Ease the Burden of Your Bad Boss’s Negativity by Focusing on “Positive Intent”

It certainly may feel like your Bad Boss is out to harm you in one way or another. After all, his or her inept management skills make it a real challenge for you to do your job properly, much less advance your own career goals.

However, dwelling on your boss’s bad behavior does nothing to improve it.

Instead, try using one of Robert Pagliarini’s (founder of Richer Life and president of Pacifica Wealth Advisors) steps to resolve conflict, not necessarily to resolve a conflict with your Bad Boss, but as a way to focus your attention in a way that allows you to do your job.

“It's critical you do your best to determine the other person's positive intent,” Pagliarini says. “What's positive intent? Well, negative intent is when you attribute the other person's behavior to them wanting to hurt you and do you harm. . . ‘Why is he doing this to hurt me?’ is a perfect example of assigning negative intent--the assumption that he is trying to hurt you. . . Instead, play detective and try to figure out their positive intent. What positive outcome were they trying to achieve? Once you do this, understanding and empathy can begin to flow.”

With a Bad Boss, you may not get all the way to empathy, but you certainly can, for example, understand that your boss’s positive intent could be upping his department’s productivity--even though his or her way of getting to it is to yell at everyone.

Focus on that positive intent so you don’t take your boss’s bad behavior personally, so that you can move forward to satisfy--to the best of your ability--your boss’s underlying positive intent.