How to cope when you have different working styles
Todd Ordal //April 16, 2019//
How to cope when you have different working styles
Todd Ordal //April 16, 2019//
There’s something universal about having incompetent leadership that we can all understand — ergo the success of the Dilbert cartoon. I doubt that any of you can get through your career without Dilbert’s boss appearing. Sad but true.
I’ve spent a significant portion of my one-on-one time with coaching clients talking about how to deal with a bad boss, be it a board or an individual. I’ve worked for a couple in my career, and although I’m confident in my leadership ability, I know I wasn’t a stellar leader in all situations.
What’s most difficult, however, isn’t the infrequent bad behavior from a boss. We all deal with that. It’s the boss or board members who are consistently poor leaders. Those I encounter typically suffer from one or more of the following:
There are just some bad people in the world often caused by genetic makeup or poor parenting. They won’t change. However, I still believe that most people don’t want to be bad bosses. They want the organization to succeed, but they have poor self-awareness and a lack of skill.
So, Dilbert’s boss is now your boss. Every week. Every day. Every hour. What do you do? Quitting is a viable option, and I believe that to be a good leader, you need to be willing to risk your employment status (by quitting or getting fired) to do the right thing. But the positives of the current job outweigh the negatives, so you need a strategy to deal with your boss. Here are a few suggestions:
There’s a difference between a rough patch and a hellish environment. Resilience will get you through the first; the list above should help with the second.