Rhea prepares a presentation. Her manager changes half of it, presents it to senior management and takes the credit.
The next morning, he tells her she needs to show more ownership. Naturally, she is frustrated.
She starts wondering whether he is insecure, controlling or simply a bad manager. She spends months trying to understand him and find better ways to work with him. Then she notices something interesting.
His boss seems quite happy with how he works. He wants quick answers. He appreciates managers who take charge. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in who actually did the work. And Rhea’s manager knows exactly how to keep him happy.
Now, does that make his behaviour acceptable? Of course not.
But it does raise a different question. What if the behaviour frustrating you is the same behaviour helping your manager succeed? Think about your own workplace.
Have you noticed managers who take credit for their team’s work getting promoted? Or people who agree with senior management moving ahead faster than those who ask difficult questions?
Maybe you have changed managers only to discover that the new one behaves almost exactly like the previous one.
At some point, it is worth looking beyond individual personalities.
Sometimes the behaviour you are trying to change is the very behaviour the organisation is rewarding.
This is where understanding office politics becomes useful.
Your manager may be choosing how to behave. But the organisation also sends signals about what gets people recognition, influence and promotion. That doesn’t mean every difficult manager is a product of the system. Some people are genuinely difficult to work with regardless of where they go.
The distinction matters when you are deciding what to do next. If the problem is one manager, changing teams or reporting to someone else might improve your experience. But if the same behaviour is rewarded across the organisation, you may find yourself dealing with it again under a different manager.
Before spending another six months trying to understand why your boss behaves the way he does, look at the people above him.
What are they rewarding?
And is that the kind of workplace you want to build your career in?
A difficult boss is sometimes a person problem and sometimes a pattern the company rewards.
If the same behaviour keeps reappearing under new managers, look at what the people above them reward.
→ Play The Pressure Room: see how you decide under pressure
