My boss is nuts!!!

It is a pretty widely held management belief that people leave bosses, not companies. Most of us can find something socially redeeming about our jobs, our colleagues, and the company we work for. Most employees are not particularly demanding when it comes to raises, benefits, work assignments and workload, even the hours we are asked to put in. No, most of us will just go to work and find something good about it. It is human nature.

There is one exception to that postulate, and that one exception is a bad boss. Yes, the dictatorial, unfair, idea stealing, bad breathed, body odored, unpleasant boss will generally run people off in droves. Sometimes employees will just leave the bad department, but most times they leave the company. Why? Because there is way too much risk in trying report this behavior (other than some sort harassment issue), and it is impossible to tell your boss to use mouthwash. It is more prudent to move on.

Shhh!!  The boss is here!

Years ago I had that boss. He was ill-tempered, foul mouthed, short fused, smelled bad and demeaned everyone he spoke to. It was a nightmare to have meetings with him because you knew he was going to attack someone, so before the meeting you’d say a short novena it wasn’t you!

One day after a particularly brutal meeting, I started to notice that he reacted to different personalities around the table differently. He seemed to have a different level of respect for one or two of the people present, but what I noticed more so, was that he reacted differently to the way those people treated him. After noticing it, I paid more attention and realized I was absolutely right. The more this terrible boss criticized someone and the more they defended themselves, the more and worse he continued that criticism. It seemed that what fueled his fire was defensiveness, or later what I found out was rebelliousness.

The second thing I noticed was that if he criticized someone and they just covered up, not fighting back, he was unrelenting, like a shark who just got a whiff of blood in the water and would go into a feeding frenzy. He would demean that person, and say horrible things until he got his fill of them. And the more that person assumed the personality of a small, defenseless child, hunched over in a fetal position, the more he yelled. Brutal.

Both circumstances were difficult to watch. But I began to notice that he treated people who stood their ground, answered his questions factually without any defensiveness, and nearly devoid of emotion, with a modicum of respect. He would try to criticize them, but they would ignore the criticism and only react to the actual question. It was an amazing sight to behold.

So I decided to do some research on the matter to see what I could find. That research led me to a blended hypothesis. I found that there were six personality types – three positive and three negative. And, ironically any of us can adopt any of those personalities if we choose to. These are not my inventions, but are credited to a number of psychologists who are experts in this field.

Personality Types

The first three negative personalities are:

Critical parent – this is the boss that criticizes everything you do no matter what, and even if you prove them wrong, they will simply move off that point and find something else to criticize.
Rebellious teen – this is exactly what it sounds like. It is the defensive, angry, rebellious personality that fights with critical parent.

Withdrawn child – this is the poor soul that just covers up and waits for the beatings to stop.
The second three positive personalities are:

Parent – this is a healthy, teaching personality that is adopted when leading, teaching, or mentoring

Adult – the healthy, collegial personality that we strive to be in most of the time

Child – another healthy personality that is teachable and the personalty most normally talking to parent.

Here is the most important point. Negative personalities can only communicate with other negative personalities. Critical parent can only talk to Rebellious teen and Withdrawn child. He cannot talk to Adult. If he wants to communicate with Adult, the personality we should strive to be in all the time, then he must slip out of Critical parent and into Adult. It is Adult to Adult.

And the kicker is that on the healthy side, we slip in an out of Adult, Parent and Child all day long, and that is a good thing.

For example, if I were talking to you right now, explaining this in person, I would be in Parent mode and you, Child. But later, you may have to teach me something and I would adopt Child mode and you, Parent. And later yet, while talking about Sunday’s NFL game or the new dress you bought, you would be in Adult mode talking to other Adults communicating your story. It is truly amazing. Confused? Hang in there.

So, I decided I would test this theory on my bad boss. I knew the day would soon come when I would get a call to go see the boss to be dressed down for some problem. I was determined not to lose my composure and to test this hypothesis. And finally, the day came.

My phone rang about 9 in the morning. It was the boss. He said “Mikey” (I hated that name he gave me), “come see me.” And hung up. My heart started pounding and my face became flush as I recognized the tone of his voice. It was my turn in the hopper, for something. I suspected I knew what this was about. I was in charge of the computer systems and we had some unexpected downtime that morning that one of my colleagues used as an excuse for missing a deadline. You see, the culture was so hostile, people would throw each other under the bus with some degree of frequency.

So I gained my composure and started down the long hallway to the boss’s office. To add some true drama, the hall was very poorly lit and you felt some sense of going to the gallows as you went down that hallway. Coming out of the hallway was Chris, my Judas. He barely acknowledged me as he slithered pass, the snake. I knocked on the boss’s door and he yelled angrily “come in!!”. And I did.

“Morning Jim.” I said to him.

“Good morning? Bull! Jensen just told me because the system was down he needs two more days to finish the budgets. Can’t you keep that computer up? Don’t I pay you enough? Boy, this would be a great place to start an IT Department if I had anyone with half a brain that could run it.”

The sentence was full of expletives and it went on like that for five minutes before he stopped. He never really asked me a question and finally motioned with his hand that he wanted me to say something.

I took a deep breath, looked him in the eye and said firmly “Jim, we had a disk failure this morning at 6:10 a.m. We were down for 45 minutes while we re-configured the disk array. After checking the system logs and data integrity, we were back up by 7:30. Chris arrived about 7:30 and heard the system was down and never checked to see if it had come back up before talking to you.” And I stood there waiting for round two.

He looked at me for what felt like an hour, but finally started screaming again, but this time he was screaming in a different way. He never asked any questions. He just cussed, and screamed about Jensen. He went on and on. And, I just stood there.

Once again he motioned for me to say something. I told him what corrective action we took, and what we intended to do to prevent it next time. I never acted defensively or rebellious and never piled on Chris, the snake. Again, I just stood there.

This time, he started talking to me like an Adult. He had completely left Critical Parent mode. After he was done talking, I said “Will there be anything else?” He just looked at me and smiled, well it could have been gas, but it might have been a smile, and said no and I left. The relationship changed that day and never went back.

Freedom!

I opened his door to leave and when I heard it swing shut, I felt this incredible relief and pumped my fist in the air. As I walked to my office I passed Chris who was walking toward Jim’s office. He must have called him in for round two. I felt just a little bad for the snake….not too bad though.

The bottom line is that you cannot change anyone’s behavior, but you can change your own and people will react to it. It takes a great deal of practice and energy, but you can lead by example and maintain your dignity under the most difficult of situations and come out on top. And remember, negative personality types can only talk to other negative personalities so be positive.

Hope this helps!

Email me at mike.anderson@direyourcareer.com and I will answer every question.