How to work for a boss you really don't like

A boss you hate will make your working life a misery. So, what can you do about it – and when should you cut your losses?

'Some people are just plonkers': Colin Farrell in Horrible Bosses (2011) Credit: Photo: Universal Pictures

There’s an old saying - that people join companies and leave bosses.

In fact, it’s often claimed that a bad boss is the number one reason people give for quitting. Whether this is actually true or not is debatable, but there is no doubt that a boss you hate will make your working life a misery. So, what can you do about it – and when should you cut your losses?

Start with a reality check and ask your colleagues if they hate the boss too. If they do, then at least you know it’s not personal. If, however, they get on well with the boss, then it is you – but there’s a better that chance the relationship can be salvaged.

Next, be realistic. The boss holds the whip hand and they are not going to change. So, if matters are to improve, change will have to come from you. Here, you might begin by asking yourself if it’s just a matter of approach. “If the boss is very detail orientated and you’re a big picture person, then that might be causing problems,” says Mike Phipps, co-founder of the consultancy Politics at Work. “Work on your awareness and attitude.”

Remember too that, because you dislike your boss, you may be concentrating on their bad points. So instead of dwelling on them being a terrible perfectionist, try and find something good about them. If, for instance, they are great at networking, focus on this and try and learn from them.

Moving up a level and you could talk to the boss about why things don’t work. Here, says mentor and coach Mike Leibling, it’s all about your approach. “Ask them, ‘Can we find a different way of working together?’ or ‘What do I need to change?’ or say ‘When you do this, it makes me feel very undervalued.’” The point here is, that you make it about how you feel and what you do. You don’t call your boss out and say, “Why are you such a w---er?” as this will lead to confrontation.

A more oblique version of this approach is to ask your boss out for coffee or a drink, with a view to talking about work. Here you act almost as if there isn’t an issue, but what you’re really doing is using a social approach to tackle work problems. You are also taking the initiative which looks good and can jog you out of a rut, if you’re feeling stuck.

Finally, you should speak to colleagues who do get on with the boss. What is it they do that you don’t? Do they have any tips for you? And, if you’re a dab hand at office politics and using back channels, you might even voice concerns to people who you know will feed them back to your boss.

Perhaps surprisingly, such small steps are often enough. A nudge may be all it takes to get a working relationship has gone into downward spiral of “they hate me so I can’t do anything right so they hate me” back on track.

If you can’t turn your relationship round, the next possibility is coping strategies. The best of these is to minimise the relationship and make it as transactional as possible. You say to yourself, “We don’t need to get on, but I’ll deliver exactly what they ask for and hope that we can work together on this basis.” This can be a particularly good strategy if you have a job such as repping or consultancy which means you’re out of the office most of the time.

If the rest of the team also hates the boss, you might devise group strategies for coping. In fact, in a funny sort of way, teams with awful managers often bond very strongly and work well together. The trouble, though, says Phipps, is that, in this scenario, you can end up delivering excellent results and making someone you hate look good. Moreover, most coping strategies are, to some extent, ways of avoiding grasping the nettle.

Sometimes, though, there is no way forward. As Leibling notes, “Some people are just plonkers and want to behave very badly.” If this is the case, you might approach your boss’s boss and ask for a short off-the-record chat (which both you and they will know is no such thing). You may discover that they consider your manager a problem and are taking steps to remove them. Or, you could be rebuffed, in which case, at least you know where you stand. Here, if the whole team speaks with one voice, you are much more likely to see action than you are if you go it alone.

As for sitting it out, this is a possibility. In today’s fluid world of work, people don’t stay at the same desk for decades and, if your boss has been in the job for three years, there’s a good chance they’ll be looking to move. But even so, it’s much better to be active than passive. There is nothing to stop you considering your options and putting out feelers both internally and externally while you wait. And if your boss gets wind of this, who cares? It’s not as if you like each other.

Whatever you do, ignoring the problem is not an option. Misery at work can affect your entire life and the worst thing that can happen is not that you hate Mondays, it’s that you can sink into depression or have a heart attack. So take yourself in hand. You got this job and you can get another, but what you can’t do is wait forever for things to get better. Set a schedule for changes, up to and including finding a new job. “You need a plan, not a dream,” says Leibling.