How to deal with horrible bosses

Kevin Spacey's character in Horrible Bosses displayed erratic behaviour, a luxury real bosses can't afford.

It’s important to act calmly and develop a strategy if you’re having a problem with your boss because it can affect your career

In the film Horrible Bosses, Kevin Spacey's character promises Jason Bateman's character a promotion — then denies it to him for being two minutes late. While our own experiences dealing with tricky employers may not be so extreme, it doesn't mean they're insignificant. I once worked for two sisters who routinely contradicted each other's instructions. The result? Impossible to please either one of them.

Alex Malley is the chief executive of CPA Australia. He oversees 19 offices globally and more than 150,000 CPA members in 121 countries. He also hosts the Aussie TV show The Bottom Line, is an influential business mentor and wrote the bestselling book The Naked CEO.

But as a youngster embarking on his accounting career, he often encountered tough bosses, including one motivated purely by ego. Malley's first reaction was to up and leave — and that's what he did for the first decade, thinking that he'd one day find the "perfect boss". As he matured and became a leader himself, he came to realise that perhaps some of them weren't as bad as he thought.

So how to recognise a genuinely difficult boss as opposed to a demanding one? It's one thing to expect you to turn up on time and push you to achieve more than you might on your own, and quite another to come home from work feeling demoralised, exploited or depressed.

"The impact of dealing with a difficult boss can be profound," says Malley. "But it's important to put a positive lens on it. You can learn something from dealing with difficult people. If you can respect the people you don't like you're halfway there."

Be a keen observer and find a mentor whom you can trust, say Alex Malley, CEO of CPA Australia.

Your bosses may be egotistical or insecure, acting to further their own interests. Or perhaps they are inauthentic, saying one thing and doing something totally different. They may be emotionally unintelligent, unaware of their environment, or how their words and actions affect those around them. Or they could be ineffective communicators, leading to the frustrating need to ask for instructions more than once. Perhaps the trait most whispered about at the water cooler is the Jekyll and Hyde personality. The seemingly rational, kind leader who turns into a dragon when the pressure's on, behaving erratically or lashing out at staff.

There are coping mechanisms, says Malley. The first step is to become a good observer. Keep an eye on your boss' behaviour over the course of a day or a week and look for patterns. It might be as simple as waiting to approach them about a work issue after they've had their morning coffee.

"Keep your communications simple, your questions simple and listen intently for the answers so you don't have to go back and ask again. If you can take instruction from someone you don't like, and you respect their role, they will relax quicker than you think."

Finally, Malley recommends finding a mentor, someone you can trust and confide in. They don't necessarily have to know about your job but have the maturity to see the situation from a different perspective. They might suggest you take action or, as Malley puts it, "suck it up".

But what if things don't improve? Is it ever appropriate to confront your boss with your concerns about how you're being treated? Yes, says Malley, but it's worth doing only if you've exhausted all your other strategies, taken advice from someone outside the workplace, and you're simply not prepared to withstand their behaviour any more. Before making the move, he recommends role-playing at home first.

"Do not go to your boss just with a problem. Consider the ways in which the problem might be alleviated, all in the same relaxed conversation."

And if you reach a point where you feel you have no option but to leave, do so without burning bridges — even if your instinct is to make like Jerry Maguire, pack up the office goldfish and deliver an angry "who's coming with me?" speech. You may as well kiss your reference goodbye.

It goes without saying that any unethical or illegal actions such as sexual harassment or physical or emotional abuse should not be tolerated, and that includes behaviour that amounts to intellectual theft, for example, your boss is frequently presenting your ideas as his own. Protecting your reputation is also crucial if you get the sense that rumours or untruths are being spread. But leaving a job because of a difficult boss is a decision not to be taken lightly.

"Are you being held back, and you're not able to grow any more in a particular company? To me the only reason anyone should leave a role — and I've had seven children so I understand the money side of it — is because you want to learn more somewhere else. The money will follow you if you get the role that will allow you to grow."

If you suspect you may be an office dictator yourself, all is not lost. Malley says the first thing he learned as a boss was to make himself believable by his actions, to let people know who he was as a person, what he did at weekends. As a boss, you can't control everything, he says, but you can control the way you react.

"When you become a leader you're not entitled any more to display the two ends of the emotional plane, because everything you do and say carries a five times more powerful message. If I'm really upset, the impact of that is quite profound on everyone around me. You have to be consistent with your reactions. One of the first things to do in a senior role when something really bad happens is to remain calm. People really respect calm, particularly if they've made a mistake.

"I think of the workplace as a family home. There's always going to be dysfunction, there's always going to be disagreements. Fundamentally, your kids will stay in the family home if there's a sense of welcome, a set of basic rules and an environment in which people feel empowered."

Without those things, you may have some work to do.