The best way to deal with a boss that’s toxic — apart from quitting

Annie McKee is the author of “How To Be Happy At Work.” In this video, she talks about toxic bosses, and how you should deal with them.

Following is a transcript of the video:

Annie McKee: How do you deal with a boss who doesn’t seem to like you and who doesn’t seem to care about you and who doesn’t trust you?

Have you ever had a bad boss? I have, once or twice in my life. In fact one of my bosses was actually toxic. The first sign from me was that every time I turned around this guy was looking over my shoulder. He didn’t seem to trust me. He didn’t seem to like what I was doing at work. He didn’t seem to like me.

Well there are a few things you can do if you have a toxic boss. Number one: admit to yourself that there’s a problem. If you have a bad relationship with your boss, even if it’s that person’s fault, it’s you who won’t be able to do your job as well as you might.

Number two: determine that you will not let this person harm your self-esteem. A toxic boss, a bad boss, or even bad colleagues do not have the right to make you feel bad about yourself or guilty about what you’re doing at work.

The third thing that you can do if you have a toxic boss is to ask yourself a really tough question. What have you done to make the situation worse? You could also ask yourself what you can do to make the situation better. It takes two to tango, as they say, and even the worst bosses can be better and work more fluidly and more positively with you if you make an effort to find out what they need to help them and to make sure that you’re doing what they expect you to do.

Really, in the end, we can only help ourselves and we can only change ourselves. You are not going to change your boss but you can change how you react to that person and you can change how you behave in the workplace.

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