Toxic Boss Syndrome is used to describe the behavior of a boss or a manager who behaves in a manner that causes you a lot of harm and unhappiness over a long period of time.

Do I have a Toxic Boss Syndrome?

A syndrome is a collection of signs and symptoms associated with a specific health-related cause. So, in order to experience this kind of syndrome, you must have some of the signs and symptoms already.

Toxic Boss Syndrome is often affecting not only one person but oftentimes the entire office. Since it is toxic, their behavior soon infects entire workplaces. Most likely you’re not the only person suffering. A 2015 Gallop study has found that about half of all workers who voluntarily leave a job do so “to get away from their manager.”

What Does a Toxic Boss Do?

We have written a post How To identify a Toxic Boss: 17 Real-Life Situations where we have presented the most common things a toxic boss does.

Brief recap:

1. Your boss is coming late when you must be on time
2. Your boss is micromanaging and double-checking your work
3. Your boss is not sharing all the information with you
4. Your boss is not ever asking for help
5. Your boss is hesitant on giving you a day off
6. Your boss does not give clear instructions on what you should do
7. Your boss is taking all the credits for your work
8. Your boss is struggling when it comes to coaching employees
9. Your boss doesn’t take care of his/her employees
10. Your boss is saying one thing, then saying completely different
11. Your boss stays in his/her office and passes around orders
12. Your boss points out your mistakes but ignores your successes
13. Your boss is giving you way too much work
14. Your boss is praising someone else for your work
15. Your boss is always pointing out how much work he/she has
16. Your boss is never taking responsibility
17. Your boss stays late in the office

They sap the energy of the individuals in their groups. They are belittling, petty, and loud. They consider themselves better than everyone else, and they don’t care who knows it. All they care about is “getting the job done.”

How does this behavior affect me?

Having a Toxic Boss Syndrome is all about you and how you feel. Manifestations may be different for different people, but the majority of employees are indifferent, sleepwalking through their workday without regard for their performance or their organization’s performance.

Employees feel miserable while at work, and that misery follows them home, compounding their stress and negatively affecting their overall well-being.

But most of all, you feel tired. You feel so tired that the only thing you want is sleep. A lot of sleep.

Can you relate?

You may even experience strong discomfort on Monday mornings, even stomach pain and vomiting in extreme cases.

There are many symptoms of this syndrome but the strongest ones are those that affect your mental health. Be aware that even after leaving your job and your toxic boss you will need months, even years to recover completely from all the damage caused by the toxic environment.

For more information, read our article Are toxic bosses bad for employees’ health?

What to Do

One of the best things to do is to document.

Be sure to write down all the events happened in your special diary in order to present them to the HR department. Try to make them as reasonable as you can, writing without anger, just state the facts. Think about why these events are hurting the company as well, not only you as an individual.

Another solution is to try to have an honest conversation with your boss asking them for feedback on your work. If she/he says that they are satisfied, they have no reason to bully you and in case they admit they are not satisfied, ask them for exact areas in which they want you to get better.

Try to fix the broken situation as much as you can.

The worst decision that you can make is to do nothing.

The reason? You spend a third of your life at work. You want to make your work in your workplace the best experience ever. You can’t do this if you report to and tolerate—a toxic boss.

Try to think and try to solve the problem.

Do not just give up!

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