Types of toxic leaders in ascending order
Over 15 years of working experience, I have worked in large and small companies, terrible toxic teams and wonderful friendly teams, where I myself was the most toxic. I had leaders whom I still remember with stingy tears of gratitude for their adequacy, honesty and support in difficult situations. And even protection in front of higher-level managers. And there were also those that I would not like to remember at all, but I just can’t forget. Since I generally like to structure, catalog, and, if I have a sin, generalize everything, I decided to break all my “exes” into types and make a TOP of the most outstanding ones. Read, remember and cross your fingers – how many unfortunate leaders you have had.
everyone had one of these
Doesn't know how to
“Everything is fucked up, redo it!” – these words light up like a bright neon sign in the brain of such a manager every time he sees your work. He will never tell you what exactly to redo, why and how. Not because of some innate secrecy, but because he himself doesn’t really know.
I once worked for a corporate newspaper. I had to give assignments to correspondents, collect invoices, sometimes conduct interviews and prepare materials. Not the worst job. The newspaper was published once a week. And every time, my supervisor edited the texts literally just before sending them to the printing house. Moreover, the rules were corrected by my own hand.
Knows how to do it, but can't explain
Similar to the first one, but a little worse. After all, he has some ideal result in his head, he just cannot describe it. Therefore, you need to learn to read minds. Or try to guess. Both will take a lot of time, mental and physical strength. Since there is only one “ideal result”, you will have to guess for a very long time.
Anxious Tyrant
They doubt, fear everything and control your every move. Not because some are especially evil and unpleasant in themselves (although that’s exactly how it will seem to you), but because of the fear of doing something wrong. I had such a manager in one video production company. She had to be reassured before handing over the project, convincing her that everything was done well and the client would be satisfied.
At the same time, while working, she literally sat next to me and watched me write the script for the video. Fortunately, this was stopped immediately. She also had this “highlight”: we were making a commercial for TV, we had to submit a document that stated the copyright for the music, script, video, etc. And for some reason she always appropriated all the copyrights to herself. It seems like a simple formality, but it’s unpleasant.
The very best
Such leaders sincerely believe that all successes, good ideas, successful innovations are solely their merit. No options. If at the beginning of the meeting you come up with something cool, such a leader will reject everything, and in the middle of the meeting he will suggest the same thing.
This seems somewhat comical; old comedies are full of such jokes. True, when you come across something like this in life, it’s not so funny;
Fish
He forgets everything. If you have agreed on something, the very next day such a leader will innocently bat his eyelashes and, with complete misunderstanding and slight resentment, convince you that nothing of the kind happened.
Apparently this is called gaslighting. He may read a message with an important question and never respond. And then say that I didn’t receive anything. It's not a matter of memory, of course.
Gull
Most of the time such a leader is not visible. What he does, no one knows. But sometimes he catches hyperfocus and begins to completely rebuild the work, take the company to a new level, find out who is doing what, and why no one has told him about it yet.
Fortunately, such periods are infrequent and end quickly. Therefore, it is quite possible to work with such a leader. The main thing is to play along with him in such moments.
Silent
You don’t know what his plans are, what he’s doing, and what he’ll do next. Everything would be fine, but you have to work with such a person. I had such a leader. He could go on vacation for two weeks, and we found out about it from photos on social networks.
Since many issues could not be resolved without him, work simply stopped. Which is bad for the organization, but not bad for the employees. You can clean it up a little.
How to coexist with such leaders?
To get started: do your job well. And I tell you how to do it well here – https://t.me/money_text1
In fact, you can work with any asshole. Only your choice matters. If you choose to be a victim, you will suffer from the tyranny of your boss every day. This is obviously a bad choice. If you choose to work in such conditions and not take some things as a personal insult (and you really have nothing to do with it), everything will be fine. And slowly look for a new job and preferably a leadership position.
