Big on authenticity – they tend to call a spade a spade- and perhaps, as a consequence, somewhat low on empathy, types 8 tend to thrive on challenge and are prepared to deal with just about anything that life has to offer. They see themselves as the “knights” of the kingdom and their job is to protect the innocent and the less able.

Their underlying motivation is a feeling of weakness so to avoid this, types 8 develop a heightened sense of power. You can feel their presence as soon as they enter a room. These personality types thrive in the military or political world. From a positive viewpoint, their personality make up means that they are extremely resourceful and will always stand up for those they view to be less able. They also encourage others to have more belief in themselves and to stand firm in their convictions.

They tend to believe that the end justifies the means so manipulate situations to their advantage. They tend to see situations in a black and white way which can cause them to be inflexible. Their underlying desire is for power, not prestige, which can lead to bullying. They have the innate ability to spot a weakness in their opponents. They may not always win the battle, but if you take them on, you will know you have been in a fight.

Do you think you may fit the role of the Confronter/Boss?

• Do you often find yourself fighting for other people’s rights with no fear of any repercussions?
• Do people who take ages to make a point irritate you the most?
• Are you a natural leader?
• Do you think you are a practical person i.e. the one to get the job done?

Some tips to help make the positive side of your personality type shine through:

• Learn to control your “confrontational” side.
• Life is not black and white. Human beings create complex problems and it may not always be apparent which side is the “right” one.
• Learn to allow others to take the lead sometimes.
• Learn to manage your anger properly. Suppressing your angry feelings isn’t enough as that can cause problems too.

Work on your tendency to bully and be controlling. Concentrate on remembering that everyone is not created equal – some are not as strong as others and it is these people that need your protection not you’re bullying.

Hating your boss… that, of course, is not a new concept. Before I started in my freelance career, I always had a job where I constantly loathed my boss. This even dates back to when I was sixteen (I am 30 now) and working at an Orange Julius stand in my local shopping mall. Though I was never that employee that would challenge my superiors, I still developed a severe aversion to anybody who could claim authority over me and have the power to show me the door if I did not follow along.

Now since then, the having a boss part has not changed, just the jobs have changed. I can remember countless “write-ups,” you know, for dumb things like showing up thirty seconds late for your shift. Heck, even one time I was written up for falling asleep working a graveyard shift at a hotel. OK, maybe I deserved this, but you can get my drift. If you have a job, you have a boss and there is no way around it.

Fast forward to four years ago, when I started my freelance career as a computer programmer. I thought I had it made. No one hovering over my shoulder telling me what to do, I could take as many breaks as I wanted to and “proper dress” was no longer a part of my vocabulary. Also, no more private meetings with the head honcho to discuss my annual thirty cent raise or any mishaps that I unknowingly committed.

I started to notice some drastic thing happen shortly afterwards, though. My paychecks were for little money and I was having difficulty finding work. Not to mention, some of the work I did find turned out to be for clients who would try to take advantage of me or who would even try to stiff me. Something had to change or I would starve and would end up having to be a slave to some other middle manager all over again.

Well, that’s when I began to have a boss start to manage my freelance career. It could not have come soon enough, either. One of the first things he had me do was develop a working schedule by determining the number of hours I wanted to work in the week beforehand and then jotting down the number of hours worked daily until I reach that total.

Then he took over and managed my clients and projects. Eventually he had me charging more for my services and finding new clients willing to pay the new prices. Business got better than ever and I started making four times what I did than when I started freelancing.

Then came the real magic. He had me change my client relations by having me be more service minded. I use to argue with clients who thought I messed up or seemingly always wanted a little something extra. Not anymore. I immediately fix any mistakes, no questions asked and became very polite in dealing with my clients. My repeat business skyrocketed.

This happened to be the first boss in my lifetime that actually was able to manage me without actually being the usual moron who always seems to have a chip on his or her shoulder. I actually grew as an employee and have become more productive than ever. Wow, I never thought I would say that in my lifetime.

I’ll have to give myself a pat on the back for a job well done.

Being your own boss is one of the greatest entrepreneurial thrills. After years of working for others, you have the opportunity to call the shots for your own business; your destiny is finally in your own hands–and so is that of your employees. The impact of this realization is more than some people can handle.

Some become bosses who bark out orders, while others try to be everyone’s friend. Most feel that they have to be the first ones in and the last ones to leave. Just about every entrepreneur feels the fear of working without the safety net that the corporate job provided. Yes, financial independence is a real possibility, but so is bankruptcy.

If fear takes reign, we become controlling, demanding and unreasonable bosses. Being first in and last out eventually takes its toll, so we hire Managers. These new bosses watch and learn, hoping to duplicate our success, and therefore guarantee their rank and position within the company. Boss begets boss, and the spiral of rigidity gains momentum. A boss-driven enterprise can be successful monetarily but often fails to reach its full potential. Employees resent this type of boss in the same way that cellmates resent the prison guards who have control over them.

Leadership is different. Leadership is the transference of certainty. In other words, a leader must have a vision of why the business exists and what it is here to create, and he or she must communicate absolute certainty of the company’s potential success. This certainty must be shared and felt by the employees, customers, vendors and lenders. Our creation must add value to every one of these groups in order to prosper long term. Early on, a leader rejects the role of boss and takes on the mantle of visionary. A leader realizes that without the cooperation of employees, customers, vendors and lenders, his or her creation will never get off the ground. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines cooperation as “to act or work together with another or others.” It doesn’t mention bossing people around. The key is getting others–your employees, customers, vendors and lenders–to work together toward the established goals of your business. A true leader secures this emotional commitment through the transference of certainty. Why is someone willing to endure “You’re Fired” on national TV? Because, Donald Trump does an excellent job of transferring certainty. People want to work for him, because they believe in his vision and success. They feel certain that if they hook up to his wagon train they will be successful. You have to ask yourself whether people are jumping on or off your wagon train.

Leaders inspire, they communicate the vision and motivate those around them. Next time you give an assignment, tell the employee that you have faith in them. At the close of the day, turn to your workers and thank them for coming in that day. In the beginning this may confuse them, but soon they will be smiling. Respect and care about them and they will care about your business. As a leader, you have the power to create emotional certainty in everyone you meet. Become a leader and inspire everyone to do their best. The results will amaze you!

Do you know of anyone who loves working for an authoritarian boss? No right? Unless you have masochistic officemate who loves getting hit by the authoritarian leader. Sometimes, you can sweat and be afraid when left in the same room with such a boss. But during lunch time and when office workers talk with each other, they would berate the boss and tell each other that he is a bad leader.

How can you get rid of an authoritarian leader? Here are several ideas.

Do your best with every task assigned to you. For every task that you do excellently, you will build your credibility as a worker and the boss will come to rely on you for different matters inside the organization. As you keep on delivering great performance, you will be promoted and later in your career, you will become the new boss. When you become a boss, make sure that you don't become another authoritarian leader.

Anticipate problems. As you do the tasks assigned to you, anticipate all possible problems and objections that your boss may come up with. This way, you won't be caught with your pants down when he starts making rebuttals and other snide remarks about your report or your tasks. When you anticipate problems, you also manage to raise the boss' esteem of your performance.

Clarify expectations and deliverables. Make sure that you understand the nitty-gritty of the tasks assigned to you. This way, you know exactly how to behave and what to deliver. If you are unsure of anything, ask questions. Sure, the authoritarian boss may get mad or throw a fit. But if you do not ask questions, then you will not be able to clarify what other things you need to consider or prepare for.

Learn how to rebut by carefully covering all possible problems. As you work on the tasks assigned to you, identify the problems you encountered and relate to the boss how you solved them. If you do not anticipate, the boss will find out about your mistakes and you may receive some scathing remarks in front of your officemates. You don't want that. It pays to look good in front of your officemates.

It's difficult to deal with an authoritarian boss. If you are not careful and you don't know how to deal with the situation, you just might get a heart attack! So, instead of engaging in gossip and other fear-induced activities, do your best to get rid of the boss by becoming the best worker that you could be.

Do you work with a difficult boss? Is your boss making your life miserable at work? Have you tried to address certain issues to no avail? Has the time come to escalate matters and talk to their boss or HR? These conversations are never easy and can cause anxiety so here are a few ideas to try to minimise your distress.

Before engaging in this type of conversation, ask yourself the following:

– Can this person really do anything about the situation?

– Will they expect you to handle the situation on your own?

– Do you actually expect them to take action or is it a good opportunity to vent your frustrations?

If you answered Yes, No, Yes then a conversation is justified.

This conversation is an opportunity to present your case. Remember that you do not want to simply complain about something and expect immediate action. You want to present your problem with a potential solution. You want your chat to seem natural and unrehearsed yet you will have a clear agenda of what you want to get across. It should sound like you are doing your best for the business and the team rather than attempting to undermine your boss.

This discussion is very much a presentation or sales pitch for constructive ideas to move forward. As such, give it some structure in your mind. This will allow you to cover all the issues you want to address as well as keep you away from the drama and too much detail.

6 Tips to Remember when Complaining about Your Boss

1. No emotion

Easier said than done of course!

If you realise you are getting upset, see yourself as a third person looking down at the conversation. This will give you a more neutral and disengaged perspective of the situation. Another solution is to think of something you find funny. Ideally use a work related image or scenario. Something like the Dilbert cartoons or the series The Office are an option.

2. Management

Consider how it looks from a bigger picture. The person you have escalated the issue to will certainly be thinking about that, so put yourself in his or her shoes. This will also mean you won’t automatically assume he or she is going to take your “side”.

3. Decide what you want

Be clear about what you want them to do. They may have suggestions and ideas of their own so but be prepared to state what you want so they can actually help you achieve it.

4. Business area

Determine how your problem relates to one or more business areas. They will be interested in products, quality, customers, etc, so you want to show how your problem is affecting the bigger picture and the business in these areas. Once you have concrete business examples you will have a winning formula to get their attention.

5. Facts

Focus on the facts. Restrain from complaining about your boss’s personality or assumptions you have made about certain attitudes and decisions.

6. Future

This is important as you want to move forward. Keep the focus of the conversation on what will happen in the future rather than what has happened thus far. This is not to say you can’t use information from past incidents to support your case. It is about staying focused on what needs to be done to rectify the problem.

Until something happens, do your best to be seen as team orientated and co-operative.

Have you had to go over your boss’s head to complain about their behaviour? How did you handle the situation?

Take a look at Aim to Be Coaching Blog for more articles by Ana Antunes da Silva. You’ll be able to get the full experience with images etc as well as sign up for a FREE Coaching session

So you need some help persuading a stubborn boss to see your side of things? What is one to do when faced with such a nagging problem?

Well, you have two choices:

1. You could sit back and have a pity party

2. You could do something about it

This article is mainly concerned with the latter approach. So without further adieu, here’s what you can do:

• Don’t be defensive

One of the best tips is don’t clam up into a shell. Being defensive will just breed animosity, and prevent you from being productive. Face it: your boss is not going to agree with every single suggestion you run by his desk. If you think you can do things better maybe you should consider starting your own small business.

• Go on the offensive

Write down some ways you can counterattack this problem. One way could be to come up with ’10 ways’ this or that can be improved. If you can show your boss you are a ‘team player’ than he will be more willing to listen to you down the road. First prove you can save the company money or reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a task and you will be looked at as an invaluable resource. By the way, you should be doing this anyway. You never know when a company will decide to trim the fat.

• Make it a collaborative effort

Ahh…the power of groups. Think about it like this: Are you more confident on the streets at night when surrounded by a group of friends or when you are alone? Leverage the power of many to your advantage. See if you can’t get your co-workers in your department – and others – to side with your point of view. With them on board, your suggestions have more sticking power.

• Write your boss a letter

Yeah…that’s right I said it. Write your boss a letter describing how you feel, and perhaps he will see things from your point of view. If you aren’t sure how to craft this delicate letter get some help from your spouse or colleagues you trust. Once you start typing the energy will flow onto the page. Just make sure you edit and proofread before you submit. Print it on parchment paper for an authentic feel.

• Put on your detective hat

Are there any competitors who have just launched a new product line? Are your competitor’s web sites appearing before yours on the SERPs (search engine results pages)? Do your competitors have a blog that is continuously updated? What kind of content is in their newsletters? Start digging around (ethically, I might add) and put together a power point presentation for your boss. Compare with charts and tables how the competition is doing things different. Show where your strengths are – and in what areas they are killing you.

Do these things and I can practically guarantee the days of having a stubborn boss will be long gone.

You have called your boss for dinner and are looking to impress him and his family. Your wife has been busy all day preparing the choicest of dishes and you have been running around the corner store to get her requirements every now and then. Your bar is ready, and so is the list of snacks you are going to serve with each drink. But have you given a thought to the place where they are going to sit for the better part of the evening? While your living room is only going to be used towards the first half of the evening, it is your dining room where your guests are going to spend most of their time as well as have the highlight of the evening – the meal. Is it adequately impressive? Have a look around.

Start with the overall setting. Is it looking good? Do your dining room chairs go well with the dining table and the cabinets? If you have been buying things off and on that caught your fancy, you may well need to have a look at the overall facade of your room. Does your dining room hutch match the dining set overall? If you feel uncomfortable, replace it with a better looking wooden or a glass hutch. Don’t have the energy or the money to buy one immediately? Never mind. Remove it totally for now. Better not to have anything than to display furniture with poor matching taste.

Look at the placement of your dining room furniture next. Is there adequate space for comfortably seating all the guests and your family members? If yes, you could go in for a sitting dinner, and if not, a well spread buffet would be in order. Either way, there has to be adequate space for moving around – both for the guests, and the lady of the house to shuttle between the kitchen and the dining room.

Check if your boss has small children accompanying him. Children generally love special children’s chairs that are higher than the others or that can be affixed on to the table in case of infants. Most mothers have them, so maybe you could just scout around for one if your own is not readily available.

The side tables should be adequate to display your decoration pieces comfortably. Do not crowd your pieces with every single souvenir you picked up during your worldwide travels – restrict yourself to the most exclusive pieces. The rest can either be displayed on the wall, in another room, or totally kept aside for another party. You may like to restrict your display to the more sturdy pieces if the boss has small children. I’m sure you wouldn’t like your exquisite Italian vase going to pieces while you put on a forced smile and say “Never mind, boss, it was just an ordinary vase. I’ll get another one!”

Get a flower decoration to enhance the overall effect of your settings. While fresh flowers work best, artificial ones will do the job too. Just make sure your love for flowers of either variety does not let you overdo the whole thing. Keep one decoration in the centre, another in one corner at most. Let the rest of them be placed in other rooms like your living room or your bedroom.

So go ahead and treat your boss to the best dinner he ever had. And look forward to the next raise as well!

If you think you’re working for a bad boss, you have plenty of company.

Of 1,118 people who completed a survey at the Badbossology.com web site last year, “48 percent said they would fire their boss if they could, 29 percent would have their boss assessed by a workplace psychologist and 23 percent would send their boss for management training.”

No doubt those who would surf a site by that name are feeling more than a little disgruntled with a manager. But bad feelings about bad bosses abound.

Many people lose the boss lottery and, through no fault of their own, end up reporting to an ineffectual manager. You may not have chosen your boss, but you don’t have to be a victim of his or her weaknesses.

Understand why your boss is bad

Some bad bosses are bad people. Their personal relationships are a disaster, they’re miserably unhappy and their values are evil. They want to dominate and bully the people under them.

But most bad bosses don’t mean it. They are good people doing a bad job. Many are blithely unaware of the dead, wounded or stressed-out bodies they leave in their wake. They even think they’re good examples of leadership.

Understanding how your well-intentioned boss has gone off track can help you choose the best strategy for managing him or her. Here are some reasons bosses go bad:

Confusing information with communication: BlackBerrys, text messaging, blogs and e-mails are creating workplaces too full of information and too devoid of communication.

When many bosses hear of the need for increased communication, they fire off more e-mails or beef up intranet sites.

But electronic communication is becoming a huge barrier to conversation and understanding. The more electronically connected bad bosses become, the more humanly disconnected their teams are.

Micro-management: Bad bosses are often micro-managers intruding into details of every decision and facet of the business.

This may be because their own bosses expect them to be on top of things. But bad bosses often get activities and results confused.

They may also have been embarrassed by someone’s past poor performance or another major mistake and take the wrong measures to make sure it never happens again.

It’s all they know: Many bad bosses have had no other role model than another bad boss.

Maybe they watched a superior yell his or her way to the top. Maybe they saw micro-management result in a promotion. Or maybe they’re even now working for a bad boss and mimicking the behaviour.

Sometimes bad bosses promote in their own image. They create a clone of their own ineffectiveness that you now work for.

Promoted for all the wrong reasons: Most organizations talk about the importance of leadership, valuing staff and other warmed-over motherhood statements.

But promotion decisions are often based not on good management measures but for other reasons: strong technical skills, a feeling of comfort with someone just like a superior or an individual’s ability to get the job done regardless of the collateral damage in the workplace.

Overworked and under-trained: Too many managers aren’t coping well with today’s relentless pressure to do more with less. They feel they need to push harder to get more from everyone in their organization. They, too, have bosses to answer to.

At the same time, too few have been given the analytical training on management methods to work smarter, not harder, or the people leadership skills to effectively co-ordinate and coach.

Many bosses reflect their organization’s mindset that training is a luxury or a sign of weakness.

Feeble feedback: Many bad bosses don’t know what they don’t know because nobody tells them. At the same time, they don’t really want to know their flaws from the people they lead.

Ironically, bad bosses often rate their own leadership performance very highly.

Tragically, they choke off communication channels and misread the lack of feedback as a sign they are doing well, because no one is telling them otherwise.

Boss management strategies

If your bad boss is basically a good person who’s performing badly, here are some strategies for you to exercise the leadership skills he or she is lacking:

See and work the big picture: Do you know what keeps those above you in the organization awake at night? What are their key goals and priorities are? Don’t wait to be told — find out.

Learn how your organizational game is played. Politics involve relationships, trust, power, persuasion, and influence. Build networks and coalitions, especially if you’re trying to influence significant change.

Don’t fixate on the fence sitters, naysayers, or resistors. Work with people who are ready to move forward and build momentum. Involve your boss where appropriate.

Don’t wait, initiate: Set your top three to five goals. Get your boss’s input and adjust accordingly. Meet regularly to review progress and reset priorities.

Set priorities: If you’re feeling overwhelmed, draw up a list of what you’re working on, with time frames or the estimated effort and resources required, and set the priorities as you see them.

Review and adjust this list with your boss. Be especially sure to get agreement on priority order.

When the boss comes to you with urgent new priorities, pull out your list and ask where those fit in and what should be moved down or off your list.

Focus most of your energy on those things within your control. Carefully pick areas or changes you would like to influence.

Figure out how to let go of those things or circumstances over which you have no control.

Don’t “awfulize” them. Doing this just increases everyone’s misery and creates paralysis.

Support your boss: Don’t badmouth or put down your boss to co-workers. If you need to get input from others on dealing with your boss, focus on the behaviour, issues or problems, not the person.

Ensure your boss gets lots of credit for successes. Look for opportunities to recognize or reinforce his or her strengths and the kind of leadership behaviour you’d like to see more of.

Make a list of your boss’s greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses and see if there are ways you can build upon the strengths and reduce the weaknesses.

Pick your timing: You may need to wait for the right opportunity to approach your boss.

Is he or she more receptive at particular times of the day, in meetings or one-on-one, by conversation or with a carefully crafted proposal?

Are you approaching your boss in your own preferred style or your boss’s?

If your boss is analytical, do you lead with facts and analysis? If he or she is results -focused, do you focus first on results?

If your boss is strong on relationships and people connections, do you focus on the human touch?

What could you learn by watching others who have a stronger relationship with your boss?

Use technology wisely: If your boss manages by e-mail, respond in kind for most routine matters.

However, if he or she sends you a critical e-mail or gets into sensitive people issues by e-mail, never respond in kind.

Phone or pay a visit to avoid misunderstandings and escalate emotions. You may need to follow up a phone conversation with an e-mail, documenting what you discussed.

Strengthen your credibility: Make sure you are acting as you say, demonstrating the leadership behaviour you’d like to see from your boss.

The single biggest source of your personal credibility with your boss is meeting your commitments. Make sure you do what you say you’re going to do, and never over-promise and under-deliver.

Don’t be a victim: If you work for a truly evil boss, managing him or her is likely impossible.

Your best strategy may be to minimize contact, build support networks within your organization, develop strong relationships with your boss’ peers or managers, or get out of that reporting relationship.

Some time back I was talking with a fellow project manager about a difficult issue he was having with his new boss. The thumbnail summary of the discussion was that the project manager was feeling overly scrutinized and micro-managed. Now I knew the project manager to be a capable professional who could confidently handle the work assigned to him. Yet his boss insisted on managing every detailed aspect of his work. More so, his boss was very critical of the work being done even though it was performed to professionally acceptable standard. The situation became unbearable for the project manager; he ultimately left the organization.

As I thought about this situation, I noticed an interesting parallel to other leadership situations I have seen and been part of. Both the project manager and his boss had similar backgrounds and similar years of experience. Although the boss had been a manager for years, he tended to surround himself with younger, more inexperienced managers. Having a more senior and experienced project manager reporting to him was clearly something that took him out of his comfort zone. Rather than embracing the experience, the boss felt threatened by the project manager and worked to “keep him in his place”.

As I added things up in my mind about the situation one thing came clear; the boss’ own insecurity was a key problem driver and was hampering the group’s potential.

This situation caused me to start thinking more about insecure and secure leader attributes. After noodling through I settled on ten key differences between an insecure and a secure leader. Give these a look and see if any resonate with you:

1. Insecure selectively divulge and withhold information. Secure freely share information.
2. Insecure teach employees what they need to know. Secure nurture employees to help them figure out what they need to know.
3. Insecure discourage risk taking. Secure encourage calculated risk taking.
4. Insecure give instructions and expect them to be followed. Secure give guidance and expect results.
5. Insecure demand respect. Secure earn respect.
6. Insecure may acknowledge great performance but ensure they also get credit. Secure spotlight great performance and don’t worry about getting credit.
7. Insecure hire and promote others who think like they do. Secure hire and promote others who think differently than they do.
8. Insecure deflect failure. Secure accept responsibility for failure.
9. Insecure promote those they can control. Secure promote those they don’t have to control.
10. Insecure grow good doers. Secure grow great leaders.

The one nugget here is this: honestly think through whether or not you are an insecure leader or a secure leader. If you fall on the insecure end of the spectrum, do some deep soul-searching as to what is causing you to feel insecure about your leadership abilities. Find a trusted mentor or colleague to help you dig into things and to shore up the areas which you need to address. Recognition and acknowledgement of your improvement areas is the most important step to growth. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re something that you’re not.

Research inside companies consistently reveals that most employees quit or move on because of a poor relationship with their immediate supervisor. In other words, people don’t quit jobs–they quit bosses. Most new managers and supervisors move into their roles because they have demonstrated technical expertise in their industry or field. They rarely begin their management careers with the experience, training and support they need to effectively manage others.

I am certainly not alone in working for some memorably bad bosses over my career. Indeed, it was rather cathartic to describe them all in writing:

Here are some strategies for how to manage your boss well, manage that all important relationship, and keep your job (or at least land on your feet in the next job):

1. Get to know your boss’ work preferences and expectations.

Does she like weekly meetings? Written reports? Email or face-to-face meetings? Find out and honor her preferences.

2. Regularly express your intention to help your boss succeed.

Find a hundred different ways to say, “If you’re successful, I’m successful.”

3. Tell your boss how you prefer to be managed.

Try using phrases like, “I work best if….” or “It really works for me when you….”

4. Ask for your boss’ advice on the organization’s politics.

Before that big meeting with your boss’ colleague, ask for his advice about land mines or hidden agendas.

5. Set boundaries and hold to them.

Be clear about what you will and won’t do. For example, I told the boss who took phone calls that I knew he wanted me to be productive and I could use those ten minutes to get work done for him. When he took a phone call, I would politely get up, leave the meeting, and go back to work. In no time at all, he broke the habit (at least when he met with me).

6. Keep your commitments to your boss and others.

No matter how annoying your boss may be, your follow through and dependability will serve to bolster your reputation in the organization.

7. Never make your boss look bad in front of his/her colleagues.

Though it may be tough to keep your mouth shut, avoid the temptation to contradict him in front of others, especially peers at his level in the organization (at least if you would like to keep your job a little longer). After listening to your boss spout off, if one of his peers asks you directly, “What do you think?” you may have to demure with a humble, “I’d like to talk this through with my boss so I’m confident I have my facts straight.” Helping your boss save face is a useful political skill.

8. Don’t gossip with your boss about other employees.

Even if your boss wants to engage you in gossip about others on your team, don’t play the game. A surprised and non-committal “Really? I wouldn’t have imagined that about her” is enough. I’ve also used an “Oh, dear, I think I may have said/done the same thing at one time.”

What I am suggesting is that you focus on making your working relationship with your boss pay off. Somebody promoted him or her into their boss role. Whether it is because they’re highly skilled, married into the business family, or happened to be in the right place at the right time, the bottom line is that you are not the boss, they are. After all, you can always go into business for yourself once you have gained the experience you need. It worked for me.