Hey Compliance Warriors!

We’re back! This week on the show we’re talking 5 tips on surviving a bad boss. How to maintain a cool head, your confidence, and your position in the work place when dealing with a difficult person.

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Enjoy and until next time, Be Audit Secure!

Transcription:

Lisa: We have come back from summer hiatus.

Mason: It’s been fun summer, but it’s time to get back to work, right?

Lisa: It really is. We have had a lot of fun this summer. We’ve been busy too. Not just playin’. But, here we are, and today we are just kicking it off with surviving a bad boss.

Mason: Yep, that’s right. We’re just Gonna go right back into it. A hard-left turn into if you’ve been having trouble with your boss or just some good tips to keep in mind when dealing with a situation as the HR person.

Lisa: Yeah, Because, we’re not talking here about bosses, just in general, we’re talking about when you, the HR professional has a bad boss over you. That can be hard because, as HR professionals, we are in charge of either a whole lot or a whole lot of nothing depending upon what our bosses allow us to do.

Mason: Yeah, that’s right.

Lisa: But we get blamed for everything.

Mason: Oh yeah, for sure. Definitely. And in a lot of situations. So, we’re gonna we’re going to discuss kind of five tips here to just kind of keep in mind these aren’t like by law type tips or anything. These are just kind of some motivational tips if you’re going through a situation like this.

Lisa: Yeah, and I just wanted to say that this is, an article we’re taking from a woman named Sharona Lawrence. She is a benefits administrator in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And I came across this article and I just thought she had some really great tips.

Mason: So definitely. So, Sharona Lawrence is her name. Now the first tip here is to keep your cool.

Lisa: Yes. Keep your cool. Please. And this is one of the hardest things to do when you’re in the middle of a conflict or you have a boss that’s limiting you because Sharona says here that bad bosses like to push you to your mental limit. And man, I’ve experienced that before.

Mason: I mean, this is just a tip in life. Whenever you’re in conflict with somebody or somebody who’s trying to be tough on you, they’re going to try to push you. I had a boss before that was a really good boss. He always told me, he said, you lose your cool, you lose your case.

Lisa: Oh, that’s really good. Lose your cool. Lose your case. Yeah. This is some great tip here. It seems like basic stuff when you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard. So just take a deep breath, concentrate on turning your negative situation into a positive one. And there are a lot of ways to do that and that’s for another podcast. But that is really very simple. It sounds that it’s also very difficult to do in the moment.

Mason: Yeah. And Sharona she says, keep a smile on your face, even if it’s fake. So, you’re though sometimes you just have to fake going through some things to just keep, a situation together so, you don’t lose it yourself.

Lisa: Yeah, because she makes a nice point. If you keep that smile on your face, it gives you a sense of control. Like you are choosing to smile through this instead of just letting your emotions rule you.

Mason: Yep and then so the next tip is don’t be shy, that talks about how bad bosses have a way of taking credit for your work.

Lisa: Oh man. And that is so true. I mean, hopefully you’re not dealing with that, but your boss could really run over you when you’ve made a big push, a big breakthrough or a big great idea that you’ve had. So, whatever you do, put your initials, sign your projects, mention what you’re working on with other business leaders and can just be casual. Like, Oh yeah, you know that Jones account, man, that’s really coming along. I’m so excited about the breakthroughs we’re having over coffee. You know, just in the break room you can just like make it casual. It doesn’t have to be like, Oh yeah, the other day when I was drafting the new regulations for blah blah. You can really put your initials on things verbally as well, but make sure you sign your work.

Mason: Yeah, that’s a good one. okay, so the next part is think big.

Lisa: If you got a bad boss man, they’re going to be dream crushers. You know it. So stay focused on what your long-term goals are. And if you can’t find a mentor inside your organization, find one outside of your organization.

Mason: Yeah and odds are if you’re trying to survive this bad boss, somebody else’s too, that’s been in the situation longer than you have. And so, it’s nice to look up to people like that as well.

Lisa: Oh absolutely.

Mason: Yup. Okay, so the next part is stay confident.

Lisa: Yes and so we know that bad bosses can really do a number on our self-esteem and how we view ourselves. So, don’t get into this whole self doubt game. Make sure you again go out and seek support from friends and colleagues and you can either even volunteer to help other people who are coming up and you can be a mentor to them. And many times, when you do that, it’s sort of like that giving helps empower you.

Mason: Yep. It says here, don’t doubt yourself. I think, you had a situation where you worked for kind of a, well I wouldn’t necessarily call him a bad boss, but you had to survive a lot of the things that he did. And I think from what you’ve talked about, you stay in confident in that situation really helped you to survive that situation and not lose your power in it.

Lisa: Exactly. Yeah. And, next tip is what I had to do to, do that.

Mason: Yeah, exactly. And that is be prepared to move on.

Lisa: Yeah. I was prepared to move on when I was in that situation. And I told him that many times. And finally, I did. But bad bosses sometimes are protected by the company because they’re the moneymakers or maybe they’re even a relative. And so in those cases, you basically have three choices to make and Sharona here says that you can learn to tolerate the bad manager, you can find a new job at the company and, or a different manager, which really wasn’t an option for me. I was the administrator. But find a new job elsewhere is the third option.

Mason: Yup. And if you’re applying these types of things and making yourself really valuable to the company and things like that, if you’re prepared to move on, they’re going to be like graveling for you, in doing whatever they can. And that could even shift your situation as well to make it better on yourself. I know I had a situation one time where this guy, he was, I’ve talked about him before, but his employee retention rate was not very good. And, he came to me and he was going to undercut all my prices on things with him, and I was just like, Nope, I’m good. I kind of needed the money at the time I needed the job. but I was just like, you know what, this is not worth my time kind of thing. And he was like, Oh no man. And I ended up getting a raise on everything that I did. So, it’s one of those situations where if you’re prepared to move on, you don’t need this type of situation, it’s going to work out better for you.

Lisa: Yeah, because, having a situation like this, if you really have a bad boss, not just a kind of a weird boss or somebody that’s just a little bit hard to get along with, but if you have it like a serious bad boss, this can be like being in an abusive relationship and abusive relationships take a toll on your health. You know, you’ll have high blood pressure, you’ll have stomach problems, you’ll have all these issues and you may fall into depression and like don’t let yourself get that far down the road. No job is worth this. You know, I don’t care what you think. I talked to a guy one time and I was doing a, this is years ago when I was doing life insurance physicals and I had a little business and I would go to people’s homes and do their physical examination when they applied for life insurance. And I remember him, he was 30 years old. Okay. So that’s not very old, 30 years old. And he was just sick to death over his job. He hated it. And he was telling me all the anxiety and all the medications he was taking and everything. And he told me it’s 100% related to the job that I do. And I said, why don’t you just quit? Like, why are you letting this kill you and he says, listen to what he says. He goes, are you kidding I am 30 years old. What else am I going to do? And I thought see that that job not only was ruining his health, it was ruining his mental ability to understand he was young.

Mason: Yeah, and to see the future. You get so in your head sometimes, and when you’re in a really bad spot, it’s hard to see, your own value in what you can, what you can accomplish yourself.

Lisa: Yeah, I mean like me personally, I didn’t really figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up until I was in my late forties, but it just was so sad for him to say, I am 30 years old, like I am 75 years old, you know, like it was ridiculous. It had really done a number on him.

Mason: Oh yeah, for sure. And sometimes moving on is just the thing you need for yourself and your health and everything. Obviously, this guy needed that as well. I think to wrap this up, she says in the article it says, take care of yourself first or you’ll have nothing left to give others. I just think that’s a really good statement.

Lisa: It is. And so, thanks Sharona Lawrence for writing that article that we could talk about today because it really does have a lot of good, helpful insight in it.

Mason: Okay, cool. So, we’re glad to be back. I’m here from the, like we’d mentioned the summer hiatus and we’re going to continue weekly with our episodes.