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Got the bad-boss blues?

Here's how to cope if yours is a jerk

BY PAT BURSON | Newsday Staff Writer

October 16, 2006

Within the first month at her first sales job, Donna Flagg of Chelsea had had it with her supervisor.

"I hated my boss," Flagg recalls of the woman she worked for nearly 20 years ago at one of New York City's premiere fashion companies. "She was caustic and she put people down. And she snapped when I would try to say something.

"I had made a decision that I didn't want to work with her."

Sound familiar? In a recent Gallup poll of 1 million workers, a bad boss was the No. 1 reason for quitting a job. If you've been working any time at all, you've encountered at least one. You know the sort: He hovers around your work station to make sure that you're always on task. She gives the plum assignments to her friends and ignores the rest of the staff. He takes all the credit when you exceed the goal and none of the blame when he misses the mark.

So today, as working people across the country (or at least the calendar makers and greeting card companies) recognize National Boss Day and honor those exemplary employers and superlative supervisors they work for, we will turn our attention to finding ways to cope with the ones who are just plain jerks.

Focus on the good

Flagg says the best advice she got came during a call to her father about her bad boss. "I was determined to hate her," she recalls. "He said, 'Everybody has something good about them, and I challenge you to look for that.' He kept me on the phone until I would admit to something."

When pressed, she told him her boss had a sharp wit. He suggested she go to work the next day and focus on that. When she did, Flagg conceded that her boss was "actually funny and fun to be around."

Now 42 and owner of The Krysalis Group, a human resource and management consulting firm in Manhattan, Flagg says her father's advice not only has served her well throughout her career, but she has shared it with clients.

What are some other tips to cope with a boss who's a jerk? Flagg and other workplace experts and business coaches say there are ways to get along with your boss without going crazy or going off.

"We're not suggesting that the bosses are worse than anybody else, but they may do things that drive you crazy," says Kerry Patterson, a workplace expert in Provo, Utah, and co-author of "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High" (McGraw-Hill, $16.95).

A jerk in the mirror?

Even so, Patterson suggests looking inward first. Could you be doing things that contribute to problems between you and the boss? As hard as it may be to believe, perhaps you're the real jerk - not your boss.

Assess your relationship. Are you even on his or her radar, or does your boss have no clue who you are? Do you have a rapport and a sense of mutual trust? Do you avoid each other completely or are you always at each other's throats? Are you viewed as dead weight or a valuable member of the team?

"Work on you first, the boss second," Patterson says.

Don't just gripe about your boss to your peers. Ask a trusted colleague with "the guts to tell you the truth" whether you're seeing your boss clearly or fixating on the speck in her eye while oblivious to the plank in your own.

It's also a good idea to consult others in the workplace who know the boss better than you do, says Steven L. Katz, an executive and organizational consultant who lives outside Washington, D.C.

"Don't assume you know everything about them and their character and their traits," he says. "I find it's important to identify a few people and say, 'Is it just me, or does he abuse everybody? Is it just me, or does she take everyone's head off? Is it just me, or does he believe he would be better off without any of us?'"

Let's face it

If a boss is mistreating or disrespecting you, deal with it head-on, says Judith Glaser, an organizational and executive coach in Manhattan who explores the practices of bosses - from the extremely bad to extraordinarily good - in her new book, "The DNA of Leadership: Leverage Your Instincts to Communicate, Differentiate and Innovate" (Platinum Press, $24.95).