Do you ever feel confused, thinking your boss might be toxic, but perhaps your work colleagues around you enable that bad behavior? So you end up feeling very confused. Now, some of us, when we know we have a toxic boss, can’t just quit our jobs immediately, right? Because, well, we need to support ourselves financially. So today, let’s talk about the best strategies to deal with a toxic boss until you can leave without going crazy in the process.
1) Quietly quitting
This may be your very first option. If you are exhausted with the toxicity, if you feel utter relief imagining never stepping foot in that place again, then start quietly quitting. Maybe you don’t even want to talk to your boss. You don’t want to ask them to treat you better. You’re just ready to go because you have exhausted all options. You’ve been nice, you’ve spoken with your boss, you’ve spoken to HR, and you’re like, “Yep, my mental health is taking a toll. I’m out.” Now, if you are dreading going to work, if you feel anxious in your stomach, and you are constantly daydreaming while you are doing the job, this is going to affect your ability to work. Now, this is a huge issue that so many people face, but they continue to stick in a toxic job. Why? Well, let’s get into that deep psychology later on in the video. So think about this. We spend more time at work than we do with our friends and family, and life is too short to spend seven hours a day with a toxic boss. So as soon as possible, get your exit strategy in place quietly, but be realistic about it. It might take you six months to get another job lined up. So in that time, remain professional, grit your teeth, get through. Now let me tell you, resentment builds quicker when you start to see a way out. So you need to control your emotions during those six months because if you tell your boss you are thinking of leaving, he or she could make those six months of your life a living hell. Starting the day with regret and anxiety will eventually take a toll on you physically. So you have to take action. No job is worth your mental health, and you are not defined by your job. And sadly, the moment you hand in your notice, the company starts to replace you. In short, you have to do what you need to do to work, get your money, and then you go home and enjoy life while you are quietly quitting. Remember, all of these problems are no longer yours. They’re not your monkeys, not your circus.
2) Recognise abusive behaviour
So let’s talk about what you need to do to not lose your mind in the process. When you start quietly quitting, recognize abusive behavior. A toxic person is simply an immature person. They love to exploit other weaknesses for their own control. Now, bullying can happen in the workplace even if no one’s raising their voice. And when you know the signs that you have a toxic boss, it reduces your fear because, well, you can predict their behavior and use it to your advantage more on that later. Some of the signs that they are toxic are the heavy narcissistic traits always demanding praise, little empathy for others, envious of everyone, and always on the go. And let’s not forget zero communication skills, leaving you out of conversations on purpose, never making time for your one-on-ones, and never letting you speak. Maybe even rescheduling your meetings at a minute’s notice just for your inconvenience. They will try to intimidate you. They will not say hi or bye at the end of the shift. They just give you this intimidating look. They will talk to you in passive-aggressive tones all to get you to feel awful about yourself. And I’ll give you some advice of what to do in these moments to gain back your power in just a minute. So a toxic boss would always try to undermine your expertise. They want to make you look like an idiot in front of other workers and customers. They will deny or delay handling your paperwork or even arranging your holidays. Now, it may not be just you they are abusing. It could be the whole team, but sadly, not everyone will speak up. So remember, this person is not going to change, and it is not your responsibility to get them to change. Yes, you can go to HR and I do recommend it, but if this person is a narcissist, they will be able to conjure up their charismatic powers and win over HR, which will lead me too…
3) Stoic professionalism
Never go head-to-head with this person. Grit your teeth together and carry on. Smash your work goals. Do what’s asked of you. Nothing more. No extra time without getting paid. Document your work and refrain from people-pleasing. If you grew up trying to please your parents and they ignored you, naturally, we have this in us to people-please everyone to win approval of people. And you will do this at work. So help with this. Imagine your future self who’s gonna look back and say, well done. Those past six months were really tough. Once you were looking for a new job, but you pulled through with your professionalism and you didn’t make the situation worse. Well done. I’m so proud of you. So imagine you are trying to make your future self proud and stop people-pleasing. So stay out of drama by avoiding it. Don’t engage with this boss. Don’t react, don’t talk to them. And if you do, make sure it’s factual. It’s never anything personal about yourself because they will try to use it against you. And if they are abusive to you and say hurtful things, you simply walk away. Don’t even acknowledge it. Remember I said that you can predict a toxic person’s behavior. Well, use this to your advantage. A toxic boss will always try to set you up for failure. They want to see you panic, they want you upset. They want you to struggle because they thrive off that. So don’t give them what they want. Remain calm inside. You may be internally screaming, and you’ve gotta give yourself a 10-minute bathroom talk to hype up yourself to get through, but you owe it to yourself, your future self to get through the month, get your paycheck, pay your bills, and go home. It’s as simple as that.
4)Don’t be scared of them
Your well-being is more important than your job. So please focus on your confidence and your self-esteem. Whatever negative things they do or say, it does not define who you are, okay? These toxic bosses, they will feel insecure around you because, well, you are going to have something that they don’t. You could have respect from other people. You could have job success and work-life balance. You are humble, you are friendly, you have something that they don’t have. So they like shutting you down. And if you fear this person, it gives them power and they want you to feel powerless every time they belittle you. And that fear creeps in. Come back to this video and remind yourself of how incredible and hardworking you are because you really are amazing.
5) Firmer boundaries
Now imagine you’ve just laid new AstroTurf on your football pitch and you need to keep everyone off that AstroTurf for 24 hours for the adhesive to do its thing. So you build a fence with four walls around the pitch. Now, if one of those walls is damaged, people can get in and ruin the pitch. And that’s how you need to see boundaries. If you are lacking boundaries in your personal life, people at work can walk through that broken fence, and they will end up twerking all over your new AstroTurf. So you need to practice boundaries in every relationship. You need to be firm with who you are, what you believe in, and be firm on your consequences inside and outside of work. And I totally get this. It’s very uncomfortable when you start laying down boundaries for the first time. And it might be uncomfortable for the first 20 times, but one day it does become second nature and you won’t feel that anxiety. Now, when we are fluid with our boundaries, we actually become more attractive to toxic people. It sucks. They can see that we don’t give them a consequence of their bad behavior. They know that we are people-pleasers, therefore, they know they can get away with it. Now, let’s say Dwayne Johnson walks into the office. Would your boss treat him how he treats you? Probably not. Why? Because he knows there is great consequence to abusing Dwayne Johnson. The boss knows his place or her place. So you want your boss to know that. If you say, no, I’m not doing that, you mean it. And you leave on time and you pick up those tasks. When you are next in to begin with, your boss is going to laugh at your boundaries, right? And it’s going to make you feel awful. They will try to walk over them. They will belittle them, intimidate you. Now remember, you can predict a toxic person’s behavior. You can predict they’re going to do this. So be prepared for it. You simply repeat what you said. No, I’m not staying late tonight. I have things to do. I’ll see you tomorrow and I’m not answering my phone on my days off. So stop calling me and asking me to come in when you didn’t plan the staff rotor for a Saturday.
Now, the more that you enable bad boundaries, the more the boss assumes that you will do anything at a moment’s notice. You are literally saying, “Abuse me, I don’t mind.” Now, what really sucks is many modern bosses just assume that their work has the same passion about their career as they do. They don’t understand that a minimum wage worker doesn’t want to do 60 plus hours a week. And if we do work overtime, it’s to pay our ever-increasing electricity bill not to serve their family business.
6) Document everything
Now, the more photos you have, the better. Because toxic bosses, they will change things last minute. I once had a boss who did this. We had a new rotor that would be printed out. It wasn’t digital, which was ridiculous. So every time we saw the new rotor, we had to take a picture of it on our phone because the boss would print out a brand new rotor and not update anyone. So there were many times that I would leave my shift on a Wednesday, know that I had to come back to work for Monday, but then on Monday morning I would have to have an HR meeting because I missed my shift on a Friday. So please make a note of everything that happens, date and time it, write down if someone else was involved or if someone saw what happens because you can do one of two things. One, send this note to HR for them to help you. Or two, send this to your boss and tell them, “Look buddy, this happened and this happened.” Now the fact that you’ve added a date and a time solidifies how important this situation is. The boss may dismiss it and say it’s only words on paper. But in an HR perspective, they usually work around the mindset that you are guilty until proven innocent. So if you hand over a document which has proof of your boss not being his best or herself, then they have to prove that this person is innocent. So there you go.
7) Don’t Blame Yourself
Importantly, when you start to admit to yourself that you do have a toxic boss, it brings up some uncomfortable feelings. It could be dread, it could be shame for not speaking up sooner and regret for staying so long in a toxic workplace. And that’s okay. Please seek support in a friend, a family member, someone who cares about you, or even comment on this video so others can tell you that you are not alone in this. You did nothing wrong. Okay? You are not to blame for their toxic behavior. You are simply just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I get it. It sucks that you would have to leave a job, but that is the reality of this world, sadly. Now, it’s very easy to take on their awful words to heart. But remember, it doesn’t define you if you have high self-esteem. It doesn’t matter if they try to humiliate you in front of others, you know they are speaking from a place of what they are lacking with. So those comments can easily roll off your shoulders. But if you start to internalize what someone is saying about you, you start to believe these words. And if you find that you are starting to agree with your boss about how awful you are, you need to work on challenging it. Now to help with this, see your toxic boss as a toddler, okay? Desperate to get attention. And they’re saying hurtful things to get you to notice them. Because bad words always turn heads, right? How someone treats you is a reflection of how they treat themselves and what they are still struggling with.
8) Be mindful of colleagues
People that stay in toxic jobs with toxic bosses, they enable bad behavior in all aspects of their life. So you might have a work colleague that’s friendly, actually enables everything the bad boss does. You will find that they will have friends outside of work who also treat them the same. They become utmost people pleasers. And we are the five people that we hang out with. And there’s a video here which dives into that theory. https://youtu.be/SBaGAtsm-fc
So this means your work friends will not stand up for you in your time of need, such as when a boss is disrespecting you because they are lacking the emotional maturity to handle confrontation. And they find it easier to keep themselves small, to keep the peace. Most toxic people at work like gossiping. Gossiping, keeps workplace order in check. It makes the gossiper feel like they are the highest point of the social hierarchy. And it makes them feel they are in control of the toxic situation. So remember, you don’t need a team at work to be on your side. Simply do your best, remain professional until you can quietly leave. You’ve got this.