Almost every working adult — including me — has had a nightmare boss at some point during their career. One of my bosses loved giving vague directions and changed his mind on strategy every week. It kept me and my team in a constant state of uncertainty.
A situation like this can make you feel trapped, but it doesn’t have to. Here’s a story of how to handle a nightmare boss without rocking the boat.
Imagine this real-life scenario: You’re the team lead for a small five-person team. Every so often, your boss bursts into your team office and verbally harasses your team, clowns around and throws out completely irrelevant orders. Your team finds the boss’s bizarre behavior extremely distracting and counterproductive to their work.
You’ve pleaded with your boss to no avail. You’ve pleaded with the company owner to no avail. As the team lead, you’re still responsible for the productivity and output of your team, and you take your job very seriously.
We asked our clients what they would do in a situation like this. Some common responses include:
• Take your work outside of the office — find a coffee shop and get work done there instead of the office.
• Stop responding (emotionally and verbally) to the situations your boss creates when he comes in.
• Take your team off-site for meetings so you can all work and connect without the distractions.
But our absolute favorite response came from a client named Daniel, who in fact had a boss exactly like this. And what Daniel did was so effective that his successor continued on with the tradition after he left the company.
He made a game out of it. Each time the boss showed up to throw his weight around and frighten his team, the game started. And everyone on his team already knew the rules. The second the boss stepped out of his office, everyone would immediately put a $1 bill into a bowl in the center of the workspace, and a 15-minute timer started. Whoever had cleared the most files when the timer went off took the whole pot.
That was it. That simple little game shifted everyone’s energy away from complaining about the boss’s disruptive appearances and back to the task at hand. No complaining. No drama. No excuses.
Daniel commanded the respect and admiration of his peers by setting a good example when most people would have fallen victim to anger and contempt. Plus, he found a creative way to leverage game mechanics to quickly get his team back to a high level of productivity.
Stooping down to the level of a nasty boss isn’t going to make you better at your job, and it isn’t going to make your boss better at theirs. Instead, focus on becoming the leader you aspire to be.
Get more work done. Lead your team effectively. Act with the utmost professionalism. Show your boss — and those higher up the ladder — that you aren’t going to let their behavior drive yours.
