***How To Work For A Jerk-Boss

Michael and I have known each other for about fifteen years. Recently, he has been dabbling in the area of personal development. Not his. Yours. He is a personal coach and seminar leader who is getting ready to publish his first book.

While he has been incredibly busy conducting his coaching sessions and workshops, he has been maintaining his full-time gig as a department supervisor. That's not really a difficult task to juggle when you have a good sense of who you are and why you are here. But now, things are in a bit of flux. Seems his boss has a problem with him making the world a better place by helping people to have more confidence and live a better life. (I guess that's threatening to someone who manages by fear and intimidation.) Michael's boss has asked (no let me rephrase that - dictated to him) that he had to start sorting out what his priorities are going to be even though his activities have never impacted company time or responsibilities.

(Note: Michael conducts his coaching sessions in his own evenings off of company time and takes personal holiday days to conduct any seminars he might be engaged to do. But when he's at work, he's at work - committed.)

There was a time in my early days when I believed that every boss I had ever worked for was a graduate of the same Jerk-Boss School. Sadly, Michael's boss got the diploma.

As we ate lunch, it became abundantly clear that the secret to working for a Jerk-Boss is to ensure that you have a good sense of who you are, be well versed in your own ethics and values, set a standard for yourself and not allow yourself to be pushed around even once. If you let any of these items slide just once, you have set a precedent and a standard for the future. You must also be willing to put your foot down and say, "No. That is unacceptable."

So what's the secret in getting yourself to that place? Well, you are going to need to have confidence and conviction about who you are, what value you bring and what your strengths and weaknesses are. There are many ways to achieve that but every single answer requires some work.

Ultimately, you are responsible for working on you. Learn something that makes you a better person, employee, communicator, parent, spouse, whatever. Read the books, go to the seminars, enroll in personal development courses, find a personal coach who can help you develop a new blueprint for your life and then make the new learning a priority. It really is simple. But it takes work.

If you could read a chapter in a book each day that makes you better in some way, if you could listen to a CD of something educational for fifteen minutes each day, if you would ask people who are already modeling the confidence you would like to have how they do it, you would be well on your way to successfully tolerating the abusive behaviours of tyrants and jerk bosses.

I did say it was simple. And it is. But it requires you to work at it. Do the work and you will get the benefit.

Remember though, that there are people in your life (sometimes it's your boss) who will take every chance they have to try and tear you down, especially if they see that you are accomplishing things that they can't fathom or understand. You see, in their insecure minds, if they tear you down, it somehow magically elevates them. The problem is that these very small-minded people are threatened by you because when you self-improve, you show them what could have been done with a little effort. And that, to a tyrant, is not only threatening but embarrassing.

So, what are you going to learn today?