Though the question is hard, maybe even confrontational, it is important to remember that everyone has points in their lives where they need to sit down and evaluate their roles, performance, and habits. Start by evaluating the relationship between yourself and your boss.

Here, we will address the signs of a difficult boss. If the signs are unfamiliar, perhaps the next step is to look for patterns in your own work ethic.

Lack of experience – many people find it hard to work under someone who got their position because of education, knowing the right people, etc. It means that they did not spend years climbing the ladder or struggling for a position. As such, a boss who does not deserve their position may ask you to do things they themselves don’t know how to do.

Unfortunately, that causes them to have twisted expectations of time. They may ask you to do a task in 30 minutes, not realizing (because they’ve never done it) that the task actually takes 3 hours.

Takes credit for your work – this is self-explanatory. If your boss or coworker takes the credit for something you did, you have an unhealthy situation. A good boss is willing to spread the credit around, because it builds confidence and trust among employees.

Blames you for mistakes – although a difficult boss will take credit, they will also lay blame, perhaps because they’ve been put on the spot and don’t want to look bad. Ideally, a boss should accept any mistakes made in the office as their responsibility – after all, they were in charge. Whatever reprimands happen later is between you and your boss, but a level of respect and confidentiality should always be maintained.

Lastly, a good boss encourages you to grow professionally. They see your success as their success. Alternatively, a difficult boss will think of their advancement first, choosing not to mentor or support employees in their own goals. Not only is it unkind toward your personal needs, it shows a lack of interest in the well-being and growth of the company.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: anger, angry boss, bad boss, conflict, confrontation, control, fight, frustration, humiliation, respect, workplace anxiety

What if we believe that we have “bad luck”? then everything we plan will have to do two battles: one against reality out there, and the second one to convince “luck” to bend over our desire….making everything a double challenge.

We all have a variety of core beliefs, of which some are empowering (positive beliefs) and others are limiting (negative beliefs). In the US, popular culture tends to push for more positive than negative beliefs, which promotes a feeling that most projects are possible and doable. If we grew up with the people around us telling that only men can do the things we also want to do, then we have again the double challenge: getting to have the opportunity to do those desired tasks and proving that we are as valuable as men at each step….

Every day, in fact every minute we are reinforcing or weakening them. It is an on-going process. Each time we tell ourselves that our plans are within reach, we help them be doable. Even we are influencing each other when we express those beliefs, and sometimes it doesn’t help our loved ones hearing us expressing negative beliefs about their capacities. Why, if they never did this task, how come now they think they can do it? Well, me saying that they will never learn is only a half disguised act of sabotage…Perhaps it’s best to let them try, because even trying and failing, they will know better for the next try.

As a result, we need to be aware of negative, judgmental beliefs popping up in our minds, and work actively to replace them with a more positive approach.

This reframing goes a long way: we can “reframe” failure as an opportunity for a new beginning; and we can see conflict as an opportunity to really know what we want and negotiate better what we need to receive. It’s only a matter of framing these two concepts into the right environment!

Several suggestions follow from this concept:

• Find the areas in your life you would change if you could (finances, relationships, work)
• Use each subject you have listed as a heading in a new piece of paper, and write why do you believe you can’t;
• Review the list of beliefs, find the negatives and turn them 180 degrees;
• Have a set of ideas, words and phrases that define the positive framing of each issue.
• Put those positive phrases on cards and read them each night before going to sleep.

If you do a periodic revision of your basic assumptions about life in general, and your happiness in particular, you will see that more positive experiences are happening now that you are in control of the beliefs that determine your reality.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: attitude change, backstabbing, critique, Emotional Abuse, feelings, happiness, healthy relationships, negative emotions, rejection, resilience, workplace anxiety

The ones that bother most are not the openly competitive people, because you know what they want, and there are no surprises in them getting ahead to snag the best projects, and commissions. What you don’t prepare for is the slow sabotage of certain people who feign cooperation and dedication, only to produce consistent failures.

If you were expecting someone to do a shared project, and your own evaluation is supposed to be in the whole project, but one part is not forthcoming, then what do you do? There were lots of promises, guarantees and strong words, but no results. And you don’t know if to believe this person, or to accept that the project is doomed and you are responsible very soon to report a failure.

Here is when the rubber meets the road: you are realizing that his delay is intentional and focused on making you fail! Difficult to believe, but no other plausible explanations are around, so you need to accept you’ve been blindsided by this person.

What do you do: have a strong discussion or say nothing? Knowing that a passive aggressive person won’t fight back, they can clam up, give you the cold shoulder, tell you what you want to hear, or burst into tears and run away.

If you show your anger, the PA will be less cooperative, stop communicating and confirm that you are his enemy, so becoming more hostile and resentful, even to the point of planning his revenge. Then, how do you manage this potentially explosive situation?

For some reason we have been conditioned to avoid any kind of open confrontation, even the healthy ones, and to try to keep up with a forced situation that doesn’t deserve to be called “peace,” but an angry truce.

Let’s go back to the basic situation, where you are a team leader, or a manager, and you have someone in your team behaving in this way. Of course, you know that this person is immature, that his PA behavior is a defense mechanism, and all that. Anyhow, this person is not responding to you!

Now, it becomes really personal…and you shift from an outsider’s view to a very interested insider, because the action is against you or your work objectives…You suddenly realize that the passive aggressive person’s goal is an attempt to control his environment, meaning by that you and your responses. He is controlling at least the time of delivery of this shared project!

What can you do? If you have identified already the presence of this kind of behavior, you know that you have always to design an alternative plan “B” which can provide you with the extra help needed to deliver the project done in time and quality.

If not, then the choice is to continue expecting from him the delivery of his task, or replacing him. In both ways, the “solution” will leave a bad taste in the relationship. The first lesson, “never trust your own evaluation to the hands of other person who cold be passive aggressive,” is learnt. In brief, control your expectations, parcel out important tasks so there are several responsible people involved, and re-check frequently to see how much delay the PA can generate before you stop him.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Technorati Tags: backstabbing, confrontation, control, hidden anger, passive aggressive, resentment, Sabotage, workplace anxiety

While we wait for social conditions to improve, proven solutions like anger management techniques are necessary.

We all have the right to be able to work in a safe environment…and sometimes other people’s anxiety gets in the way. It can go from exagerating differences to fueling team conflict; some workers can present behaviors from depression to the opposite: too critical, accusatory or aggressive responses.

It is crucial for us to be able to spot people with anger issues, when there are layoffs in the office. Some people more than others tend to feel rejected or badly treated, even when there is not obviously fault from their part. It’s only the desperation from a present layoff that reactivates an old feeling of inability and despair. This is the kind of people who feel not the challenge of facing a difficult situation, but the sinking feeling of not being able to overcome the challenge.

There is some consensus about what you can do to prevent anger explosions and more, to be able to deal with the situation. If people being let go are your friends, it’s no use to pretend that you don’t know them.

Here’s where your courage comes in…spend one-on-one time with the most unhappy and isolated of your co-workers. Get to hear them, ask questions, show your sympathy. It means the world for them, and for you it will help assuage the guilt of still having a job when others lost theirs.

There is a good resource to learn anger management techniques in the work place here:Dr. DeFoore’s site

Nora Femenia is a well known coach, conflict solver and trainer, and CEO of Creative Conflict Resolutions, Inc. Visit her blog and signup free to be connected to her innovative conflict solutions, positive suggestions and life-changing coaching sessions, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to Creative Conflicts.

Technorati Tags: aggression, anger, layoff, workplace anxiety