How a Toxic Boss Helped Me Stop People Pleasing at Work
Most of my clients, during their career, have found themselves trying to please multiple bosses.
It’s easy to do. After all, we’ve been conditioned from an early age that if we work hard, we’ll be rewarded. In the world of work, that usually translates to bigger and better jobs and more money.
During my first supervisory job, I had to manage the expectations of three different bosses: one boss who wrote my yearly evaluation, and two bosses who were my primary customers.
Two of my bosses were reasonable. One wasn’t. I learned the hard way that she was an example of a “toxic boss”.
That toxic boss helped me uncover my unconscious pattern of people pleasing, which was slowly eroding the quality of my life.
In this article, I’ll share what happened, what I learned, and what I did to move on and grow from that experience so that you can leverage my experience for your career.
My Illusion Was Shattered on a Friday Afternoon
My first supervisory job was to manage a team of engineers that supported two sections of our four-section manufacturing plant. One of the sections we supported was a profit center and had ample engineering support. The other was a cost center supported by a single engineer named Fred.
Fred’s section started having significant problems that were affecting all the other sections of the plant. There was no internal company resource that we could bring in to help Fred figure out what was wrong.
One afternoon, I did some research on my own, and I thought that there was a single piece of equipment that might be the culprit.
I called the section supervisor, David, to discuss my hypothesis. He agreed with my theory but couldn’t shut down the equipment just yet because the entire plant would lose millions of dollars each day it was shut down.
The only way management would grant approval to shutdown was with a sound business case based on field data.
So that Friday afternoon, I put on my coveralls and took Fred out to the plant to gather the data that David needed to make the repairs.
Under the hot Texas sun, we spent all day gathering field data and developing the business case to shut down and fix that piece of equipment.
David was pleased with our work. He notified management that this section needed to shut down for repairs.
After finishing our work, I drove back to the office to start packing up for the weekend.
As I was walking down the hall to my office, one of my bosses came out of nowhere and yelled, “Where have you been? I sent you an email at lunchtime! I need data NOW!”
I looked at her confused as I pushed my sweaty hair out of my eyes. “I’ve been outside since 8 am troubleshooting David’s plant. There’s an equipment problem and they’re going to shut down for repairs tonight.”
“Well that’s important because it’s affecting how my section’s units are running,” she said, “but I need this data for my leadership presentation today. And I DID send you an email at lunch.”
I still had a confused look on my face. “I wouldn’t know - I haven’t even eaten lunch yet. We spent the entire day outside, climbing on equipment and doing a pressure survey to get the data David needed to make the repairs.”
“But don’t you have an engineer who could do that for you?” she exclaimed.
“Yes, and he doesn’t know anything about that type of equipment. And as you know, the problems in David’s section are putting the entire facility’s production at risk. I checked and there’s no one at headquarters who can help Fred, so David and I felt best that we do the survey ourselves today.”
“Well that’s great, but management needs this presentation deck and the only data I’m missing is yours. I need it today before you go home.”
I asked her a few questions about her request, and she continued emphasizing how important this data was and how critical it was to have the presentation done today.
She bounced off happy because she “won”.
I went to my office and did the work.
She left the office a short while later.
My Realization About My Boss
Much later that evening when I was driving home, I mulled over my day.
I sweated all day to help David’s team get the data they needed to fix their equipment. I was smelly and tired and so sore from climbing all over the field equipment in order to get that data.
And yet overall site production wasn’t important to my boss.
Data for a powerpoint slide was.
She was the boss that everyone seemed to like. She was fun to be around and was known for supporting her people and for being family-friendly.
But that Friday I saw first-hand that she was more interested in how she appeared to management than in how the rest of the site operated or how exhausted I was from helping David’s team help the site.
She didn’t seem to care if the plant came crashing down because of David’s section. It wasn’t hers so she wouldn’t look bad in management’s eyes.
It was at that moment that I realized that she really didn’t care about me as a person.
I was just a tool to help her make powerpoint slides so she could look good to management.
After all, she didn’t write my yearly evaluation so I wasn’t on her “team” and therefore wasn’t one of the relationships that she needed to develop to sing her praises. There was no consequence to her if she overstepped my boundaries to get what she wanted to make her look good to management.
And then a sickening feeling hit me: I played a part in allowing this to happen to me.
I believed that if I pleased all my bosses, I would advance in the company.
That belief was false.
Our plant was known for being a management training ground. Many of the managers who came and left wanted to be a future C-suite executive of the company. And they were very interested in how they appeared to management.
By ignoring the red flags of this reality, I spent my time and energy pleasing others instead of defining healthy boundaries with all my bosses.
By avoiding this conflict between their various goals and desires and my boundaries, I worked longer than I needed to.
By working longer than I needed to, I left little time for me: my career development activities, my rest and recuperation time, and my family.
I accidently found out the following week that the presentation that I stayed late generating data for was just a draft. It had to go through several additional iterations and reviews before it was needed for a meeting in a few weeks.
She didn’t need the data after all on that Friday afternoon. She bullied me into staying late to finish it.
I felt used and betrayed.
Some years later, I came across the phrase “toxic boss”, and she was the person that I immediately thought of.
My Journey to Appropriately Pleasing People at Work
On that Friday afternoon, I chose pleasing my “toxic boss” over me.
As I examined my false belief, I realized I had to make another choice.
I could choose to do nothing and continue my people pleasing behavior at work. I’d continue to overwork in order to achieve my career goals while putting my family and my life on the back burner.
Or I could choose to do something different. I wasn’t sure what that choice was, but I knew I could start figuring it out by evaluating my career situation and by digging into the feelings under my habit of pleasing people.
I chose the latter.
To evaluate my career situation, I got crystal clear on what I wanted out of a job:
A boss who advocated for me while respecting my need for balance in my life
Interesting work with interesting people, and
The opportunity to travel for work
When I figured out what I wanted for my career, I realized that my current company would never be able to give me what I wanted. At that time, the company culture wasn’t structured to really promote employee well being. Sure it was discussed, but it was an “all talk, no do” thing that showed up only on yearly evaluations. And I’d never get the opportunity to travel for work due to internal company politics.
I made the difficult decision to leave for a different company that would give me more of what I wanted: interesting work with interesting people and a culture that was more concerned with employee physical and mental health. Plus I got to travel on occasion for project work.
I also started to examine my people pleasing tendencies. I started by evaluating my belief that putting other peoples needs ahead of my own would lead to success at work.
I had to dig into these unconscious behaviors to really understand them. I then learned how to manage them in a career setting to help me better set boundaries in my future roles.
How to Begin Your Journey to Overcome a People Pleasing Habit at Work
If you find yourself in a similar position where you realize you’ve been a people pleaser at work, you too might have unconscious behaviors that are working behind the scenes against you.
Understanding your unconscious patterns and learning how to manage them is critical for your long-term career success.
You can continue exhibiting this same behavior at work. Chances are that nothing will change positively in your work experience. And there’s a strong chance that you won’t achieve the success that you’re wanting because you’ll be approaching exhaustion and career burnout.
Or you can begin to dig into your unconscious patterns at work to see if they’re hindering your career success.
Here are some prompts that you can use today.
Step 1: Think about where you are more focused on pleasing people than on managing healthy boundaries at work.
What’s your relationship to each person involved?
What do you provide to each person?
What do you receive from each person in return?
Do you feel like you have a healthy relationship with each person?
Do you feel you can set boundaries with them when you need to?
Step 2: Take a step back and evaluate your overall career picture.
What’s working well?
What’s not working well?
Are you happy in your current position?
Do you get the support you need from your team and from your boss?
Are there any red flags that you’ve been ignoring?
Step 3: Think about what you want out of your career long-term.
What type of work do you like doing?
What skills do you like using?
What skills do you want to develop?
What roles and experiences do you want to have?
Once you’ve generated this data, you can then begin to dig deeper into your people pleasing behaviors to start understanding and then managing them. And at the same time you can begin figuring out how you might make your career vision a reality.
My journey involved working with coaches and using tools that helped me change habits and behaviors at work. I learned to better set boundaries up front at work. I learned how to be more comfortable in tough discussions where I had to do my part to get the job done while maintaining healthy boundaries. And I had to learn how to function as a recovering people pleaser, always aware that I needed to keep me first in my work priorities.
There was no way my company with the “toxic boss” could give me what I wanted - it wasn’t really in their culture - so leaving was the best choice for me.
But leaving your current role or company might not be the right choice for you.
You need to do the reflective work to determine what’s the best path forward for you, because ultimately you’re the one responsible for your career experience.
You can become a recovering people pleaser and design a career that supports you rather than drains you.
If you find that your current career reality isn’t what you want it to be, then it might be time to do a bit of reflective work so that you can begin to design a better career outcome.
And if you want support through this process, you can learn more about what I offer here.
Heather Lakatos Career Breakthrough Strategist View My Bio