Why A Bad Boss Can Be Good For You

The old adage that “people don’t leave bad companies; they leave bad managers” rings true to 55% of people surveyed in a recent poll by Yahoo! HotJobs. That means that over half of us are dealing with poor performances by our managers on a daily basis. I don’t argue with the fact that a boss can make or break a job, no matter how high-paying or engaging the work is, but I also know that working for a less than stellar performer can afford unexpected opportunities that prove valuable in the long run.

Here are some examples of bad bosses and how you can turn working for one to your advantage:

The Incompetent Boss

The incompetent boss is one who, for the most part, has absolutely no idea what to do. They contribute nothing. They do nothing. But manage to skate along on the backs of a constant stream of quality workers.

How this works to your advantage:

The incompetent boss survives on the work of others. This means that as an employee, you are often given decision-making powers and responsibility beyond your station to fill-in the gaps your boss is creating. You’ll probably get a chance to attend upper-level meetings, have a large role in projects and gain valuable management, and administrative experience without having to directly manage a team.

The Over-Demanding Boss

The over-demanding boss comes in early, stays late, and expects his/her employees to do the same. They command the latest data reports and they wanted it yesterday. The over-demanding boss boasts high profits but is plagued by high employee turnover.

How this works to your advantage:

Unless you’re an extreme Type-A personality who thrives in a 24/7 work environment, working for an over-demanding boss usually leads to burnout. However, in the interim, you will learn to function at the top of your game, putting you well ahead of the competition when searching for a new job.

The Jerk Boss

Probably one of the most unpleasant bosses to work for, the jerk boss shows no respect or empathy toward others. He/she prefers to motivate by fear using verbal abuse and shame which in turn makes employees scared enough of retribution to perform.

How this works to your advantage:

Sadly in most companies, if a boss delivers good results, they are often left in their positions in spite of poor social skills. I recommend looking for new work if you are saddled with such a boss, but in the interim the strategies you devise to deal with the day-to-day abuse will help you develop a thick skin and make any future boss seem less awful in comparison.

Starting A New Job Is Much Easier The Second Time Around

When I took my first job out of college a few years ago, I remember spending my first day mostly feeling overwhelmed, anxious and insecure. It felt like I was the new mid-semester transfer kid in high school who had no friends yet, didn’t know where anything was, and had to eat alone in the cafeteria (which I actually did for several months when I started at my first job). I recall being frustrated because I didn’t know when or how to set the security alarm or enter through the back door instead of walking half a block around the street to the front.

While I eventually got over all of these minor hurdles, I do remember it took several months before I felt truly comfortable with the quality of my work and my relationships with my co-workers. When I recently decided to move to a new company, I mentally prepared myself for the “new kid on the block” feeling. However, after just a few days on the job I was surprised to feel nothing but calm and assured with almost no anxiety at all.

What made starting my second job so much easier than the first?

Confidence

Even though I had completed several internships while in school, I still felt ill-prepared for the rigors of working in a corporate environment. It was my first opportunity to do “meaningful” work and, being the perfectionist that I am, I felt immense pressure to be perfect in every way.

Unfortunately for me, it’s common and expected for new employees to make lots of mistakes and their work is far from perfect. It was a hard lesson for me to learn, but I eventually accepted that I could only do my best, even if it wasn’t up to my expectations, and as I got better at doing the work, my confidence in myself and my abilities increased greatly.

I think the major difference between starting my first job and starting my second, is that this time around, I’m much more confident in my capabilities, especially now that I have a proven track record of performance to fall back on. I felt like when I was hired the first time after graduation, I was hired for my potential. The second time, and every subsequent time, I will be hired for my expertise, making me feel like I earned the job rather than having just lucked into it, which is a great boost to my self-esteem.

Transferable Skills

Lots of career literature deals with getting people to identify their “transferable skills” or basic knowledge that is applicable across a multitude of jobs and industry, things such as writing or computer skills. When I graduated from college, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of MS Office applications such as Word and Excel. But I quickly discovered that there was a whole other world of advanced functions and options that you never learn about in school.

Since MS Office and Windows are popular programs in most corporate offices, upon starting my new job I was able to change around my email settings and internet preferences on the first day of my new job with no help at all. It sounds like a little thing, but it was rather empowering to be able to do it myself without suffering the embarrassment of having to ask someone how to change my calendar color from yellow to green.

*I also want to note that I’ve seen many an interview candidate claim to know how to use Excel and Word only to have their incompetence revealed after being asked only a few simple questions. I urge everyone to take an MS Office training course even if you think you know how the program works. Listing an Office certification on your résumé will make you look impressive and you’ll be more productive in the long run because you’ll know the secrets and shortcuts that a normal user won’t.

Relationship Savvy

When I entered the workforce for the first time, I really had no idea how a business worked, who the major players were, how decisions got made, or how to execute a project. After three years of sitting through endless meetings, dealing with office politics and navigating the murky world of interdepartmental co-operation, I have obtained a basic map of any corporate structure and a strategy to integrate myself into it.

Through months of observation I learned how to relate to executives and managers, identify the “go-to” people in each department that will help me get what I need, how to deal with different types of people and more. While no business is exactly the same, most companies will have an accounting and IT department as well as upper-level and mid-level managers.

Even though the people and titles might be different, the types of people drawn to these positions are usually the same. Recognizing the various worker personalities (the micromanager, the procrastinator, the super-star, etc.) and having experience dealing with each lends me a feeling of familiarity in a new situation so I feel less like a fish-out-of-water in my new company.

The moral of this story is that each job you have, no matter how miserable or seemingly pointless, allows you to learn and grow both personally and professionally. Each job forms the building blocks that lay the foundation for the rest of your career. And I can only hope that as I move on to my third, fourth and fifth jobs that the transitions will only continue to get easier.

Stop Eyeing the Corner Office and Shoot for Another Cubicle to Get Ahead

I wrote a post about a month ago about how I feel that age, and the perceived lack of “experience” that accompanies it, tend to hold young professionals back from achieving their career advancement goals since many companies prefer to hire more “experienced”, external candidates rather than promote candidates from within. This is an idea I feel very strongly about and proved to provoke some heated debate from readers, most recommending I either stop feeling so entitled or move to another job to gain more respect and a bigger salary, perpetuating the very cycle I was hoping to break.

So I was surprised to come across an article in the Wall Street Journal advocating the benefits of “career-mobility” programs that formally asses an employees personal strengths and talents and helps them move between departments or positions within the company, even if they were initially hired to do something else. Talk about the ultimate in pro-active employee retention.

“Initiatives typically include Web-based programs for evaluating employees’ career goals and suggesting relevant paths. For example, IBM offers a skills-evaluation tool that recommends areas where an employee might be a strong fit. Charles Berta says the tool helped him decide to switch to human resources from consulting earlier this year, after he grew tired of traveling four days a week. “I reached a point where I felt as though it was time for a change,” he says.

Verizon provides competency and personality assessments, career-related courses, résumé-writing tips and a peer-review tool that lets workers seek feedback from supervisors and colleagues. “By going through a self-discovery process, you may find that your interests lie elsewhere,” says Michael Flanagan, senior staff consultant, leadership development, at Verizon.

Most companies urge employees to work with their supervisor, a company mentor or human-resources staffer to review the results and plan a career move. This may include identifying relevant job openings at the firm and strengthening needed skills.

Companies may reap benefits beyond reducing turnover, including improved productivity, says Ron Garonzik, a vice president at Hay Group Inc., a management-consulting firm.”

These types of programs are a great way for young workers to circumvent the career “ladder” by gaining work experience, making contacts and learning about different aspects of how the company works as a whole by working in different departments or fields, not to mention stay interested and challenged by their work. I also think employers benefit from employees who have a holistic view of the company, which is why I think rotational leadership programs and other types of mentoring or cross-departmental training programs are so important.

In today’s workplace, the days of 30-year jobs are gone—and so are concrete career paths to advancement. Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, explains how straightforward career “ladders” are all but obsolete to young workers:

The entry-level job inherently undervalues someone who is bright and driven, according to Paul Graham, partner at Y Combinator, a Cambridge-based venture capital firm that funds startups almost exclusively from very young people. He sees entrepreneurship as the great escape.

“For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete,” says Graham. For the last hundred years everyone started out at the bottom. Even if the candidate held extreme promise, corporations put the candidate as a trainee on the bottom rung so he didn’t get a big head. Graham writes, “The most productive young people will always be undervalued by large organizations, because the young have no performance to measure yet, and any error in guessing their ability will tend toward the mean.”

These statements should be a wake-up call to employers that they do not have to accept losing talented people. By offering lateral, in addition to vertical, advancement opportunities, employers can keep workers engaged, continually learning and with a reduction in turnover, foster a better sense of community throughout the company.