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Lenox Lizwi Mhlanga

YESTERDAY was my birthday. I am growing older and wiser. And since it’s been some time since I was on this page I will share some wisdom.

Experience is the greatest teacher, so am I as the hundreds who went through these hands will tell you. I am not boasting, it’s just fact.

When you land that plum job made in heaven, the last thing you think about is the day when you are shown the door. You must have heard motivational speakers say that in everything you do, start with the end I mind.

We rarely think about a bad ending because naturally, all that begins well should end well. Not when you have a boss from hell. Just like landlords, some of us get the bosses that we don’t deserve.

Liz Ryan of the Human Workplace says that one of the most important things every working person must learn is that not every manager deserves your talents.

“There are great mentors in the business world and there are other managers who are not even qualified to shine your shoes. You have to be able to tell the difference,” she advises.

In my long professional career, I have had my fair share of toxic bosses. I agree with Liz when she says that we sometimes only discover that a person’s degrees and work experience have little connection to his or her maturity and professionalism, when they stab us in the back.

For the little that they are worth, I am tempted to name some of them. But I am not as nasty. They should be able to tell who I am talking about, unless they are stupendously dull. Which they are, most of the time, sorry to say.

If you are smart and capable, some managers will be ecstatic and others will become fearful and hostile. The fearful managers don’t want smart people around them. It intimidates them when they are not the king or queen bee of the department.

Such bosses are not leaders. They boss people around and cut you down with cruel comments that let you know they are in charge. They will dress you down for trivial things, or take a swift U-turn to knock you off-balance.

And all the while you are trying to fathom what you did wrong to bring your manager’s naked wrath down upon you!

Of course, you didn’t do anything wrong. You just pitched up in the wrong department, at the wrong time and did your job a little too well for your fearful manager’s taste.

When things get heated in the office, you have to spot the signs that tell your boss wants you out.

Your reporting relationship changes for no reason. At a company I worked for, I was suddenly told I would now fall under the new marketing director, after enjoying a long spell reporting directly to the managing director.

While on the surface it looked logical, since the MD was away most of the time managing another unit, it soon emerged that the financial director did not like the independence and the favours I enjoyed.

It was clear that the marketing director’s role was to put me in a box and frustrate the living daylights out of me. To this day I have nightmares about the marketing strategy he forced me to do when I had little idea of what he wanted done.

It was the first step in my manager’s plan to paint me as a poor performer and frog march me out of the gate.

When your manager decides to only communicate with you via email know that ‘sokushubile’. Why would a manager stop talking to you in person, and put all communication with you in writing instead?

They’ll do it if they want to create a “paper trail.” Accumulating evidence to be used against you in the future. You should assume that all your manager’s email messages are being blind copied to HR or to your boss’s boss.

Your performance review is delayed without explanation. I have had to face this countless times, especially when I looked forward to justifying a raise, or to use the opportunity to express my reservations about the job.

Performance reviews get delayed for all kinds of reasons, the experts will tell you. But if you’re feeling the chill in the air and your performance review is delayed for no explanation, be wary. Be suspicious because it is likely that your written appraisal is a critical part of your boss’s plan to terminate you for upsetting her with your competence.

What about being sent for training you don’t need. If you know how to take a hint, observe the times when your boss recommends that you go for training all in the name of “Continuous Development.”

When you are booked to attend a course called “How to be a great team player” know that it’s about convincing others that you do not play ball. The boss rules that you need retraining.

All your boss has to do to get a green light from HR for your termination is to tell them, “Clearly, the extra training didn’t help!” By bringing HR into the conversation, it’s the final nail in the coffin that your boss has been preparing for you all this time. Your imaginary defects are not part of personnel department gossip.

I was summoned to a meeting by the HR director with that marketing director I told you about earlier. I soon felt like a lamb before slaughter. The trumped-up evidence about my incompetence was so overwhelming.

Next you are summoned before a kangaroo court composed of the lynch committee. You have little chance of coming out unscathed, no matter what the workers’ committee tells you.

In my case, it was obvious my immediate boss had lost the desire to continue working with me. Was it because of my growing media fame? There was nothing wrong with me. The company just picked the wrong person for me to work under!

I was too shocked to prepare an exit strategy. Life can kick you in the teeth sometimes. Don’t make the mistake I made, walking away with little or nothing. Negotiate a severance package on your way out.

If you have the chance to meet privately with an HR person, tell them the truth. It will set you free. Even when all else seems like doom and gloom.

Tell them that your boss has invented a story in which you are a problem employee, merely because he or she doesn’t want to work with you. Present the evidence if you can.

HR can help you get a fair severance deal or move you to another department. I managed to get the golden boot. Though I had to rely a lot on poetic justice to get even, my colleague and friend, Davies Sibanda, believes I could have got out with more.

The lessons in all this are that you should avoid a fearful boss in future, and be able to spot a weak manager before you accept a job. Yes, and the fact that not every manager deserves your talents!