No matter where your current boss is on the spectrum of bad, average, or great, it is best to view them not as your supervisor, but as your customer. No matter what your actual tasks may be, view your role as a service business and your supervisor is your primary client.
When you adopt the perspective of meeting the needs of your customer, no matter how high-maintenance they may be, it makes it easier to take their demands less personally.
It is actually to your benefit if your boss is particularly high-maintenance and exacting. Why? It is like going through military bootcamp. You practice crawling under barbed wire with explosions and gunfire going off so that you won’t freeze up when you have to do it in real life. Bootcamp is a practice simulator of extreme pressure to condition and refine your mind, emotions, and body. This conditioning is preparing you to succeed on the field of battle in adverse conditions. Similarly, a bad boss is training you to raise your game – to increase your capabilities. So no matter what you may face in the future, it will be easy by comparison.
It is a choice when you have a bad boss. You can either be miserable or grateful for building up your ability. Guess which choice helps you thrive and which one highlights your agony? If you were to hire someone to complete a critical function, would you rather have an ex-Marine or a sarcastic gamer that spends most of his or her time on the sofa? Which one will likely get the job done for you, no matter what the adversity or challenges? This is actually what bad bosses are inadvertently doing: building up your reserves and ability to handle difficult situations and tasks within difficult time frames. I’m not suggesting that you remain working for a horrible boss. But just like no one remains in bootcamp forever, a temporary bad boss can make you far more valuable in the workplace.
When you view yourself as a service provider to your supervisor, it is easier to evaluate whether you are succeeding as a good one or bad one. For example, do you solve their problems, ignore their problems, or create more problems for them? Do you anticipate what is needed or wait to be asked? Guess which type of service provider gets noticed and eventually gets the big promotion.
At one point, I was doing some freelance work and chatting online with a group of ambitious freelancers in the same industry. After several months, I began chatting with others about how to handle the full-time job offers that I was getting (one even had a large signing bonus). A few of my colleagues were incredulous, “I’ve been doing this twice as long as you with larger clients – how are you getting job offers?” The answer is simple. I help my customers solve their problems. I’m adaptable and courteous, all of the usual behavioral traits you do for someone that you respect. Most importantly, I’m constantly learning how to do my job better so that my services to any customer/boss are superior. And that is how you get unsolicited job offers.