Dealing with a Difficult Boss 2 - How to Handle the Sabotager
By Julie Cohen
Does your boss drive you nuts? Unlike the micromanager and the
incompetent boss, the Sabotager takes an active role in negatively
impacting your career. He may give you work that is
significantly below your capabilities, highlight a weakness of
yours in a public meeting, assign projects to you that are set up
for failure, or prevent you from leadership opportunities. A
Sabotager usually comes from a place of inadequacy and believes
that other people’s success can limit his own.
How to Handle the Sabotager?
You can attempt to address a Sabotager directly, but he will often
deny his actions and claim you are not competent. As with any
request of your supervisor, state what you observed and request
what you need from him in a non-defensive manner. If you choose to
communicate directly with a Sabotager, be sure to have other allies
within your organization and document the issues and challenges
you’ve faced previously.
If the Sabotager is preventing you from doing your job,
you’ll want to make a case to the appropriate advocate within
your organization. That may be your boss’s boss, a
leader within the company or a Human Resources
Professional. Make sure it’s someone you can speak with
confidentially. If there is no appropriate recourse (a
complete change in your boss’s perspective or a reassignment
to another supervisor) you may want to consider looking elsewhere
for employment.
Other Bad Bosses
Unfortunately, these are only a few types of dysfunctional
bosses. You may have encountered The Abusive, The Buddy, The
Obsessive, The Workaholic or The Absent. Whatever challenges
your supervisor may cause you, you don’t have to be at
his/her mercy. You have both internal and external
resources:
- Communicate your concern directly to your boss and ask specifically for what you need from him/her.
- Partner with your boss to create a win-win-win. Acknowledge your concern and engage your boss in mutual solution finding.
- Trust your intuition. If something feels out of your comfort zone, get other professionals involved.
- Document your situation. Keep track of what you believe to be inappropriate behavior.
- Look for employment elsewhere. Work should be a place where you can excel professionally and feel comfortable personally.
