How to Deal With a Toxic Boss

And what to do on October 16th: National Bosses Day

Posted October 5, 2020 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

October 16th is National Bosses Day. The world's best boss supports and respects employees. As a result, job satisfaction and company success skyrockets. But a difficult boss can undermine productivity and workplace morale—ultimately undermining the company's bottom line. Nearly 49 percent of the workforce says they're unhappy at work, usually because of a toxic boss or a lack of appreciation.

What about your boss? Is she or he someone who rushes around moaning about the shortage of time and creating crises for everyone in his or her path? Is your boss the sort who sets short deadlines, overloads you with more to do than is humanly possible and then breathes down your neck? Does your boss take credit for your ideas or refuse to give you the time off you need to recharge and renew yourself?

A Series Of New Studies

A series of studies reveal the attributes that lead job seekers and employees to bestow the title, “The World’s Best Boss.” A recent survey of over 1,000 job seekers by CollegeFinance showed respondents are looking for leaders that prioritize networking (84 percent) and offer responsibility at work (83 percent). Other key findings included:

Work-life balance (67 percent)
Enjoyable work (62 percent)
Job security (58 percent)
Good benefits (57 percent)
Happiness at work (57 percent)
Meaningful work (55 percent)
Flexible hours (48 percent)
High salary (44 percent)
Career growth (44 percent)
Avoiding stress (37 percent)

A global study by The Workforce Institute at Kronos polled 4,000 employees and found that how companies handled the pandemic in terms of physical safety, psychological security and job security was unacceptable. Only 20 percent of workers felt their company met their needs during the initial months of COVID-19 and that their biggest concerns were around employers acting faster, communicating more regularly and with transparency, creating a safer office environment and leveraging technology better. The attribute of trust emerges from these findings, and the world’s best boss must be trustworthy in regard to these factors.

Perhaps these findings are best summarized by Dr. Chris Mullen, executive director, The Workforce Institute at Kronos, “As organizations around the world operate through an unprecedented global pandemic, they need to double down on their employee experience strategy. However, instead of looking for trendy perks, they must get back to the foundational needs every employee requires: physical safety, psychological security, job stability, and flexibility. Among employees who trust their organization more now than before the pandemic, 70 percent say the company went above and beyond in their COVID-19 response. By truly putting the employee first, mutual trust will begin to take hold that will propel employee engagement–and the success of the business–to new levels.”

Profile of Bosses From Heaven

Of course, all bosses are not subpar. In fact, you might be fortunate enough to have the world's best boss. Toxic bosses come in all shapes and sizes, and so do good bosses. But a list of characteristics distinguish managers who earn the title "Boss From Heaven." They do the following:

Give clear direction
Possess a degree of emotional intelligence and empathy for employees
Acknowledge workers for outstanding performance
Provide regular feedback
Prioritizes networking and encourages responsibility
Build trust, partnerships, and a climate of psychological safety and stability
Delegate and encourage independence
Encourage teamwork toward clear, predictable goals
Afford employees ample time off for self-care and mental health days

Profile of the Boss From Hell

Watch over employee's shoulders to monitor their work while refusing to delegate
Push and hurry employees to the point that they feel undue stress and burnout
Make unreasonable demands in terms of work hours, workloads, and deadlines
Have unpredictable, erratic moods so employees never know what to expect
Create a climate of frenzy, urgency, and tension without respect for employee feelings or personal lives
Manage time inefficiently because of over-scheduling and over-committing
Judge themselves and employees without mercy as they struggle to hit impossible targets
Tend to be overly critical and intolerant of even the most minor employee mistakes
Are insensitive to personal issues and/or mental health challenges of employees

Working under a subpar boss can be a nightmare. Andrea worked for a major East Coast newspaper. Her boss routinely awakened employees in the middle of the night and on weekends to get an obscure fact from the West Coast for a next-morning deadline. “Naturally everything was closed, so there were times when I ended up calling Tokyo at 3:00 a.m. to get the information he wanted,” she said. “It was always one crisis after another.”

This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.