Kathy Caprino offers four strategies for a difficult boss relationship: shift focus to what you're sending out, find one thing to respect in them, have a frank conversation and listen, and get clear on what you want from the job. She notes that abuse or legal risk requires outside help, and sometimes leaving is the right move.
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Hello everybody. I'm Kathy Caprino and welcome to my new LinkedIn video series. In fact, this is video number two and I am calling this a series to help you brave up to build your best work and your best life. So I hope this is helpful. Today, what we're going to talk about is what to do when you don't get along with your boss. And I only have 10 minutes with you, so I'm going to make this as concise and succinct as possible and try to give you three or four strategies that maybe you're not hearing elsewhere. I certainly didn't know them. In my 18 years of corporate life, I basically didn't get along with my bosses almost all the time. There were a few. I remember my very first boss and several bosses in between were wonderful to me and they were mentors and sponsors. But along the way in those 18 years, there was the opposite. There was toxicity, there was narcissism, there was, I would call it some emotional abuse. A lot of tough stuff. There was just not seeing eye to eye and not feeling respected, not feeling understood, not getting what I felt I deserved. Does this resonate with you? Let me know. Write a comment below. So I didn't understand what I'm about to share with you until I left corporate life. I became a marriage and family therapist. I trained as a coach, and Now I've spent 11 years coaching. But also I'm a writer and I interview on my Forbes blog, Career Bliss. I hope you check it out. Some literally life changing thought leaders, authors, scientists, Pulitzer Prize winners, really influential movers and shakers who know so much about every topic that I'm talking to you about. In fact, today I just published an interview with the amazing Alan Alda, the wonderful actor who starred in MASH for many years, but he's also done incredible projects in theater and film as well. And he's a communication trainer and specialist now. And he shares his new book with us with readers of my Forbes blog. And some really indispensable communication strategies that he's gleaned in his life as an actor. Check that out. So that's what I'm bringing to you today. I want to talk about four strategies, what to do when you don't get along with your boss. So I need to preface this by saying, you know, there are situations that are unhealthy. They're toxic, they're narcissistic, they're abusive. I'm not going to be talking about those situations, although I've worked with adult children of narcissists. I've got a lot of resources about that on my website. Kathy Caprino.com but if you're getting abused, if you're getting mistreated, that needs outside help. You need a lawyer and or a coach or a therapist. You need someone on the outside who has power and influence and the ability to help guide you. So you don't want to tackle that alone. But we're not going to be talking about that today. I'm talking about healthy people. But you just don't get along with your boss and your boss doesn't get along with you. So here's what I want to share. Everything I talk about is about an inner job. It's not superficial tactics, those are important as well. Tactics like that. But first you have to shift internally or nothing in your life will change. So that's what I'm talking about. The first is I learned this in marriage and family therapy training. Most of us, when something's going poorly, punctuate the interaction or the dynamic by what is coming at us. He's being horrible to me. She is not treating me well. That meeting was bad because of what they did. They punctuated as what's coming towards them. I want you to flip that and punctuate it by what you're sending out. So let me give you an example about this and bosses. I have a course, the amazing career project, 16 week course that helps you translate form your life and career. I had a course member who came to the course and said, I can't stand my boss and I can't stand my job and I just want to get out. As we got working together and I asked her, tell me more about your boss, tell me more about you. She said, what I can't stand is my boss micromanages and acts like I don't know anything. And I said, what do you feel about your boss? And she said, I think she doesn't really know anything and I know a lot more than her and I'm sick of it. Well, here's the reality that we discussed. Your boss knows how you feel. Everything is energy. You may think that your words are expressing respect and appreciation. It's not true because everything is energy. If your energy is saying you think your boss is awful and crazy and stupid, your boss knows that at a very deep level. I mean, think about it. When you walk into a room, you go to a party or you're with people, don't you know when people don't like you? Don't you know when you're getting judged. Don't you know when you're being demeaned in someone's mind? Of course you do. So in this case, we talked about why she disrespects her boss. And she told me, and then I said, here's what I want you to do rather than leap out of this job. Because if you leap without addressing this, you're not going to have success. You're going to attract this over and over and over and over. And trust me, I lived this. This is how it works. You have got to do the shifting now before you leave this job and leave this boss so that you're at a higher energetic level. You're an energetic match to something better. And if you don't do this work, you won't be. So I asked her, can you find one thing that you respect in this boss? One thing. And she struggled for the first week, but she decided, I'm going to try this. Let's see how this goes. I promise you that by the end of those four months in this course, everything was transformed. She developed a stronger relationship with the boss. She saw her as a person. She had more empathy for this boss. And in turn, the boss changed towards her. And by the end, she was thriving in this job. I mean, it seems unbelievable, but this is how it works. Often people come to me, I can't stand it one more minute, I'm going to quit. By the end of the work we do, they actually have forgotten that they had that pain. Now, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't leave this job. Sometimes they should, often they should, but only after they've done the work to try to repair these relationships and feel compassion for this person, not hatred. Try to understand where they're coming from. Another solution strategy I want to give you is have a conversation, a frank conversation with your boss. Hey, I'm sensing that we are at an impasse. I want to repair it. What can I do? What isn't going well, in your opinion? And then don't be defensive and don't argue. Listen. Listen deeply and read my interview with Alan Alda about how we know. We're listening deeply and see if you can be the one who shifts. And a lot of people say to me, why should I? Why should I do the shifting? Because that's what you're here for. You're here to evolve, and you're here to grow. You're not here to blame and make everybody else the problem. Okay, all right, try it and let me know how it works. It can Work miracles. Honestly. Number two, I would like you to think about what you really want from this job and from this relationship. So often what we do is this. We are so unhappy in our work that we need someone to blame and we need someone to distract us from what's really supposed to be happening, which is you're supposed to be looking for another job and you're supposed to be up in your game and up in your skills interviewing. So you're blaming the boss, but it's not the boss. You're probably in the wrong job, in the wrong career, in the wrong function. Something's not right as well. So what you really need to do is understand your job is not forever. It's not supposed to be forever. So many people come. I've been at GE 10 years and I don't know anyone on the outside and I've just been laid off and I don't know what to do. You don't want to be in that situation ever. No matter how much you like your job or how much you don't. You need to be interviewing regularly. You need to be networking with people, you need to be going to association meetings and industry functions. If you hate your industry, then you need to be getting on the path and I have a five step program, if you're interested, to figuring out what you want and getting on the path to it. So I always say do what you must to stay afloat financially, emotionally, but always plant the seeds for your future self. If you do that, if you understand your job isn't forever, you need to interview regularly, you need to update your LinkedIn profile, you need to become a thought leader in your field. If you want to be recognized and you want to be understood as a leader and you want to be compensated more highly, you've got to do the work. So start now. So make it less about how your boss is making you miserable, more about, wow, this is not the right situation for me. I'm going to get rid of the anger and resentment and I'm going to use it as a sign and I'm going to move forward in my life. I hope that's helpful to you. I have so many resources and videos and posts and assessments on my website. Kathy Caprino.com please join me there. Download my new free gift. A surefire plan to figure out what you really want and then you'll join my newsletter and I'd love to connect with you and let me know what you what you think about this video. I'd love to hear from you and here's hoping that you can repair your relationship with your boss and create a happier situation for everyone. Thanks and I'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.
