In this article, we discuss:

1) How to minimize the impact of a toxic boss.
2) How to help a toxic—or counterproductive—boss.
3) How to make sure you’re not one of them.

In today’s email, I received “An Antidote for Toxic Bosses” from BNet Insight.

The author describes 4 things you can do to mitigate the emotional strain of working for a toxic boss.

If You Have a Toxic Boss On Your Management Team...

If you’ve ever worked for a toxic boss or for a toxic employer, you know first hand the negative impact disrespectful or bullying behavior has on:

1) Employee motivation
2) Employee engagement
3) Employee retention

If you have a toxic boss working on your management team, you might want to send him, and his boss, a copy of "The Movie Scene Every Manager Should Watch But Might Be Afraid To".

This article, based on a story I tell at management seminars, points out the Huge price managers and their employers pay for disrespectful behavior, but which they are often blissfully unaware of.

While not everybody is interested in or capable of waking up, it could help.

Are you unwittingly doing things that alienate your employees

Speaking from personal experience as a former supervisor and from the many stories I’ve heard from employees, even well-meaning and considerate people blow it. Because we’re so busy, or had a bad day, or were simply being mindless in how we reacted to someone, we say and do things that can damage the manager/employee relationship and because of that, diminish the level of motivation, engagement, and morale and individual, a team, or a whole workforce experiences.

So what’s the antidote?

1) Mindfulness – practice being more focused and “present” whenever you interact with people. Ask yourself:

- “How would I like to be treated this way?”
- “Is this respectful?”
- “Am I being careless with my power or am I treating them with the same respect I would treat my boss?”
- “The way I’m about to handle this, how will it affect the way this person feels about me as a boss, about our company, and about their work?”

The last question doesn’t mean we should make a decision based on whether someone will like you, but rather think about whether the way we deal with them leads to them feeling like we respect them, we care about them even if they don’t like our decision or feedback.

2) Make it Safe for People to Speak Up – In the "The Movie Scene Every Manager Should Watch But Might Be Afraid To" article, I cover in part how to do this. In "How to Start a Difficult Discussion Off Right: The 'Declaration Followed By Invitation' Format", you’ll find more information on how to start off a conversation so that the other person feels safe to speak up about something that’s bothering them.

You must know how to do this, because no matter how mindful you are, you’re still going to do things that negatively affect employee motivation and engagement that you’re not going to catch. Your “back up plan” is making it safe for people to speak up.