The Cure for Horrible

Bosses
In the recent film comedy Horrible Bosses, three truly
dreadful managers make their employees lives
miserable. The first is a cruel executive who dangles a
promotion in front of a subordinate as bait, only to
snatch it away once his stupid demands have been
met. The second is a mean cokehead who inherits the
family business from his kindly deceased father. The
third is an orthodontist who sexually harasses her
assistant, threatening to tell his fiance that its his
fault.

The victims in the movie cant quit. They need the

jobs. Instead, they compose elaborate, farcical plots
to eliminate the bosses.

In real life, horrible bosses are the stuff of tragedy,

not comedy. Workplace discontent is no joke. Some
surveys show that as many as half of American
workers feel low levels of work engagement,
stemming in part from poor management.

Its not insults that cause the greatest harm, but

rather callousness about peoples time. Horrible
bosses want control. They expect subordinates to be
on call 24/7 and to hit unrealistic deadlines with
limited resources. When the work product is
delivered, horrible bosses may ignore it for long

intervals, making it clear that the deadline was

artificial and the stress unnecessary.

To minimize the impact of horrible bosses, companies

can ensure that performance reviews are based on
objective measures, not subjective ones. They can
examine tasks and workloads for relevance and
fairness. They can offer training to teach respectful
behavior. They can police sexual harassment and
make flexibility a right. But formal processes go only
so far. Employees sometimes find themselves worse
off when they use official complaint mechanisms.

The best cure for horrible bosses is alternative

relationships and collaboration. Organizations that
foster strong, multidimensional relationships among
colleagues weaken the control of a single autocratic
boss. They make it more likely that the sins of
horrible bosses will be exposed to others who can
stop them.

Groups caught in a horror show can end the misery by

banding together to focus on goals and show
compassion for one another. Jane Dutton of the
University of Michigan, a leader in the positive
psychology movement, has shown that simple
gestures of caring can humanize the workplace and
raise levels of performance.

Another good way to neutralize horrible bosses is to

focus on the mission and help others around you

succeed. A manager Ill call Pierre was sent by his
company to lead a turnaround, as COO, of a lowperforming subsidiary in a developing country. The
country CEO was imperialistic and antagonistic. He
gave Pierre a basement office with no staff and
proceeded to ignore him. Pierres corporate bosses
told him to work it out. After a few days of feeling
depressed, Pierre decided to move into the tiny office
next to the CEO and find his own assistant from
outside the company, someone with no history with or
allegiance to the CEO.

Then he forged ahead with relationship-building. He

identified the best performers in the unit who he
thought would be the most independent of the CEOs
power. He met with them in small groups and
provided abundant performance data and ideas for
growing the business. Soon they were leading their
peers in making changes. The horrible boss couldnt
control Pierre and couldnt stop the momentum. The
boss became impotent in his irrelevanceand later
was fired for corruption.

In the movie, the three friends help one another, and

the horrible bosses fall on their own swords. Real life
is not as dramatic or entertaining. Still, an underlying
truth holds: The best cure for horrible bosses is
wonderful colleagues.