Surviving Poor Management 15: Options to Compensate

This continues our series on how to survive poor management at work and grow

Sam worked for a poor manager. His manager tended to become defensive when he perceived someone challenged his thinking or authority. His passion for what he did frequently led him to speak too harshly and bluntly in an effort to convince others to accept his opinion as their own. Sam observed this behavior and worried for his boss. Sam, with great delicacy and tact, informed his boss of his observations in such a way that the boss listened and tried to change. Sam’s courage and tact helped improve both his supervisor and his workplace.

Improve Management within the Organization

You may try to improve the management within the organization as one option for surviving poor management. You may select a variety of methods to try and improve management:

• Discuss possible improvements with your supervisor (use techniques outlined in Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, The Influencer, and Change Anything by the authors and consultants from VitalSmarts)
• Study good management skills and begin to implement them in your own work, within your responsibilities. In other words, work to improve your own management
• Work behind the scenes to improve management within the organization without acting overtly or drawing attention to yourself
• Collaborate with your mentor and network of internal contacts to change the organization from within from multiple sources

Accept Management and Press Forward

You may also follow another option: accept poor management practices and continue working in the organization. This option possesses several advantages:

• Don’t risk offending management or others by highlighting poor management
• Reduce distractions the could arise by focusing on the poor practices
• Ignore the problems and stay focused on the job at hand

As with all options, negative consequences may also arise from ignoring poor management:

• The company struggles, and possibly even fails, due to unaddressed poor management
• Persistent flaws build animosity and distracts you from doing your job
• Unresolved stress may affect your health and create ulcers
• Accepting poor management leads to apathy and not caring

Monday we discuss two other options for compensating

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