About 20 years ago I worked for a man I used to call a living brain donor. I saw so many things he did wrong and couldn’t help focusing on them all. Including the galling fact that my obviously dumb boss managed to become a Vice President with so few smarts.
We all knew that he didn’t understand a lot of things he was in charge of. And yet he insisted on telling US how to do almost everything. Meanwhile, he spent his days working on personal projects unrelated to the job — while the rest of us carried the workload.
Trying to “fix” a dumb boss
Dumb boss or not, I figured I could fix him by showing him where he went “wrong.” And how much better we could do if he just let us take the lead on things we knew more about. Despite the fact that I was basically telling him he’s an idiot, I framed it as supportively as possible. Or thought I did.
In the meantime — and I am not proud of this — I went around telling people from other areas how dumb he is. And they agreed, listening to all my complaints and offering their sympathy. I mean he was making me and the rest of the staff crazy.
There’s also our own work smarts
There’s the small picture and the big picture. And, no matter how dumb or incompetent your boss may be, in most cases, you are judged by how well you play with others. Are you a team player — someone they can trust. Or are you someone mainly looking to see things only your way?
Even if you’re doing it for the “good of the business”, doing an end run around your dumb boss — or any boss — isn’t going to help your career. And, except in very rare (often quite messy) situations, you’re not going to get ahead where you are unless you’re seen as someone others want to play with.
For good or for bad, to quote career expert Carrie Bradshaw, the best you can do is find a way to play the hand you were dealt. And if that includes making the best of a boss who doesn’t have all his or her brain cells flashing, well that’s just an extra challenge to show your co-workers — and yourself — just how valuable you can be.
How to play hand & still stay sane?
It’s easy to work with co-workers and bosses we respect. But in a long career, you’re going to come up against many dumb boss types. And so either you’re going to be thrown for a loop each time, or you’re going to find a way to deal with flaws. Yes, not perfect by far … but better is pretty good when you’re feeling trapped by things you can’t control — and yet keep trying to do just that!
Before you yell at me and tell me I don’t understand, let me assure you I know. I’ve had many maddening bosses and for a long time got caught up in the flaws. I always seemed to find them. But because of that, I missed many chances to create a better experience for myself — and to enhance my reputation, relationships, and work smarts.
⇒ MORE: 7 Ways You Can Put Emotional Intelligence to Work
I may be a slow learner, but after a while I got it. They weren’t going to change. I wasn’t going to make everyone think my way. And most of all … I was doing more than anyone else to drive myself crazy. Having expectations and then getting stuck waiting for others to conform to them will only make you bonkers!
If you have a dumb boss or whatever else, the best you can do in these circumstances is use them to strengthen your own people skills. Including your coping and resilience skills. Focus on what you can change and what you can get involved in that is productive. And let the rest go. At least for now.
Work with … and not against
If you do have changes to suggest — and that’s a good thing — you need to enlist your boss’s support and work WITH them to improve things. It not only makes you a happier employee, but makes you more desirable when other areas are looking to hire. Between a brilliant smarty-pants and a bright flexible team player, guess who gets the offers? And guess who gets the really good recommendations?
Now this isn’t to say that if you have a truly horrible situation you should grin and bear it. Or roll over and kiss butt if you’re being treated badly. But in most situations I’ve seen, after all my years of learning the hard way, I can usually see something a person can do to help make things better for themselves.
And so my challenge to you, if you find yourself in a similar situation, is to come up with some of your own small goals that, after a while, can often make a big difference. And become an extra tool in your working-smart tool belt from that point on.
More on that “dumb” boss
The real secret is … once you start looking for ways to work together and to help rather than seeing the other person as the obstacle to your happiness, the other person also starts to morph. Or so it seems. Most people react well to kindness and respect, and only get thornier when you treat them like the enemy. People can sense how we feel about them. And that even includes your dumb boss!
Look, I know mot every situation can be turned around by working smart. But most can be made a little more pleasant. Even if it takes time, it’s at least worth a try — or even two or three tries. And once you get the hang of it and shift how you approach things, oh my word you can open up so many new doors!
About the author…
Ronnie Ann, founder of Work To the Wise and Work Coach Cafe, bases her real-world advice on her many years as an organizational consultant where she helped interview and hire people, added to a certificate from NYU in Career Planning & Development, as well as her many adventures as a serial job seeker.
More posts about bosses
Boss Won’t Let Me Transfer To a Different Department
How To Deal With a Bully Boss
Why Won’t My Boss Retire Already!
Are You Afraid To Talk To Your Boss?
Why It’s So Easy To Get Mad at Your Boss
What To Do If Your Boss Takes You For Granted
My Boss Tries To Control Everything!
Boss Takes Credit for Everything I Do!
My Boss Says I Have an Attitude Problem
Boss Doesn’t Communicate with Staff
My Boss Never Says Thank You
Help! My Boss Doesn’t Understand Me
⇒ BONUS: What To Do During & After Poor Performance Review
And just in case you do need to leave
⇒ How To Quit a Job (Without Hurting Yourself)
I think that no person want to work for somebody who isn’t really trust in him/her.
Most of failure boss like landowner ,they ask you to earn money for them and listen to him.sometime they don’t need a outstanding enployee.they just enjoy feeling of controlling and contempt their employee in their mind.
Listen to your experience,l let go of the same bad experience .
Good advice about listening to experience, Audrey. And glad you were able to move on and away from that. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
oh，your boss is so impolite
The only thing you can do is quit. Make yourself look really good on the job for a month while sending out tons of resumes and escape.
Most dumb bosses aren’t dumb but rather paranoid control freaks. That’s why they do all sorts of aggravating things like complain about their lunch, nitpick your work and pretend to not understand the software until you show them for the umpteenth time. You’ll never be able to manage-up or get around someone like this without help from up top and odds are upper management loves your troll of a boss. They know he is a stupid, unpleasant jerk – that’s why they made him a boss!
Just get out.
Thanks, Brian. Appreciate your thoughts. Control freak bosses have a lot of deep personality issues you aren’t going to fix. So sorry you had to deal with that. Glad you made a smart choice to get out.
I started this site to help people figure out how to stay when jobs are not exactly perfect and yet there’s enough there to at least try to make it work — even if your boss isn’t exactly a genius. But we also have lots of info here on how to move on when you need to as in the case Brian describes. No one deserves to be treated badly. And there are indeed times when it pays to start working on a good exit plan as he suggests!
You can also add in a boss with poor social skills. I work for a boss who would run pick through his hair all day long and do this all day long in meetings. Every time I talked with him he had a pick in hair. This he would only call you by your last name. He would say “hey” and “yo” to you all day long also.