From Burnout to Breakthrough: Recovering from a Bad Boss

Leaders can make or break an employee’s experience at a company, and the effects of their leadership approach can have a lasting impact. While the leader’s goal is to accomplish work with and through their people, they should also prioritize developing healthy working relationships with their team members. This means demonstrating that they care about them as humans, not just as workers, and that they have everyone’s best interests in mind, not just the company’s or their own bottom line. Working for a bad boss can be exhausting, and the reality is that when people quit, it is often because they want to quit the person, not the company.

Leaders instill certain behaviors in their employees by correcting or reinforcing their actions. There are constructive ways to do this, but there are also very destructive ways to do this. Unfortunately, there are many authority figures who take the destructive route under the guise of helping the employee. Your team should never fear you; they should respect you. That respect must be earned, not demanded, despite what many people may believe.

I had a conversation with someone recently about how after they left a bad boss, they continued to feel the effects of the bad boss’s leadership style in their next job, even though their new boss was nothing like them. This individual felt anxiety about being fired if they made even the smallest mistake, because their position had been threatened repeatedly before. This also led to the significant feeling of burnout. Something that they were once passionate about became something that they dreaded. Under a new boss, this individual had to unlearn everything that was engrained in their mind from the old boss. This was essentially a period of recovery.

I have witnessed first-hand the negative effects of talking down to employees, telling them that they are replaceable, and making threats in order to get them to step up. This approach actually has the opposite effect; it makes people want to step down from their positions. In the same way that their vacancy can be filled by another employee, that individual can also find a new position at a different company. The cost of turnover is far greater than the cost of being kind to your employees.

If you have ever experienced the effects of a bad boss, just remember that the burnout doesn’t last forever. It takes time to recover from the bad boss, it takes a good boss to set the right example and to help you heal, and it takes a choice on your part to achieve a breakthrough. If you ever find yourself in a position of authority, choose to become the kind of leader that you wished you had. Become the leader that you would follow.

-Meghan Slaughter