Arguing With the Boss is Normal — Except When You Work for a Really Bad One

Editor’s Note: The summer months are a good time to occasionally republish some of my most popular posts. Here’s one from back in July 2014.

YOU CAN TAKE IT from me: Arguing with the boss is generally not a career enhancing experience.

I know this because I have worked for a number of different bosses and I have done my share of arguing with them.

In fact, at some point I’ve gone back and forth with just about every person I ever worked for, but these arguments really break down into two distinctive categories:

1. Arguing with bosses who see this as part of the normal give-and-take of the job, who aren’t threatened by it, and, who respect you for being passionate and caring enough to engage in a difficult conversation. OR,
2. Arguing with someone you work for who views the argument as a threat or a challenge to their authority. This is the reaction you get from those who are either arrogant, self-centered and tone-deaf to those around them, or simply clueless and unskilled in managing people. Sometimes, you get all of the above combined with a mean and nasty demeanor, making for one unforgettably difficult individual.

‘There are a lot of bad bosses out there …”

The Harvard Business Review  dug into this topic with a post titled When Fighting With Your Boss, Protect Yourself First, and it reminded me of all the bad bosses I’ve ever worked for, saying:

“There are a lot of bad bosses out there, leaders who aren’t stupid but lack emotional intelligence. Their self-awareness is strikingly low, they’re clueless when it comes to reading people, they can’t control their emotions, and their values seem to be on a permanent leave of absence.

These dissonant leaders are dangerous. They derail careers and blow up teams. They destroy people — sometimes overtly, sometimes slowly and insidiously. Over time we can find ourselves in perpetual, all-consuming combat with these bosses. We think about it all the time. We relive every last painful word hurled our way. We nurse our wounds. We plot revenge. We talk about our boss and the injustice of it all with anyone who will listen, including co-workers and loved ones.

It’s tiresome, really, but we can’t help ourselves. It feels like a fight to the death. That’s because fighting with a powerful person — like a boss — sparks a deep, primal response: fear. After all, these people hold our lives in their hands — the keys to our futures, not to mention our daily bread.

Clearly, battling to the death with one’s boss does not lead to health, happiness, or success. But what can you do?”

Promoted with no people skills

YES, WHAT CAN YOU DO? Arguments and disagreements are part of life, and if you work for someone who won’t tolerate the normal give and take of life and the workplace, what do you do?

Well, Forbes tried to quantify Why Are There So Many Terrible Managers in Business Today? , and one of the reasons they listed jumped out at me:

“Managers are often good at something other than managing, and the company focuses on those skills.”

Yes, this is probably the No. 1 quality that defines all the bad managers I’ve ever worked for. They seemed to have gotten their job for something other than their management skills, and when they were put in a position where they really HAD to manage, well, they simply couldn’t do it.

For example:

• The former sales manager who was great at selling but terrible at setting direction or understanding (and appreciating) what the rest of the operation did.
• The top editor with a thug-like demeanor who had zero editing or management skills and was promoted because of his success in helping to break a union elsewhere. Of course, his style was all about anger, threats, and projecting the possibility of an actual physical confrontation.
• The guy who was highly skilled at negotiating business deals and rewarded with a senior vice president’s job as a result — even though he knew nothing about any part of the operation he was now charged with managing. As an added bonus, he was also delusional and arrogant, and as time went on, his arrogance made him completely unwilling to listen to advice from anyone else.

Maybe time to find another job?

SO JUST HOW DO YOU deal with a bad manager you find yourself arguing with all the time? That HBR post seems to put their finger on the answer:

“Fighting at work is nasty. Fighting with one’s boss is downright painful. It can kill your spirit and ruin your health. If you are perpetually fighting with your boss, you’ve got to ask yourself if it’s worth it to stay in your job?

Sure, we all have a million reasons for staying in a job (this stance is usually fear-based, too). If the relationship with your boss can’t be fixed, why not think of all the good reasons to find another job — with a better boss, in a better culture where such fights aren’t tolerated?”

That bit at the end is worth remembering, because the problem isn’t in having an argument and some give-and-take with a boss who sees that as a necessary part of the relationship. No, the REAL problem is having a series of battles with a dysfunctional and unskilled manager who sees every disagreement as a fight to the death.

Arguing with a superior in a positive environment is healthy and constructive; having a nasty fight that puts you in fear for your job is not.

If you keep that in mind, you’ll always know what to do — whether you are dealing with your boss, or, the people someone has charged you with managing who look to you for help.

Other trends and insights

And your latest dose of AI news … 

• Workers have jumped on the AI bandwagon, while employers are lagging (From TechBrew.com)
• How AI Can Help Start Small Businesses (From NY Times.com)
• How Amazon’s GenAI tool for developers is saving 4,500 years of work, $260 million annually (From WorkLife.news)
• Target CFO says generative AI tool is boosting worker efficiency (From HR Dive.com)
• The Year of the AI Election That Wasn’t (From NY Times.com)
• Businesses are on board with AI, but they are facing significant talent, compliance and security challenges (From Unleash.com)

ALSO: Leave it to The Wall Street Journal to dip into a difficult workplace issue in Diversity vs. Merit: You Agree More Than You Think. It kicks off like this — “If only you’d all talk to each other as candidly as you write to me — our workplaces might be better for it. … No matter where readers stood, the prevailing sentiment was that companies should hire the best workers they can find without holding people’s identities against them.”  If you’re interested in this topic — and you should be — it’s well worth reading.

Workplace insight of the week