I had lunch today with a colleague who has just landed a new job at a great place with really interesting work. Being the consumate professional that he is, he went to great pains to tell me how exciting the job is, how fortunate he feels to have one in this economy and what great potential their is for him the in role.
And then the comment came out: “The only challenge is that my boss is a bit of a psycho.”
Having had my own experience working for a work place bully, I cringed as I heard the play by play of the behaviours:
1) Condescending tone of voice (you know the kind… when you feel like you’re being talked to as if you were a complete idiot even though your a professional with 20 years experience)
2) Eye rolling and general ‘huffing and puffing’ when being asked for direction (“Stop wasting my important time with your stupid little questions”)
3) Guarding of information to the point of actually restricting details necessary to allow my colleague to perform his job effectively
4) High turnover of staff (several on stress leave) and a generally tense atmosphere with people crying in the washroom.
Which led me to my obvious question: “Why hasn’t she been fired??” In my experience, you can’t be a “little bit” of a psycho. If the behaviour is this consistently extreme and disrespectful, you need to ousted.
But, for whatever reason, this manager has managed to ‘work the system’ and manouver through the organization, positioning herself as “indispensable”. Which got me thinking about what my friend could do to take matters into his own hands and get her out of the picture. This may sound completely Machiavellian, but sometimes you have to pull out the big guns to get rid of workplace abusers. There are countless books written about this, but here is my suggestion for a simple four step process to get an abusive boss fired (assuming of course that the boss in question is “fireable” and not the owner of the company!):
Step one: Begin to build relationships with key influencers at and above your bosses level. Get to know who’s who at the senior table and try and get as direct line to them as you can (you don’t want your reputation filtered to them through your boss).
Step two: Be a helpful coach to your colleagues and peers… share strategies on how to “manage” the crazed boss in question. This positions you in an informal leadership role with your colleagues and aligns their allegiance more to you than your boss. This strategy can also have the bonus outcome of giving you the potential to have a shot at your bosses role once s/he is fired.
Step three: Get some visible “wins” under your belt with the above stakeholders (ie: position yourself as a credible professional who gets the job done).
Step four: Once wins have been established, use your new found status as a “get it done guy or gal” to have a “can I get your advice on this tricky situation?” with the senior executive (see Step One) who has the most influence with the person who can fire your psycho boss.
The key (in my experience) to ousting a horrid manager is to make yourself more indispensable than they are. By nurturing relationships with key senior level stakeholders, being a solid team player and over delivering on your own projects, you may actually stand the chance of exposing and disposing of the problem boss. The “can I ask your advice” approach is a low-risk way of getting the message out to senior level supporters that there’s a problem. In my experience, going to an influencer (vs. the person who can do the firing) is the best strategy since they will know how to position the problem for the best impact.
What other strategies would you recommend for my friend? It’s time to get rid of bad bosses everywhere!
Happy leading!
