” and then this should encourage them to discuss. However, this may not work with narcissistic toxic bosses.
Whether your boss is narcissistic or not, if they don’t take on your feedback and they know you’ve acknowledged it’s a recurring thing, they know you’re not a pushover. Moreover, it’ll give you an opportunity to log and document such incidents (see tip 6).
2. Are you in some way the cause of the conflict
Similar to the first tip but in this case, it might be you. You might be doing something that triggers your boss which results in them being “toxic”. There is never any justification in bosses exhibiting toxic behaviour. Ever. But if there’s something that you’re unconsciously doing that you could curb which would make your working relationship with your boss better, it’s worth reflecting on.
3. Try to understand why they’re the way they are towards you
Sometimes, practicing empathy by trying to put yourself in your boss’s shoes to try and understand if there’s a reason for the way they are with you may help you to manage the situation. You may really like your job apart from your toxic boss, so if you can manage this then would make your working life so much better.
4. Look out for the positives
A toxic boss can really dampen what would otherwise be a good, enjoyable job. However, it’s important to reframe your mind and remind yourself of the positive aspects of your job. Even if you don’t love your job, there’s always at least one positive – the pay check!
5. Prioritize self-care
Having a toxic boss can really impact your mood, and this can encroach your personal time. Therefore, ensure that you plan to do something that you really enjoy as much as possible.
6. Document and escalate it within the company
It is important to document specific instances where your boss’ toxic behaviour has been unacceptable. Keep a chronological log of your boss’ toxic behaviour and any occasions you have tried raising this with them. If things don’t get any better, raise this with your HR department. Do ensure that you read up on your employer’s policy on grievances and that you follow this to put yourself in the best position to have the matter hopefully resolved.