image from the The Daily Worth blog
The recent rise in sexual harassment complaints has highlighted one aspect that may arise in dealing with a "bad boss." But bosses can be troublesome in a variety of ways. Four general behaviors that indicate a supervisor may be problematic are:
Forbes magazine recently did an article on how to deal with a difficult supervisor, suggesting five constructive ways:
It is difficult to apply these rational responses and deal with the emotions that arise in the moment when being criticized or otherwise poorly treated. Mindfulness is a technique that might help. Mindfulness is meta-awareness about what one is experiencing. In a simple example, one can experience frustration or even road-rage in bad traffic among selfish drivers. Meta-awareness would be noting that one has a strong feeling and that a choice exists as to whether to run with those feelings or just sit and notice that the feeling has arisen, not taking the situation personally.
With respect to the bad boss issue, meta-awareness might look like this: if one experiences a thought such as: "I am really being treated unfairly! What a jerk!"-- it is possible to have two responses (at least). One response is to feel moral indignation and ramp up one's emotional agitation regarding the unfairness. Another response is to have a meta-awareness: "Oh, I am experiencing strong emotions here. One is anger. Another is fear. I could really let this build until I want to explode. I can choose, however, to just sit in this meta-awareness until the strong feelings of helplessness subside.Then I will think about the situation rationally and maybe discuss it with a trusted friend or colleague so I I can handle it more skillfully."
Source: "5 Constructive Ways To Deal With Bad Bosses," by Victor Lipman, Forbes, September 14, 2017.
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