The Introvert Leader

Your Boss Sucks. Here's What To Do About It

• Austin Hopkins

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0:00 | 12:49

Toxic bosses are impossible to avoid. They drain your energy, kill your confidence, and make every day feel like survival mode. In this episode, I'm talking about 4 of the worst types of bosses and how to deal with them.

Timestamps

2:40 – The Fear Monger: They use fear and control to get results. 

4:35 – Absent Manager: You never see them unless they need something. 

6:28 – The Jealous Manager: They compete with you instead of rooting for you.

8:43 – Incompetent Sheep: Corporate robot without a backbone. 

  

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SPEAKER_00

I dreaded every Thursday at 10 a.m. Thursdays were my one-on-ones with the worst boss I've ever worked for. By 8 a.m., I started feeling a pit in my stomach and there was nothing I could do about it. At 9 a.m., I started thinking of excuses to skip the meeting. He started the one-on-ones the same. He'd glance at his screen and ask me how I was doing without even waiting for an answer, then launched straight into what he needed for me. The time was his, it wasn't mine. By the end of that hour, I felt completely drained and equally frustrated. Every idea I had was shot down, and I was exhausted from having to talk about every small detail of my team and what they were up to. My boss sucked and everybody knew it. He made every day of my life worse, and yet I had to come into work every day and listen to what he had to say. If you're working for a toxic boss, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They make you feel less confident, they stifle creativity, and somehow find a way to make everything you do harder. After working for this boss and at least five other bad bosses, I painfully learned how to manage them while still protecting my sanity and still getting promoted and paid what I was worth. Today, I'm going to cover four of the most common toxic bosses. By the end of this episode, you're going to know how to deal with the absent manager, the jealous leader, the fearmonger, and the incompetent sheep. Okay, you may not know this about me, but I'm a movie guy. So last week I want to watch Christopher Nolan's new film, The Odyssey in Theaters. I can't stop thinking about it. I've been waiting a year to see this movie, watching trailers, getting pumped. The story is wild, and yet he found a way to make it feel so believable. The visuals were incredible. The sound design literally shook my entire body. And the scale and the size of the movie are like nothing I think I've ever seen. I left that three-hour movie, wanting another three hours. So do yourself a favor, go see it in theaters, go see it in IMAX. It's by far the best movie of 2026, and I think it's going to become one of Nolan's top three movies of all time. Just one humble man's opinion. Hey, do me a quick favor, click the subscribe button. I don't want you to have any FOMO this year. I drop career and leadership content every single week. All right, settle in. It's time to learn something. So at some point in your career, you're going to work for a toxic boss. I would guess less than 30% of corporate managers are actually good leaders. My honest advice to you is just to leave. Don't try to outlast a bad boss. Don't try to change a bad boss. Just leave. That being said, if you're not ready to leave for whatever reason, this episode will help you temporarily weather the storm. So let's get into it. The fearmonger uses their power to get results. They rely on their title for compliance rather than true leadership and influence. Their team is afraid of them and does stuff out of fear, not because they want to follow them. So if you fear your manager more than you respect them, you're working for a fearmonger. So who are they? I worked for a fearmonger once, and it really messed me up. I never felt safe. They made me doubt myself, feel small, and hate every day at work. My boss was a master at making threats without ever crossing that line. She was smart, but she didn't have enough self-awareness to understand that how she treated people was inappropriate. Externally, she kept getting positive results. But if you asked anyone who really knew her, they knew the way that she got those results was absolutely pathetic. Strong leaders get results from influence and respect. Weak leaders force their team to get results. So here's why they suck. The fearmonger wants control. They get it by micromanaging, manipulation, and veiled threats. Now, when I worked for the fearmonger, I noticed that she was a bully, and bullies rely on force and power to get what they want. So here's how you deal with a fearmonger. The best way to deal with that manager is to protect yourself and get them to forget about you. Do what they say. Go along to get along. Don't push back and stay under the radar. If you must push back, do it confidently. This throws them off. They aren't used to people pushing back. They're used to everyone kind of quietly nodding along and doing what they say. Use facts, data, and stay calm. The few times I stood up to that boss, she didn't like it. But eventually she left me alone because she realized I wasn't someone who would just roll over. I'll never forget the day that I called her a bully. Her face got white, and from then on, she never messed with me and she picked on somebody else. Now working for someone you fear is rough, but working for someone you never see is just straight up weird. All right, let's talk about our next one. The absent manager. At first you might think the less you see your boss, the better, right? I mean, everybody wants freedom and autonomy. Well, you're going to quickly learn that autonomy and being ignored aren't the same thing. An effective leader is there when you need them, even when it's inconvenient for them. If you only hear from your manager when they need something, you're working for an absent manager. So who are they? The absent manager is never there when you need them. They spend their time anywhere but with their team, talking with their peers, in their office working on important or time-sensitive stuff. They always look too busy to be bothered. And so here's why they suck. This kind of boss is not there when you need something from them. You're probably like me and that you try your best to figure stuff out on your own. But sometimes you need help. And when you need help, you really need help. I remember working for a guy back in the day who was never around. He didn't check in on me unless it was a one-on-one. And if I ever needed something like an approval from him, it would take him days to respond if he did at all. Absent managers make it seem like it's an imposition to talk with them. So over time, you stop coming to them, which is exactly what they want. They have this boss title, but they aren't adding any value like a true leader. A real leader makes it known they're available when their team really needs it. So this is how you deal with an absent manager. If you're working for an absent manager, it's up to you to get what you want and what you need. When you need something, put it in writing and ask for a response by a certain date if possible. So it could sound something like this. Hey Greg, I want to set a meeting with our ops team. Can I get your blessing by Thursday of this week? I'm looking to get it set up by the end of the week. Speaking up and sharing your needs is the key. They need you to manage the relationship instead of the other way around. It's sad, but that's the truth. Don't wait for them to notice you're struggling. Raise your hand and tell them. So I'm curious, would you rather have a boss who's never there, or would you rather have a boss that competes with you? Let's take a look at our next boss. A jealous manager who steals or competes with you is just insecure. Once you understand everything they do stems from insecurity, you realize the only way to work with them is to protect their fragile ego. If you get a sense that your manager doesn't want you to win, you're working for a jealous manager. So who are they? The jealous manager lacks the confidence you'd expect from a leader. Instead of being confident in their own value and celebrating their team's wins, they feel the need to take credit for them. They think leadership is a zero-sum game. If you win, they can't win. And here's why they suck. A jealous manager is one of the hardest leaders to work for. They actively don't want you to succeed. Think about that for a second. They see your wins as a threat to their status. A good leader would want their team to win and would know that it actually proves their value as a leader. A jealous manager is the opposite. They see their employees getting recognition from the senior leadership team as a threat, and they hoard the high visibility work for themselves. I remember I worked for a guy back in the day who was deeply insecure. He would openly take credit for my work. I remember one time specifically when he stole credit for an idea I had in front of a large group of people at a big department meeting. In that moment, I realized this guy was so insecure. He had to steal and compete with me instead of giving me credit. From then on, I knew I needed to be more strategic. So here's how you deal with them. The most effective way to deal with a jealous manager is to never outshine them. So Robert Green talks about this rule in his book, The 48 Laws of Power, and for good reason. When you outshine a jealous manager, they spiral and they do weird stuff. They will find ways to put you back in your place. It's much better to attach your wins to them and give them some credit, even if they didn't have anything to do with it. If another leader recognizes your work, throw in a small thank you for your manager. Might sound something like this. Hey, thanks for the shout out and recognition. I'm happy how the project wrapped up. Special thanks to Greg for the support in making this happen. Even if your boss had nothing to do with the work, find a way to kiss the ring. And most importantly, never show your boss you are smarter or better than them. Downplay your wins and show them you still need them. So a jealous boss is frustrating to work with, but an incompetent sheep is maddening. It's like they aren't living in the same reality. So let's take a look at the next boss. How many times have you had this thought? My boss is an idiot. I've thought this so many times. Working for an incompetent sheep is exhausting because they are basically a robot who is drunk on the company Kool-Aid. Their incompetence is overlooked because of their perceived value in fitting in and not rocking the boat. If you feel like your boss is incapable of original thought, you are working for the incompetent sheep. So who are they? That boss I mentioned in the beginning was the biggest corporate sheep of all time. If our CEO could design a boss in a lab, this was the guy. He always protected the company at the expense of his team. He was scared, shitless of risk, and push back on all creativity because it would make him stand out too much. In his case, he was thrust into leadership because he had talked the talk, but he never learned what it meant to be a leader. So here's why incompetent sheep suck. They are tough to work with because they care more about the company than you. They value rule following and conformity above all else. Ideas and creativity die around them. They are infuriating to work with because they can't see the situation beyond their corporate lens. I remember my boss would never give me an answer to a question without checking with his boss. Imagine this: a grown man had to check with his boss before he could give me an answer. Unless his boss told him to do it, he didn't do it. Zero creativity and full robot mode. He forgot that he managed humans and that he needed to care more about them than the company. What a crazy thought, right? So here's how you deal with them. The best way to deal with an incompetent sheep is to strategically manage how and what you communicate with them. If you have bold ideas or you want to try something outside the norm, only bring them the final product. They're going to be too scared for the MVP. Never bring them in early because they're going to shut you down. So if you have to do something that's in the gray, but it's the right thing to do, don't tell them about it. They won't understand. Instead, work in the shadows and do what's the right thing to help the people around you. So I'll give you a quick example. I remember I had this employee whose husband was deathly ill. We had been instructed at this time to be in the office, but my employee needed to be at home with her husband. Common sense. Now, if I had asked my boss for an exception to have her work remotely, he would have given me an instant no. Instead, I gave her permission to work from home a few days a week for a couple of months. He never knew, but I knew this was the right thing for my employee. Work in the shadows. Each of these bosses is not someone I would want to work for. No matter how strategic you are, none of these strategies are going to fix your problem. They are temporary measures to help you get through a season. All right, so here is my challenge for you this week. It's super simple, but it's uncomfortable. I want you to ask yourself two questions. Number one, am I working for a bad boss? If the answer is yes, how long am I going to stay before I leave? Each of the bosses I talked about today probably didn't set out to be a bad leader. They just didn't get the fundamentals they needed when they first started their leadership career. Most of us kind of just fall into leadership and we kind of hope we're going to figure it out. We copy the examples around us, but what happens is we actually dilute the kind of leader we can be. What you focus on and learn in your first year of leadership shapes your entire career as a leader. So I want to help new leaders. So I am launching a course called the Confident Leader Blueprint later this year. This course is going to help you trust your own judgment and become a leader people actually want to follow. So click the link in the description to get added to the wait list. Bad bosses are the worst parts of our career. I don't miss those Thursday 101s with my boss. He made me feel helpless. But the good news is we aren't helpless. We can take action to protect our sanity and still get what we want from our career. Don't let a bad boss stop you from getting the career you're dreaming of. I want to say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day.

Contributor

Austin Hopkins

Host