5 Things Only a Terrible Boss Can Teach You
In The Devil Emails at Midnight, workplace strategist Mita Mallick shows how every nightmare manager holds a lesson in what good leaders should—and shouldn’t—do.
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Have you ever had a bad boss? Painful, I know—but also kind of useful. Because every nightmare manager is basically handing you a playbook of what not to do. And if you pay attention, those horror stories can turn into leadership lessons. Workplace strategist Mita Mallick offers such lessons in her new book The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses. Read on for five of her big ideas.
1. Stop normalizing emailing at midnight.
I was so excited to meet my new boss. Apparently, the feeling wasn’t mutual. This was my former boss, who I nicknamed the Devil. She was the boss who never had any time for me during the day, but did have time to consistently send me emails between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM. I started responding to her emails in the early morning hours.
I was so desperate to impress her. I would wait to bump into her at the office, trying to get a smile, a wave, hello, thank you, or anything to make me feel like she saw me and I was appreciated. I was like a golden retriever pacing around the Devil’s office. I even tried to chase her out of the building one evening, but she was too quick for me.
Years later, the question I continue to ponder is, Why didn’t she have time for me? One of the biggest complaints we hear when it comes to relationships is “You never have time for me.” As a leader, if you can’t make time for your teams during the day to coach, guide, and teach them, you have to ask yourself, Why are you leading in the first place?
I challenge everyone to treat calendars like decluttering a wardrobe: focus on high-value meetings, remove meetings that are no longer needed, and delegate meetings to others. Find time to connect with your teams during the day. Let’s stop normalizing emailing at midnight.
I’m not ashamed to say that on most evenings I’m asleep at midnight. It doesn’t mean there aren’t periods of my life when I’m working incredibly hard and constantly burning the midnight oil, but that isn’t sustainable. The foundation of good leadership is taking care of yourself by getting enough sleeping, eating well, and exercising so that you can be in service to others and fend off bad boss behaviors.
2. Silence can fuel bullies.
My full name is Madhumita Mallick. For most of my life, my name has evoked a swirl of emotions for me, including anxiety and joy. I started just going by “Mita” and stopped bothering trying to teach people how to say my full name. When I graduated from business school and rejoined corporate America, I attempted to reclaim it. I was used to having my name mispronounced, misspelled, or mistaken as the name of the only other brown woman on my team. I wanted to reclaim my name as a source of pride.
My former boss, who I nicknamed the Sheriff, was popular and a bully. When it came to my name, the Sheriff decided to completely rename me because he didn’t want to learn how to pronounce it. He called me “Muhammad” because he could and wanted to. I’m embarrassed to admit that for many weeks, I responded to a name that was not my own. Years later, I still wonder why no one around us ever said anything.
“The burden shouldn’t be placed on the target to speak out and stop this behavior.”
Microaggressions like the one I experienced repeatedly can become a manifestation of bullying. They deplete our energy, chip away at our confidence, and make us question our contributions. Our collective silence can fuel those bullies. The burden shouldn’t be placed on the target to speak out and stop this behavior. If you see someone being targeted in the workplace, intervene.
First, you can give the bully a dose of their own medicine. In my case, someone could have said to the Sheriff, “Oh, I just thought of the best name for you. Do you want to hear it?” You can use this approach to be a mirror that shows them how they are behaving. Humor can also distract and deflect attention away from the person being targeted.
Second, you can address them directly. You can let them know, calmly and firmly, that this behavior is not okay. They might say, “Oh, it’s just a joke.” In return, you can emphasize that it isn’t funny. This reinforces that you won’t allow them to discredit your response and reaction.
Third, plan to intervene later. Power dynamics at work can impact our ability to speak up in the moment. We can be afraid of retaliation during or after an incident. Check in with the person being targeted. Help them document what has been happening and find someone else you trust to help with a plan of action. We spend too much time at work not to look out for each other.
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3. Find the courage to help people move on.
My former boss, the Napper, literally slept on the job. He dozed off in meetings—large or small. I presented our annual brand plan while watching him nap. I saw him doze off dozens of times during our quarterly town hall meetings. Once, he closed his eyes for several minutes at our Vice President’s monthly meeting, and she angrily shouted his name, then asked him a question. He was startled but not embarrassed. He mumbled a response that had nothing to do with the question and then started looking at his phone. The Napper came and went as he pleased, gossiped loudly, and enlisted others to talk about how much it sucked to work here. He even started interviewing for jobs in the cubicle next to mine, for all to hear.
Years later, I still wonder why my former boss was allowed to repeatedly nap and be disengaged at work without any consequences. Disengagement can spread. It can become contagious, erode trust on the team, and negatively affect productivity. More of us need to intervene when we witness disengagement.
“Disengagement can spread. It can become contagious, erode trust on the team, and negatively affect productivity.”
Start by becoming a mirror. Take your team member to lunch or coffee. Remind them of their behavior. Focus on the facts and not your feelings. Next, allow space for the individual to reveal what’s going on. You may or may not agree with what is shared, and you don’t have to respond to everything. You can ask open-ended follow-up questions or simply thank them for sharing, letting them know that you’re processing the information and will get back to them. Finally, ask them what must change.
Professor Michael Murphy of Harvard University offers this powerful question for us to ask: What could change at work for you to be excited again about working here? You likely won’t be able to change what they have revealed about the past, which may have led to their disengagement. But you can offer to help them, moving forward, if they choose to recommit to their jobs. As leaders, we must have the courage to stop this downward spiral and help people move on to what they’re meant to do next.
4. Fear is a short-term motivator that leads to burnout in the long run.
No one in my life had ever screamed at me—not my parents, my brother, my husband, or my friends—until I worked for Medusa.
Medusa ruled with fear. You could hear her from her office, down the hall, across the floor, and sometimes through the elevators as you were coming up. She would tell us, to our faces, that we were stupid. She would scream, curse, and aggressively point her fingers at people during meetings. I had never heard a boss drop so many F-bombs. She even hurled one of her Chanel shoes at my colleague, though thankfully it missed her head. I watched people run into conference rooms, slide down in their chairs, or wait around corners to hide from her wrath.
Leaders like Medusa drive strong results in the short term. Many of us will show up to work scared. According to one study, more than a third of leaders at U.S. companies lead through fear. Nearly 40 percent of fear-based leaders said they strongly believe that stress can be positively harnessed, and yet these fear-based leaders made two other observations: 90 percent witnessed declines in productivity, and 60 percent acknowledged their workers aren’t happy.
Creating workplace cultures based on fear costs the economy approximately $36 billion each year in lost productivity. Showing up scared to work every day is exhausting. Fear kills communication, isolates team members, inhibits creativity and innovation, and leads to burnout. Creating a culture where everyone is treated with respect shouldn’t be a luxury. Workers don’t want another free meditation app, an endless supply of fancy snacks, happy hours, and definitely not another oversized hoodie. They want to be respected and valued.
5. Unwavering loyalty no longer exists in the workplace.
My former boss, nicknamed Tony Soprano, expected loyalty at all costs. With one swift phone call, he could kill someone’s career. Tony found out someone on our team was interviewing externally. By that same afternoon, this team member’s role had been eliminated, he was escorted out by security, and that external offer had vanished because Tony got a hold of the hiring manager at the other company.
Tony told me I was going to do a one-year assignment on his team and I’d be promoted at the end of that assignment. When the year mark was approaching, I started networking within the organization to figure out what I wanted to do next. When he found this out, he told me the assignment would actually last two to four years because I had not even begun to make an impact in this role. He told me that he decides when I can leave.
“The corporate social contract that employers once provided is now broken.”
Leaders like Tony believe they own our careers. They decide and dictate who gets to leave their team, when, and why. If you challenge their authority, they have serious doubts about your commitment to them and to the company. To them, your paycheck is the price in exchange for your loyalty, no questions asked. But unwavering loyalty no longer exists in our workplaces. Long gone are the days of pensions, guaranteed job security, and receiving a shiny gold Rolex after 30 years of service. The corporate social contract that employers once provided is now broken. We can no longer expect loyalty from our employees at all costs.
We must redefine what loyalty looks like in our workplaces. As leaders, we must stop hoarding and holding onto talent. We must be honest and upfront about career opportunities. We must communicate often and clearly about the changing needs and health of the business. Finally, when an employee wants to pursue a different opportunity, we let them go. We don’t throw a tantrum when they resign. We wish them well and hope to get to work with them again someday. Loyalty isn’t guaranteed, and it certainly is not built overnight. We can’t demand loyalty from our employees. Good leaders understand that loyalty must be earned over time.
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