Nobody foresaw the cluster storm that TechCabal unleashed on that fateful Monday.
It wasn’t even like a sneak attack, it felt like when the Yankees dropped their famous nuke—you knew it could happen but couldn’t conceive it happening.
The Twitter space the #HorribleBosses hashtag spurned and the stories that were told on that space are only things you see supposed to see on badly scripted Nollywood movies.
That day, I read and listened to nightmarish horror stories of people being abused, debased, harassed, and assaulted by people who were supposed to, at the barest minimum, ensure that their efforts were properly compensated and the work environment was just ok enough for them to get actual work done.
I also read and listened to people who, to my utter dismay, tried to defend this behavior.
So what makes a boss horrible?
To answer this question, especially within the Nigerian context, we need to look at what makes the average Folake and Ebun tick. What is it that drives them, that motivates them to the point that creating literal living hells is normal to them?
Let’s be honest: I don’t know and neither do you.
But we both live in the Nigerian reality, where crushed people harbor really broken power fantasies, where individuals in positions of money/power/success would do anything for more money/power/success, where older equates to being a respectable, unchallengeable authority figure. People who live and thrive within the framework of the Nigerian reality are incentivized to adopt a disposition of fierceness, usually in varying degrees, just so they could survive.
Is it cruel? Yes.
Is it necessary? Also, Yes.
Now imagine one person, from this vast majority of diverse people, through hard work or circumstance, manages to rise up from the trenches to a more exalted position of success where he/she is responsible for the well-being of the team and their capacity to deliver results. Naturally, they’d want to flex their power however, power comes with responsibility and good leaders are aware of that. An exalted position isn’t a free pass to the easy life, it’s a burden. So how do toxic people climb up the ranks to positions of leadership?
Well. Toxic people deliver results. Let me explain.
According to this article, Toxic people, whether your manager, employee or coworker, act irrationally because they believe it helps them accomplish a goal. They behave the way they do because they feel this is the way for them to get their point across. They believe that if they can either manipulate someone or overwhelm them that the other person is not going to talk back or hold them accountable.
Do you know another set of people who share this same characteristic?
Driven people.
Go-getters.
Overachievers.
That is not to say that these people are toxic but you’d be hard-pressed to find any of them that aren’t. And most of them do not even know that they are toxic and difficult to work with because most people either adjust to working with them due to their success or leave them alone altogether. They don’t know until you point it out to them.
The thin line between passion and cruelty
As a business owner/leader in corporate Nigeria, you have to dance a very fine line—know when to show compassion, when to compromise, when to be stern, when to be inspiring, and so on. This doesn’t come easy as there are several moving parts to managing your business and in order for your business to survive, talk more of thrive, these moving parts need to be in concertion. The immediate consequence of this would be prioritizing growth, scale, and bottom-line metrics. And as nice as you think you are, you can’t hit that critical mass without being dogged, stubborn, and relentless demanding the best from those around you.
But at what cost?
Again, the fine line. You can’t hold people to a higher standard without having to push them towards it. Nobody ever answered the rallying call of the patient, calming voice, as pleasant as it may be. Leadership often demands that the leader and those being led do uncomfortable things to get desirable results and do those things repeatedly to get better at recreating those results at scale.
But what happens when leadership begins to border on tyranny?
When do the words & promises that once inspired courage and grit transition into cruelty?
I listened in horror as one after the other, people narrated stories of relentless emotional, verbal and sexual abuse perpetrated by leaders and brands who should know better. They should know better. So why does it keep happening
What does the Law say…
In recent memory, Labour laws in Nigeria have been seen as…how best to put this….suggestions and the Union(s) sworn to ensure these laws are upheld and enforced have been audibly silent over the years. There’s often very little recourse for the typical Nigerian employee—he/she knows they’re at the whim of “Oga at the top" and the fate of his employment depends on the mood of the aforementioned Oga or at best, their willingness to adhere to sane hiring practices and company culture.
Now it is possible that the more educated demograph are familiar with Labour laws in Nigeria (some of which are laid out here and here) which actually go into detail about the things and rights that employees are entitled to and the violations that employers can not do to their employees.
With all of this in place, and in light of this discourse, you’d be tempted to ask “why haven’t we heard of any cases of labor-related class-actions?” and you wouldn’t be far off — there hasn’t been a lot of those reported openly in the news, however (and this is mostly from what I’ve found, you are free to conduct your own independent findings) there’s this.
Recommended reading:
Nigerian Labour Laws: Issues & Challenges (2018)
A “Suggested” Horrible Boss Survival Kit
Set Boundaries Early
When you don’t stand up for yourself on important issues, you are giving them permission to continue bad behavior. Staying quiet about abusive behavior makes them lose respect for and abuse you more.Don’t feed into passive-aggressive or toxic behavior.
Whatever behaviour you reward (or at the least, silently consent to) will continue; what you consistently ignore will eventually cease.
Don’t try to change them or get them to like you.
Don’t exert yourself trying to change a bad boss into a good one. While it’s possible to influence them, “there are limits to what you can change about another person without their cooperation,” writes psychologist Art Markman. People are unlikely to make lasting changes in their lives if they do not lay the groundwork for those changes.Help your boss communicate better with you.
First, learn the preferred method of communicating (email, phone, text, in person) so that you can connect with them. Second, if your boss is never available to give anyone time or attention, send a short update on a weekly basis or a recap of the projects you’re working on. That way you can use the limited time together to ask specific questions as opposed to updating your manager on the status of different projects.Show Empathy
The position of manager is a tough one. It rarely comes with much formal training, so it's easy to feel overwhelmed by both the stress from subordinates and the expectations from higher management/peers.
Instead of seeing your boss’s irritated behavior as an effort to torment you, see it as the manifestation of confusion and frustration they experience when they have to balance their roles.Saying NO is okay.
I covered the power of saying NO here. By saying yes to everything, you open yourself up to fatigue, burnout and yes, more work.Before it gets physical (or if it already has), run.
Here’s the thing—if you prioritize survival (and dominion over sapa) over mental health, a steady work-life balance and employee safety, that’s your cross to bear. On the other hand, if you do value mental health, a steady work-life balance and employee safety AND you work in an office space of toxicity with a mild sprinkling of assault……just run.
Phew.
This post took months to finish, I left it in drafts and when i picked it later, my laptop was already spewing dust. Horrible bosses should be considered an occupational hazard and an anti-panacea to workplace productivity. There might be a Twitter space on this topic on Friday, I’ll check in with Elsie, our growth super-striker(ess?), on this one.
Twitter space here we come
The Starter kit is very much needed. Never thought about it before.
I look forward the space so I can ask if there are occasional horrible bosses.