Managing toxic boss during remote work

How to manage a toxic boss during remote work?

Challenging (Toxic) Boss Management

If you have a boss who does not know how to connect when you worked together face-to-face, then you are in for One. Long. Challenge. when you work remote.

Take heart.  YOU can do something about it.

YOUR actions matter.

You may have heard of constructive communication tools or emotional intelligence skills.  Hummm…

We read about them on a blog post and they sound good, yet unrelated to every day life.  It’s like hearing about all the wonderful things we could do outdoors…when we are stuck inside.  Did you put those ideas aside for another day?

Then again, you may have wondered about these tools to create connection; they seem counter-intuitive.  Can you find proof of success before trying them out yourself at work?!

That’s why I created a low-stakes and fun way for you to practice emotional intelligence skills to constructively manage your challening/toxic boss.

Practice Managing Your Boss

Studies repeatedly show that we learn by doing.

That’s why I created an opportunity for you

  1. To act
  2. To be safe from reprecussions
  3. To gain fresh perspectives

And it takes three minutes twice a week.

Help Jade Manage her Toxic Boss during Confinement

Meet Jade French, the finance manager at French Fool and Co.  YOU get to help Jade manager her toxic boss during confinement.

The Calamities of Jade is an interactive cartoon which depicts Jade facing various professional quandries, especially challenges related to remote work.

Managing Toxic Boss

Toxic might be a strong word to describe her boss, nevertheless, he clearly lacks in personal relations skills, so much so that her demotivation follows the corona virus curve.  She’s sick with frustration and it grows exponentially.

Who is Jade French?

Like many of us, she is a highly competent professional who nonetheless questions her own abilities!  She’s a jade and would like to shine bright like a diamond.  She often compares herself to this idea, which only bruises her confidence even more.

Her boss, Jean-Louis de Higgins, unwittingly yet nonetheless very effectively, zaps her motivation.  He does not realize his lack of people skills and believes that “what got him here will take him there.”  He tells himself that his stoic behavior and hierarchical demeanor were and remain his keys to success.

His lack of emotional intelligence might have been tolerable in a conventional work environment.  But with Covid-19, that mindset is dépassé, even destructive.

Help Jade bring Jean-Louis and the rest of their team into the age of effective teamwork and smooth collaboration in the office and with remote work.

How?

On Mondays and Thursdays during confinement, I post the latest episode of the Calamities of Jade on the community #SafePlaceToTalkAboutWork.  These are short videos detailing her situation, mindset, and choices.

YOU select what she will do next!

You give her suggestions for how to handle situations.  You vote on action steps.

And the next episode will feature one of these choices and how it pans out at work.

Vote to Help Jade Manage Her Boss

Here are the first three episodes.  Please join in the adventure and go vote!

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Women Cambridge Crew Team Spirit

Keep team spirit…especially since we are STILL in remote work

Stay Together & Keep Motivated…even with social distancing

Group cohesion used to be easy when you could drop by each other’s desk.

Now, team spirit is work!

Your team needs encouragement.

Employees overcame the technical glitches and found ways to connect when their Internet connection suddenly dropped.  They valiantly try to stay connected when distracted by kids and spouse (the biggest kid of all!).  We all feel flooded by emails and messages that it’s hard to focus.

YOU seek fresh perspective.

You are surrounded by the four same walls.  Literally!

It’s lonely enough to be a leader when the team is together.  It’s even more solitary with remote work!

Tap Into Collective Intelligence & Get Solutions to Online Team Spirit

Meet with other professionals from different industries and backgrounds to share and swap solutions.

Come away with do-able actions steps that you would not have thought of yourself.

Team Spirit with remote work

When: Thursday, April 2 at 6:30 pm

Where: Online via Zoom

With:

Moderated by Denise Dampierre

Participants include managers and high potentials from diverse backgrounds and mutliple companies.  Possiblity to join meeting anonymously.

What you get: 

  • Discover do-able action steps from professionals you wish you could meet
  • Get proven ways to work effectively and without distractions
  • If you’ve been struggling with coordinating your team, this solution-finding is for you
  • Prove your own intelligence and value as you participate in the brainstorming
  • Or ignore this and keep struggling 😞!
Video collective intelligence

Enter your mail address below to join the collective intelligence online workshop.

Corona Virus imposes remote work

How will your team succeed in remote work?

On Monday, a friend announced, “We have our first case of corona virus at the office.  Our company just announced: ‘Presence Optional’. I’m now working remote.”

On Thursday, President Macron of France (I live in Paris) announced that all schools (from day care through universities) will be closed to limit the spread of the COVID-19.

We all now face remote work.  Remote work for the entire team. 

Remote work imposes “new-normal” behaviors.

Remote Work vs. At the Office

What is it like to work full-time remote?

Remote Work:  Individual Benefits

We gain

  • Flexibility with time management
    (you can launch a laundry between conference calls 😉)
  • No commuting time
    (More sleep😴)
  • More time with the kids 😋🙃🙄😖😠
    (Mixed emotions…to say the least!)
  • Savings on meals
    (…yet the distraction of constant access to the fridge…🤔)

Remote Work:  Team Losses

We also lose some of the benefits we might take for granted when we regularly interact with team members

  • Sensing colleagues’ mood
    (“Euh…Let me come back in 5 minutes…”)
  • Getting instant feedback on project progress
    (You walk by their desk and see that they are working on it.)

  • and
  • Feeling part of the team ⭐
    (“Ready for lunch/the meeting?”
    “What do you think of…?”)

Who’s Got Remote Team Spirit?

Technology tools will allow us to stay in touch via vision and audio.  Yet without touch or smell, we lack the human connection which builds trust and belonging.

Remote Team, We want YOU

Employees with soft skills and emotional intelligence will shine as team leaders.  They can keep up a positive connection and professional motivation over weeks of physical distance. 

Will that be YOU?!

Little annoying behaviors become big ones with distance.  Let’s look at two:

Interruptions

In the office: When Joe interrupts during a meeting, it is unpleasant, possibly even vexing.  And yet, we perceive his enthusiasm and give him the benefit of the doubt.

Later, at the coffee machine, we can mention that we too had been enthusiastic about the idea we were presenting.  To his, “Oh, I did not realize it!” we can respond, “Something to be aware of for a next time.  Cream or sugar?”  And the conversation moves on.

With remote work: When Joe interrupts on the phone, he is rude and self-imposing.  (This is a caricature…and notice how previously Joe’s actions were unpleasant whereas now his person is being judged!)  We shut down.  Why bother work with someone who appreciates us so little!

Following up to reconnect requires intentional effort.  Our paths no longer cross casually.  Do I make the phone call or not?  If this is the only topic of conversation, it feels like a reprimand.  Then we are the ones who are unpleasant work companions!

With remote working, “little” annoyances become like French cheese.  They stink with age!  Physical presence creates opportunities to nip differences in the bud.

Emotional intelligence will help you identify and resolve these teamwork-disrupting behaviors. 

How are you building your relationship skills savvy?

Silence

Your boss, Jane, has been anxious to receive the presentation you were finishing.  Satisfied with your work, you zoom it off.

No response.

Questions amass in your mind.  It is normal.  Humans fill in data void with impressions, oftentimes fears.  Did she receive it?  Did she look at it?  Is it good enough?  Is she not answering because I did such a bad job the she has to redo it but does not want to tell me?! We fill in the silence with worst-case scenario stories.

Here is what likely happened. Jane saw the report, was pleased to receive it, made a mental note to review it later, and continued with her current task.  It did not occur to her that focusing on her work (and thus not sending off a message acknowledging receipt) would deter you from your work.

On a time and mind management level, we need to know about next steps.  Is this project complete or will I have to return to it…and how soon?  Should I next concentrate on a task requiring one hour or half a day?

At the office we could drop our head in and ask, “When can you get back at me?”

In remote work, we can send yet another message…and risk more silence.

Besides, who wants to invest time in no-value-added correspondence such as, “Did you get my message?”  It feels like nagging.  It can be avoided!

No malice led to this frustration.  It is simply a lack of emotional intelligence skills.

How to Build Emotional Intelligence FAST?

As your team transitions into remote work, unexpected and challenging situations will surface.

YOUR response with emotional intelligence makes a difference!  So how to gain these soft skills fast?

One of the biggest barriers to mastering these soft skills is not realizing we need them.  In the examples above, both Joe and Jane were unaware.  They were acting “normally.“

We are living exceptional circumstances.  We now require “new-normal” behaviors.

And they will call on

  • Your humility
  • Your vulnerability

Sticky Situations and Constructive Responses

Here are some remote work situations you will likely encounter and corresponding constructive responses:

Emotions

With imposed remote work, emotions will be running high.

Yours and those of team members (and those of the family team…. Have you tried working with kids running around and your partner complaining about the mess?)

✅ Find ways to calm yourself.  Integrate them into the day.  If you have children, teach your kids to do the same.  Coordinate “zen-time’ as well as work hours with your partner

Routines & Rituals

Remote work will get your routines, big and small, off kilter.

Your team might still meet virtually for the regular business brief, but you won’t pass by your colleagues’ desk to walk into the meeting room together.  Gone too is the pre-meeting banter that warms up the atmosphere and directs focus.

✅ Create opportunities for informal exchange as well as for formal communication.

✅ Revisit the purpose of your meetings and have very clear agendas.  Avoid letting folk get into the habit of multi-tasking during conference calls and meetings.

Control & Follow Through

How can you verify people’s efforts in remote work? If we loosen the grips of control, what will happen to quality?  

The goal is to develop intrinsic motivation in your team members.  This means paying attention to the way we communicate as well as to what is said.

“Content + PROCESS = Effective Communication”

Be vulnerable (Yikes!) with your team and let them know you might not be aware of your “controlling” behaviors.   Possibly create a sign  that invites discussion on your leadership and communication style. (an upside-down emoji 🙃, a request to pause 🆘, the words ‘Hummmmm. Encouraging?’)

✅ Learn to laugh more.  Laughter gives you and the other person those few nanoseconds required to calm down.

Laughter also releases endorphins, the “feel-good enzyme.”  In a study led by Robin Dunbar of Oxford University and reported in Scientific American, his team concluded “that the long series of exhalations that accompany true laughter cause physical exhaustion of the abdominal muscles and, in turn, trigger endorphin release. (Endorphin release is usually caused by physical activity, like exercise, or touch, like massage.)”

Just Do It…HOW?!

The above sound simple.  But how to be vulnerable without getting run over?  How to allow for critique without being ridiculed?

(I wrote more about this here:  How to be a team leader, even in a competitive workplace?)

Here is what I learned the hard way:

Be in a group

In a group, you gain outside perspective.  You have accountability to change and grow. We are humans, not robots. Transformation happens through relationships.

Learn step-by-step

Growing in emotional intelligence is like a journey. We can reach the same destination by going through different paths.  On our GPS we can choose various routes.  At each intersection we get to choose again what path to take.

Soft skill questions aboutnd with remote work
Which way to “Motivating-Leadership-Skills & Team-Engagement” ?

It takes courage to change. We climb a mountain one step at a time.  We gain soft skills in the same way.

The term “Soft skills” is a misnomer.
Soft skills are TOUGH to learn and STRENGHTEN relationships.

Plan for the long haul

Prepare yourself with encouragement and accountability to stay in the game.  You (and I and your team members) will mess up. We need help getting up, learning from mistakes, and getting back in the arena.

Humans are creatures of habit. Lasting change means breaking old habits and developing new ones.  That takes time and accountability.

Practice makes better.

So, what is the IDEAL SOLUTION? 😀

Get onboard with the BE YOUR TEAM’S M.V.P. (Most Valuable Player) program. It’s

  • Online training in emotional intelligence
  • Private community to ask questions to experts and peers
  • Coaching (individual and group) to set measurable growth goals and to stay on track

Interested?   to see if you qualify.

 

So, what are you doing to get your team successful in remote work?  Tell us below.