Dr. Daneen Skube
Tribune Content Agency
Interpersonal Edge
Q: My boss is abusive. He’s a yeller in meetings, extremely critical, and impossible to please. I’m walking on eggshells at work. How can I deal with an abusive boss?
A: You can deal with an abusive boss if you refuse to add a match to his gasoline lake. Abusive bosses are narcissists. They have no empathy, so attempting to get validation is unwise.
First, realize that other peoples’ behavior is about them. Your boss lives in this painful world where he never feels safe or good enough. I say this not to make you pity him… that would be a mistake, but so you stop taking him personally. If you know his offensive behavior targets everyone equally, especially himself, you may feel less offended.
People who teach about narcissist abuse, talk about a technique they call the “gray rock technique.” The gray rock technique means that you act like a gray rock — don’t react, argue, or defend yourself. Instead murmur something like, “OK” or “I understand.”
Be aware that you cannot talk rationally to someone who is irrational. You cannot force sanity on someone who is drowning in their own insane version of reality. You’re not suddenly a bad person just because someone is losing their mind in front of you!
Realize that you don’t have to stay in the same space when your boss is yelling his lungs out. It’s fine to leave the room. You can’t change him, but you don’t have to stay put when he’s verbally attacking you or others.
If your boss asks why you left, blame it on a health issue like your doctor’s recommendation to lower your blood pressure. Don’t get drawn into a fight in which you criticize your boss’s interpersonal skills.
Some clients of mine have tried recommending coaching or therapy to their abusive bosses. Warning: Giving your boss referrals or resources to improve their skills won’t work. Abusive people don’t believe they have problems. They believe the problem are the deficiencies of people around them and that attacking those people is the solution.
Whatever technique you use, give up hope that you’ll change or rescue your boss. In the long run, people who are bombastic, arrogant, and grandiose sow seeds of their own downfall. Their arrogance means they treat all limits as speed bumps. Sooner or later they end up wrecking their career car because their entitlement leads them to believe that no rule applies to them.
The bottom line is that with enough interpersonal rope, your boss will eventually hang himself. However, you don’t need to stick around to see him receive the consequences of his bad choices.
If your mental or physical health is suffering, begin a job search. Just make sure you look closely at your new boss so you don’t jump from your current fire to a new abusive frying pan.
Most of us would like to wake up and discover that we live in a world where civility, compassion, and sanity win over predatory, self-absorbed, immorality but until then, make your self-preservation a priority. I often talk in this column about becoming a powerful advocate for yourself. With abusive boss situations, the best you can do is maintain your sanity without engaging.
Ironically, to survive a narcissist, you have to have enough narcissism to take care of yourself in a toxic situation. If you understand what you’re dealing with, you’ve already won a good part of the battle.
The last word(s)
A: I often make the same mistake repeatedly. Is there a reason I take so long to learn my lesson?
Q: Yes, many of my clients joke that they never make the same mistake twice. They make it five or six times, just to be sure. We often only learn what we’re doing ineffectively by revisiting our errors and studying them.
Daneen Skube, Ph.D., executive coach, trainer, therapist and speaker, also appears as the FOX Channel’s “Workplace Guru” each Monday morning. She’s the author of “Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything” (Hay House, 2006). You can contact Dr. Skube at www.interpersonaledge.com or 1420 NW Gilman Blvd., #2845, Issaquah, WA 98027. Sorry, no personal replies.
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