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How to handle a difficult boss

Back to blog homepage for: Tessa Armstrong's Blog on Career Development

Have you seen the recent film called ‘Horrible Bosses’? The main plot follows three friends who devise a plan to get rid of their respective overbearing and abusive bosses who they believe are standing in the way of their happiness. 

 Having a horrible boss is something almost everyone has experienced during their career path. Your experience may not be as dramatic as those in the film but it is likely to have affected your career development in some way. Your morale at work may have dropped significantly, your performance may have decreased or it may have even resulted in your resignation.   It can ultimately lead you to feeling very stressed at work.

 

 If your boss is making you feel stressed, consider your options and try to find a strategy to help relieve this stress before you become extremely frustrated and it has an impact on both your work and life. When working out your strategy, it can be easy to jump to the conclusion that you only have two options: to put up with it or resign. However, there are other options you can try first....

 

 1.     You may be able to resolve the problem using alternative methods of working. If you are stuck for ideas, consider if there is anyone else you trust at work who may be experiencing the same issue and ask how they are dealing with it. You could even seek the help of a career coach who would help you to come up with solutions.   Career and performance coaching has the benefits of being objective and confidential.

 

 2.     Also consider talking to your boss about it. Plan the conversation beforehand so that you are able to speak confidently and professionally. During the meeting ensure you find out what their expectations are of you and how they think you are doing in terms of meeting those expectations. You may discover that your boss does not even realise there is a problem. See if you can come up with a solution which will benefit both you and your boss.

 

 Finally, remember not to burn any bridges in the route you choose to take. You never know who knows who!

 

 Tessa Armstrong, Career and Performance Coach,

 

Tessa Armstrong Associates

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Editor's Welcome

 

Hello! I'm a great believer in the power of stories, whether they be folk tales, novels, films or TV dramas.
 
They have a wonderful ability to get complex moral or social issues over to us in a palatable, easy-to-understand way and can provide many lessons if only we care to look just a little bit below the surface.
 
But they can also act as a fun starting point for discussion and debate on rather more serious topics that are all too often brushed under the carpet and ignored.
 

Hence our decision to start up a Review slot on the site to look at those everyday stories that are all around us from an HR perspective.

Although we've been publishing book reviews (take a look at our Book Club list of suggested possible non-fiction works for evaluation here) for some time, you may also have noticed that we've been running a weekly home page blog on The Apprentice courtesy of The Chemistry Group for a while now.

And Pauline Wood, managing director at specialist retail headhunter, court & spark consulting, was likewise kind enough to write our first film review on the Headhunters movie.

But the big question is, why don't you give it a go yourself? There's a world of choice out there and I, like the rest of the community, would love to hear your thoughts and insights.

So next time you watch a movie, see a TV drama or read a novel that you think has an HR message worth sharing, send your review to me at cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk or post it directly to our blogs section at www.hrzone.co.uk/blogs.

So get critiquing and look forward to hearing from you very soon.....

Cath Everett
HRZone Editor 
 
 
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