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Key Takeaways
- Enduring bad bosses is exhausting, but there are invaluable lessons to be learned from them, which can teach you what kind of leader you don’t want to be.
- If your boss — or even you yourself — exhibits any of the following traits, there are ways to turn things around and become a better leader.
In my new book, The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses, I share hilarious and heartbreaking stories of bad bosses I have endured and survived. It’s easy to paint a bad boss as a Disney villain or Marvel character. It’s much harder to sit and reflect on what we have learned from these experiences. And how these bad bosses can actually make us better leaders.
As I practice gratitude this holiday season, I am reflecting on how I am grateful for those bad bosses. Here are five lessons my bad bosses taught me.
Related: The 6 Most Familiar ‘Bad Boss’ Types and What to Do About Them
1. Stop normalizing emailing at midnight
My former boss, who I nicknamed “The Devil,” was the boss who never had any time for me during the day. But did have time to consistently send me emails between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. I started responding to her emails in the early morning hours.
Years later, the question I continue to ponder is, Why didn’t she have time for me? As a leader, if you can’t make time for your teams during the day to coach, guide and teach them, you have to ask yourself, Why are you leading in the first place?
And I’m not ashamed to say that on most evenings I’m asleep at midnight. It doesn’t mean there aren’t periods of my life when I’m working incredibly hard and constantly burning the midnight oil, but that isn’t sustainable. I have to be able to lead myself and my team through intense drive periods, and then take the time to rest and recover.
2. Let individuals do their jobs
“The Chopper” was my former boss who hovered like a helicopter, ready to dive into details that didn’t matter. He loved overcomplicating the simplest of tasks. He genuinely seemed to enjoy and mastered the art of micromanaging all of us. Doing all of our jobs seemed to bring him so much more joy than doing his own job.
If we hire individuals for their expertise and experience, please don’t do their jobs for them. Give them the space to work. Teach them new skills. Coach them through mistakes. Stop micromanaging on details that don’t matter. Focus on the output and be clear on expectations.
Related: This Is the No. 1 Mistake People Make as a Boss — But It’s Easy to Fix
3. Ruling with fear leads to burnout
No one in my life had ever screamed at me — not my parents, my brother, my husband or my friends — until I worked for “Medusa.” My former boss ruled with fear. She would scream, curse and aggressively point her fingers at people during meetings. I had never heard a boss drop so many F-bombs. She even hurled one of her Chanel shoes at my colleague, though thankfully it missed her head.
Ruling with fear can drive results in the short term. And showing up scared to work every day is exhausting. Fear kills communication, isolates team members, inhibits creativity and innovation and leads to burnout. Creating a culture where everyone is treated with respect shouldn’t be a luxury. We don’t want another free meditation app, an endless supply of fancy snacks, happy hours and definitely not another oversized hoodie. We want to be respected and valued.
4. If you love people, let them go
My former boss, nicknamed “Tony Soprano,” expected loyalty at all costs. Tony told me I was going to do a one-year assignment on his team and I’d be promoted at the end of that assignment. When the year mark was approaching, I started networking within the organization to figure out what I wanted to do next. When he found this out, he was livid. He told me the assignment would actually last two to four years because I had not even begun to make an impact in this role. He told me that he decides when I can leave.
Hoarding talent holds individuals back. Hoarding talent can also have a negative ripple effect on your organization. Help talent move on to what they are meant to do next for their growth and development. Also, help them move on to their next assignment to tackle the most important initiatives for the organization. If we love our team members, we let them go. If we don’t let them have ownership of their own careers, they will leave the organization and move on elsewhere.
5. Show up with more empathy
I’ve been a bad boss. And chances are, so have you. Over the years, I have gained more perspective and empathy for myself, other leaders and colleagues, because we all can have a bad boss phase. This doesn’t mean that we excuse bad boss behaviors; it means I try to understand why individuals may behave badly in the workplace.
Bad boss behavior can be triggered for three reasons. First, there’s stress in the marketplace impacting your business. Second, your own boss exhibits bad boss behaviors, and you absorb them. Third, you experience a personal earthquake, loss of a loved one, a breakup or divorce, or moving countries, all of which can trigger bad behaviors.
Finally, I remind myself that the foundation of good leadership is taking care of yourself. Step away from the keyboard. Get enough sleep, eat well and get your body moving. If we can’t take care of ourselves, it’s hard to then be in service to others at the kitchen table and at the conference room table. Fend off those bad boss behaviors. I’m grateful to those bad bosses who remind me every day how I can be a better leader.
Key Takeaways
- Enduring bad bosses is exhausting, but there are invaluable lessons to be learned from them, which can teach you what kind of leader you don’t want to be.
- If your boss — or even you yourself — exhibits any of the following traits, there are ways to turn things around and become a better leader.
In my new book, The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses, I share hilarious and heartbreaking stories of bad bosses I have endured and survived. It’s easy to paint a bad boss as a Disney villain or Marvel character. It’s much harder to sit and reflect on what we have learned from these experiences. And how these bad bosses can actually make us better leaders.
As I practice gratitude this holiday season, I am reflecting on how I am grateful for those bad bosses. Here are five lessons my bad bosses taught me.
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