"Help, my boss is difficult"
Does not work, "he says as he puts my concept on my desk. And he's out again. Without another word. What went through his liver today? Why does not he say clearly what he wants? What is he thinking of treating me like this? I would like to ask him all this, but he is my boss. And he has me on the Kieker.
I've seen dozens of scenes like these - and that's one of the reasons I'm my own boss today as a self-employed person. I love my job, I've always enjoyed doing my job, I'm friends with some former colleagues. Among them are a few former superiors. These were the competent, fair, factual, in short: the pleasant bosses. But in the course of my professional life, I also met extremely unpleasant managers. I'm not alone with that. A study by the Munich Geva Institute has revealed that nearly 90 percent of all employees at the lower hierarchy levels have problems with their supervisor. A fifth of them even say, "I hate my boss." Every year since 2001, the Gallup Institute has determined that every third person in the workplace suffers. In the most recent survey from 2010, only 13 percent of respondents say they are committed and committed to their business. Two-thirds of the respondents say they are listless at work - and one in five even likes it or at least accepts that doing so harms the company.
A superior without leadership quality?
The misery in the companies was recently a topic in the talk show "People at Maischberger". One of the causes in the opinion of the experts: Today, most employers are multinational corporations, which are led by salaried managers. They are expected to provide the best possible balance within a short time, cost-effectively, with as few employees as possible. If they succeed, they can count on a promotion - or be wooed by the competition.
To grow a department into a well-rehearsed team, to promote each individual in their professional development - that is not interested in such "executives". They only tolerate loyal "achievers" in their area. Everyone else hardly knows their name, who shows weakness or is uncomfortable, flies out.
There were times when I suffered physically in my workplace. This can be done quickly with a supervisor who does not lead his employees but shows them, who demands a lot and does not do much, who gives the criticism but can not get it.
Is the problem perhaps even with me?
When such a person as an executive meets a colleague who, like me, likes to give a word, the scraps soon fly. "Do you also have a small part in the fact that you can not talk to each other?", A friend once asked me when I told her about what I found to be an especially dreadful copy of the boss. "Be diplomatic, let me tell you something ..." - "Of the 'Never!", I raged. Today I believe: The girlfriend was right. The fact that I eventually parted with this boss in the dispute, was also because I had no desire to submit to a man who reminded me of a hated math teacher.
Another head of department had spoiled himself with me forever, when he made a barely 30-year-old colleague - the youngest in the team - after six months in the factory surprisingly his deputy. Whether this woman was actually best suited for this position, that did not matter to me at the time. An uncomplicated employee I was certainly not. And if I did not like it any more, I left. That's why I'm well-versed in my industry and - among other things - I'm an expert on exhausting bosses and bosses of all kinds.
There are, for example, the big communicators. They were at the top of the coaching line and now attach great importance to communicating effectively. Her door is wide open - as well as allegedly her ear for honest and / or confidential comments. But woe, somebody actually talks into it ...
If you enter the keywords "boss" and "hate" on the internet, you will find thousands of pages.
One of my supervisors liked to praise his fairness and discretion. When I once confessed to him that I had forgotten something important - fortunately without significant consequences - he smiled jovially and calmed me down: "This can happen to anyone." From that day on, I was treated with friendly condescension in the department, and whispered behind my back, "Kristina, you can not transfer responsibility, you always forget everything ..."
If you enter the keywords "boss" and "hate" on the internet, you will find thousands of pages.Most of them are about one topic: complaints about the boss. Are it, above all, difficult, incompatible people who make a career in the company? Certainly not, but: "Many supervisors make unintentional mistakes," says Hamburg's industrial psychologist Sibylle Bräuer. "They cook their own soup, they inform their team inadequately, they are often not concerned with the success of a product or project, but only with their own, and they have no idea what effect their behavior has on the employees. "
Bad leadership style: a true motivational killer
When people quit internally or become ill through stress or even bullying in the workplace, this costs a farm a lot of money. That is why today, more emphasis is placed on a good working atmosphere - and on managers with a good management style. But there are still many bad bosses who simply do not care what their people think of them. For example, accepting that someone is working for the trash - because the supervisor has made an important decision for himself. I have seen it often enough: ideas for projects that had recently been described as "super" suddenly did not show up in planning conferences - and questions were succinctly stated that that was no longer the topic of discussion. "A typical motivational killer," says Sibylle Bräuer. "Such bosses simply trust that the employees will somehow find out what's going on in the company."
These lonely wolves are mostly men in my experience. Although women are more communicative, they are not automatically the better managers. Unfortunately, some people tend to overdo it with communication. So I once had a boss, who apparently saw me as a good friend and increasingly initiated me into her private life. At first I felt flattered, but eventually the stories about her past and current love affairs became uncomfortable for me. When she finally flocked to me from the young, attractive trainee, whom she unfortunately could not approach because of her position, I lost the last bit of respect for her. After all, I still found her sympathetic - something I can not say about other female superiors. Some of the most unpleasant bosses I met were women. They made their subordinate's life a hell of a quiet, elegant way - so that it was hard to believe that no one had a handle to complain. They gladly set up meetings, which could have taken place in the morning without further notice, at 5 pm - knowing that the young mothers in the team either sat on coals or had to apologize, and then heard from the boss: " Too bad you are not flexible ... "
These bosses do not have a family. They do not have families because they do not have time, and they do not have time because they are leaders.
Is the termination a solution for me?
Sometimes I would like to run out with flapping hair.
Sometimes I would like to have run out with flapping hair - to the Human Resources Department to give my notice. But always throw everything down, if there is trouble with the boss? Of course this is not a solution. If the boss leaves or at least changes department, the problem may be self-adjusting.
And if not? If, on the contrary, everything indicates that the disgruntled supervisor has permanently settled in this place? Then it helps to be aware: we work for a product, for a service, for our customers - and not so much for praise from the boss. "To objectify the situation, to set the emotions aside," recommends Sibylle Bräuer. "Supervisors really just want their employees to do what they say they do not want exhausting arguments."
I do not want that either. That's why I eventually started focusing on the positives of my situation. Sometimes this was above all the punctual monthly salary. After that I sometimes long for myself, as a Feibler, sometimes back. And there are days when I would like to have a boss again. Who else should I annoy?
