About This Book:
Everyone needs to be able to recognize a bad boss-executives
so they can either alter the behavior of the bad bosses
or get rid of them before they do irreparable damage to
the organization; the bosses themselves so they can change
their behavior; employees so they can gather evidence for
a grievance or move to another job with (hopefully) a better
boss; and job seekers so they can try to avoid bad bosses.
This book presents "real world" examples of
bad employees, workers or coworkers-not just those whose
performance is unsatisfactory, but also those whose behavior
or attitude may serve as the "bad apple" that
"spoils the whole barrel."
The anecdotes in this book serve as a warning to readers
that they are likely to encounter one or more bad bosses
or bad workers in any type of establishment, not just business
firms.
This book is designed to assist workers, bosses, and upper management in identifying individuals who make workplace survival difficult.
This book should help you determine your own priorities regarding job characteristics and decide whether conditions are bad enough to justify leaving.
About What To Do:
Each type of bad coworker has aspects of behavior and personality
that have been learned or developed over long periods of
time. As a result, they will be very difficult to change.
Indeed, it may take as long to change the behavioral traits
as it did to form them in the first place! Change is therefore
not highly likely, although it is possible.
Readers are admonished not to try to change things that
are beyond their power to change, and don't expect their
boss to change things that are beyond his or her power to
change either.
Workers must understand that, when going up against the
boss, the worker should always be prepared to lose-even
if he or she is morally and legally right and the boss is
morally or legally wrong.
Workers are rather helpless to change incompetent and
insecure bosses, but they should not have to work under
abusive bosses.
Some individuals think they are doing a big favor for coworkers, bosses, and the organization by showing up at work even when they feel terrible, but the opposite is true.
Many bosses will react negatively to any criticisms, no
matter how tactfully you try to present your ideas. So even
if you ultimately "win" the case, you still must
be prepared to leave the job and perhaps sever ties with
the organization.
About What Is Bad:
Some coworkers are not intentionally irritating but instead
may actually like their coworkers and feel happy at work-so
happy, in fact, that they sing, whistle, talk excitedly
(loud) on business phone calls, interrupt, and inadvertently
bother others.
Bad jobs can be found in all types of organizations. The
first thing, of course, is to determine what factors make
the job bad in the eyes of the person who performs that
job. With bad jobs as well as bosses and coworkers, "bad"
is in the eyes of the beholder.
Not all problems revolve around the boss; bad coworkers
can make your life just as miserable or worse as can a bad
boss.
Abusive supervisors or managers are always high on the
list of things that make a job seem bad.
Employees dislike jobs where they must contend with incompetent
managers or coworkers chosen as a result of the organization's
use of improper criteria for hiring .
About the Organization's Responsibility:
Some bosses are simply ill-suited for managing employees
because they either have not learned to manage their anger
or have learned to express their anger inappropriately in
a controlling, threatening way.
Executives who ignore the behavior of a bad manager are,
in effect, telling the bad boss that he or she may continue
the behavior that the workers find unacceptable.
The activities and behaviors at the top level, where the
organizational culture or climate is determined, filter
down to the lowest level of the organization. Supervisors
and employees at lower levels see what they must do to keep
their jobs, and they modify their own behavior accordingly.
In some instances, a boss becomes a bad boss because higher
levels of management in the organization don't know, don't
care, or don't want to admit their own failure in making
a hiring decision.
When upper management dismisses a complaint without checking
the facts, they are ignoring, upholding, and contributing
to unacceptable boss behavior.
Bad bosses are especially dangerous to organizations not
only because they jeopardize productivity but also because
they put their organizations at risk of potentially costly
legal action.
