Dear Crucial Skills,
I don’t respect my boss as a leader. I know he has his own struggles, but I just don’t like him as a leader. I am fully aware of and even ashamed of my bad behavior. I like my job and my position, but I can’t stand him. What do you recommend? I am the worst version of myself when I interact with him.
Signed,
Disgusted
Dear Disgusted,
First, I applaud both your honesty and your self-examination. It takes integrity to admit that your feelings have escalated to disgust, and that you’re ashamed of your own behavior.
Please allow me to indulge that integrity by being very direct. Trust me, everything I’m about to say to you I say to myself when I find myself in similar predicaments.
The bottom line: The fastest path to resolving disgust for another person is a searching look in the mirror. Let me explain.
The principle behind my advice is this: Anytime your judgment of another person exceeds the size of their bad habit, the problem is in you. To be clear, if someone is being emotionally or physically abusive to you or others, you have a responsibility to feel upset and take healthy action. My advice relates to others’ annoying habits, not harmful ones.
All of us have pet peeves: behaviors in others that shoot through us like a dentist drill hitting a nerve. We feel an involuntary spasm of disgust. Someone sucks their teeth habitually, talks loudly in confined spaces, focuses every conversation on themselves, talks in condescending tones, etc., etc. The way you can tell it’s your peeve is that when they do it, your reaction is tenfold that of others’. Others’ emotions are proportional to the behavior. Yours isn’t.
For example, when one of my boys was little, he had a knuckle-cracking habit. My wife and I would be driving in the car, with him in the back seat, and I’d hear a crackle. Then another. And another. And another. With each crunch my emotions rose hotter and hotter. Like you, I’m ashamed to admit that I abused my parental power at times and visited my disgust on him. Until I learned this lesson: any time my emotions are out of proportion to what’s happening, the problem is in me.
As I puzzled over my intense reaction, I searched for its origin. At one point I happened to try two things:
- I put my judgment into words. This wasn’t easy. I was afraid to frame the size of my emotion with the words required to generate it. But I did. It was ugly. “Doing that shows he’s undisciplined, weak, and impulsive.”
- I turn the judgment on myself. This is where the breakthrough happened. I asked myself, “Where in my life do I habitually do something undisciplined, weak, and impulsive?” It took about four seconds before I was overcome by a wave of humility. It’s impossible to feel disgust and humility simultaneously. Disgust requires a feeling or moral superiority. It’s hard to loathe someone you resemble. The instant you find your version of what you resent in them, your distorted judgments about their worth and humanity disappear. And you’ll always find it, if you’re willing to look. I immediately connected with the areas in my life where I indulged in weaknesses that I ignored or excused. And my disgust disappeared.
My advice to you is this. First, shrink your judgments to their appropriate size. Then, from that more measured emotional place, make a career decision. All things considered, do you want what you’ve got? Or are his weaknesses not worth the upside? If they’re not, stop blaming him and leave.
Should you decide to stay, however, take responsibility for your decision to do so. If you choose to stay you choose to accept him as part of the package. Don’t resent him for continuing to be who he is—you’re the one that chose to keep him as your boss. And, perhaps, now that you see him as a human being with weaknesses that correspond to some of yours, you might be able to have a Crucial Conversation with him that helps him improve.
Warmly,
Joseph
Just a thought exercise: What about morally reprehensible behavior? Or if it is unethical, or harassing behavior towards others (assume here that HR is powerless)? I don’t have the power or influence to change any of that, but am stuck in my job, and to add insult to injury, asked to do what I don’t believe in–knowing it is wrong?
I c
I had issues with that reply and don’t know how to delete!
I was going to say, I totally get where you are coming from. I’ve been there with a truly terrible manager. I felt completely trapped and stayed Much longer than I should have. That being said, once I realized that it was hard on my health, I made the decision to look elsewhere for employment And I went back to school to do everything I could to avoid feeling trapped in the future. It was the best work decision I have ever made.
Im
I feel like you really missed the mark on your reply to this question, Mr. Grenny.
I could have easily written that question, and it isn’t because my boss sucks her teeth or cracks her knuckles, or has other annoying habits that fall into the pet peeve category.
My boss has little to no follow through and very poor communication. She shows little respect for the team. When she is confronted with something that makes her uncomfortable, she shuts down the whole conversation.
I suspect those are the things that are bothersome to the writer, not the pet peeves presented in your reply.
My boss is a MANAGER by title, but is definitely not a LEADER. She is also a very nice human being, who has several redeeming qualities. Management and leadership just aren’t among them.
I very much like my job most of the time, and I make the conscious decision every day to show up and do the best I can because I appreciate the impact my department presumably brings to the organization and our clients. (she does not share this information with us, despite our multiple requests).
What would it look like for you to follow the advice in the article when it comes to your upsetting situation with your boss? I guess it would start by putting your feelings into into words. Maybe the sentiment would be “my boss has a role she doesn’t deserve. How dare she have a leadership position when her leadership skills are so lacking? This demonstrates selfishness and contempt for the people she supervises, because she is subjecting us to her terrible performance. She should be ashamed of herself and quit.” (Of course this is just an example).Then you might think of a time in your life when you failed to live up to the expectations of others (or your own expectations of yourself). Then you might use that humility to view your boss as someone who, like all of us at some point in our lives, does not have the skills required to meet a given challenge. And perhaps, like all of us at some point in our lives, she might find it just as disappointing and frustrating as you do to be failing to excel in her role. These feelings can be triggering, thus leaving her at a disadvantage when it comes to trying to hear and accept feedback. You might then use these insights to plan a crucial conversation where you connect with her, express a sincere desire to have a mutually satisfying and productive relationship, calmly and non-judgmentally describe a situation that you feel affects you adversely, invite her perspective and then attentively listen and try to see her point of view, etc.