New research shows how bad bosses out there get promoted - not punished. You’ve likely met them…. He’s mean… she’s a grump … they’re moody…. You just want to hit the back button and restart their day and yours. But the fact is – more than 62% of the study’s respondents said nothing at all is done.
Worse still ... senior managers tend to turn a blind eye – while workers walk into dragon 
dens day after day. Yikes! These guys often look for fights more than solutions.... defend themselves like Banshees defend water in a desert battle … and stick to stubborn opinions in spite of evidence that supports any opposite views. If you know them ... you're likely stung by them.
Sadly, the culprit also adds to workers’ chemical hormone, cortisol, and we now know a great deal more about its influence in the brain and at the workplace.
So how can we reason with people who’s brains are saturated in cortisol, related to stress? It’s especially tough when that person complains, throws tantrums, or just shows up daily with new tactics to make life miserable. There are brain based tactics that help though - even when management ignores this problem.
While you likely won't turn a frog into a prince, you can shake off the surge of cortisol that brings you down… more than most workers realize. The alternative can ruin your career and others over time. How so?
Cortisol shuts down a person’s ability to communicate with civility. Our brains are orchestrated by 200 kinds of cells with trillions of neural signals actively communicating in the cortex. Observed through brain imaging, brain chemicals seep through clefts in the brain and convert to electrical impulses which impact what you learn and sway your reactions to life around you.
It may be as simple as choosing a smile over a sneer? Chemicals called neurotransmitters act as biochemical messengers, which generate mental well-being, and act as stimuli to excite neurons or as inhibitors to suppress them. Drugs can stimulate or block synapses, which is simply a brain based name for communication and electrical activity among neurons.
The bad boss often fights his own demons at work - but you can sidestep some of the steam. We now know that people operating under high levels of cortisol … especially depressed people … tend to lack mental images that most people draw from to stay secure, comforted and consoled. In contrast, the bad bosses' negative images and recriminating inner voices plague and disturb their thoughts.
It helps to see the bad boss problem from another set of eyes. For instance, imagine yourself failing at work again today... or simply rejected by most people around you. Instead of inner mental responses that soothe and show an average worker new lessons about how to recover from stressors that hit, instead, depression shoots darts of fear. Most encounters leave you dreading further disasters.
It doesn't have to be that way. The best key is to raise your own serotonin levels one drop at a time, which will soon replace its competitor – cortisol – in your brain.
At first, it’s simply a matter of choice …. say the boss growls over nothing or criticizes you unfairly. After a few serotonin tactics you'll actually begin to fire your dendrite brain cells into new neuron pathways ... that help you cope with stressors that tend to strike us all– especially on a busy day....
What solutions do you predict they’ll offer when this study is presented at the annual
Any ideas to suggest?
» Bad Bosses, Worst Bosses, and Dumb Bosses from EQ4PM
I read a couple of great posts over at BrainBasedBusiness about dealing with bad bosses. They are The Worst Bosses get Promoted, not Punished and 5 Reasons Bad Bosses Get Their Way. The timing was good because I was also [Read More]
Tracked on: August 7, 2007 5:47 AM | Permalink to Trackback