Do you hate your boss? Or are you excited to go to work each day?

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In my career and in several roles, I have experienced the best, the worst, and a good portion of the in-between kinds of bosses. In my view, a good boss and a real leader will—

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•    encourage, inspire, push you to take on increasing risks as you learn,

•    publicly celebrate your successes and gently guide your development and your opportunities to learn from              mistakes, and

•    holds you accountable when this is reasonable.  He or she will not sugarcoat but will also not smother or                    scapegoat you for his or her own failings.  

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On the other hand, a bad boss is one who—

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•      lies,

•      lacks integrity and models behavior the organization tries to reject,

•     always blames others, whether you, your team or other divisions,

•     is excessively controlling,

•     during work, puts his or her own emotional needs before those of the organization,

•     berates team members instead of discussing issues, mistakes or challenges, or

•     panders to his or her own boss while diminishing you out of insecurity.  

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Often these traits go together.  Many readers have probably experienced both kinds of bosses. 

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My greatest workplace joy has been watching successful former teammates and students rise ever higher in their careers.  I always believed that my job as a boss was to train people to do their jobs so well that I would ultimately put myself out of business and would have shaped my succession.  I expected employees to think and act like they owned the job and the business. Their choices and decisions affected the business, but I wasn’t just guiding them for me. I expected them to move on in life, ultimately perhaps work for someone else, or in due course go into business for themselves. I wanted them to be successful with whatever they chose. To me, when I was doing my job right, if they messed up I needed to explore with them what their thinking was and how to recover from the errors, if possible—and to assess whether this might really actually have been my own fault (which it certainly sometimes was), therefore a learning moment for me.  

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As I worked together with different teams, I tried to evaluate each employee for suitability for their role. Having had such a variety of roles in the past I have some idea of what combination of skills, abilities, and general knowledge is required to perform many different types of jobs. I have no illusions that some employees are not suited, by nature, knowledge, or temperament to be successful in certain roles. I also made mistakes and discovered, for example, that making the wrong hire or promotion is very costly for the team or organization. Part of my overall personal policy has been to try to assist young executives to discover their optimal roles.​

Sometimes one becomes trapped under a bad boss.  I have learned that this situation can often not be fixed.  Being a subordinate, you are unlikely to turn that person into a good boss (though honest communication or other factors, and a lot of coaching or help from HR might work).  

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The first thing to address is whether you are causing the problem yourself:  is your act together, or have you made genuine efforts to clean it up? Have you engaged in honest communication with your boss?  Have you really tried to follow his or her requests, and have you been a true teammate?  Is something else, and not your boss, really causing your unhappiness?  Be careful that you are not just trying to point fingers and avoid personal responsibility.

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If the problem is not one of your making, however, you might simply have to move on.  This is not an easy choice, but for your own progress you must face it.  Once you reconcile yourself to “just living with it,” you are essentially consigning yourself to be worn down in one way or another, day in and day out.  Work is no longer fun.  You also run the real risk of becoming “damaged goods”—a liability that can haunt you for the rest of your career.

This is where independent coaching can help you determine whether you have reached the impasse and, of so, navigate a better path.  Confidential and safe coaching can provide you with a forum to identify and practice your options and the embark on one of them in a productive way.