A lot of advice about a bad manager comes down to one of two answers. You either go to HR or you start looking for another job. That advice treats every bad manager as the same problem, and they aren’t the same. A manager who never tells you what matters this week has a different problem from one who mocks you in front of the team. The first one might change after a single clear conversation. The second might call for HR, outside advice and a record you start keeping today. So the answer you pick has to fit the problem you have. If it doesn’t, you can use up goodwill you’ll need later. You can also spend months adapting to treatment you never had to accept.
The stakes are high because so much of a working day runs through one person. In 2015 Gallup reported that managers account for “at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units.” A Gallup article from the same year described a Gallup study of 7,272 US adults. It found that “one in two had left their job to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career.” Both figures were published in 2015, and the second comes from a US study only. But they show how much rides on the person you report to.
This guide works in two stages. First it helps you sort out which kind of problem you have. We call the three kinds poor skill, poor fit and harmful conduct. It then walks through the steps you can take in order, with what each step costs and what you should have ready before you take it. There are limits to what it can do, and it’s better to say them now. It can’t tell you which kind of manager you have, because only you can see your situation from the inside. It isn’t legal advice. It also can’t promise that every step will be open to you, so the second-last section is about where the ladder breaks.
If you’re being harassed or threatened right now, go straight to the section on harassment and abuse. It’s the second section, and it’s placed early on purpose.
How to deal with a bad manager: start by working out which kind you have
Before you decide what to do, it helps to name what’s actually wrong. We sort bad managers into three kinds. This split is our own judgment, built from the sources in this post. It isn’t a tested tool, and nobody has measured how many managers fall into each kind. But it’s a useful way to stop yourself from reaching for the wrong step.
The first kind is poor skill. This manager isn’t good at the job of managing. They may leave priorities unclear or give no feedback at all. They may lose track of what was agreed, or put off decisions until the deadline has passed. None of it is aimed at you, and the whole team tends to live with the same muddle.
The second kind is poor fit. This manager may be perfectly capable. The trouble is that the way they work clashes with the way you work. They might want updates every few hours while you do your best work in long, quiet stretches. They might care about speed above all while you care about getting the detail right. Neither of you is wrong, but the friction is real and it wears you down.
The third kind is harmful conduct. This is sustained hostility, humiliation or punishment for speaking up. It also includes treatment linked to who you are, such as your race or sex, your age or a disability. Researchers have a name for one version of this. Bennett Tepper defined abusive supervision in 2000 as “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviours, excluding physical contact.” That wording is quoted in a 2022 systematic review of the research on abusive supervision, and the original is Tepper’s paper in the Academy of Management Journal. It’s a research definition and not a legal one. Still, the word “sustained” is worth holding on to. One bad day doesn’t make a manager harmful, and our list of signs of a bullying manager shows what a pattern looks like.
The table below puts the three kinds side by side. The examples in it are illustrative.
| Poor skill | Poor fit | Harmful conduct | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it looks like in your week | Priorities change without warning. Questions sit unanswered for days. Reviews arrive late or not at all. | The manager is capable, but you clash on pace, detail or how work gets checked. You spend energy translating yourself. | Repeated put-downs or shouting. Being singled out after you raised a concern. Remarks about your race, sex, age or another protected trait. |
| A question to test it | Does everyone on the team get the same muddle? | Would a colleague with a different style do fine with this manager? | Is it repeated, aimed at you, and hard to explain as a mistake? |
| First sensible step | One clear request, then notes | One clear request about how you work together | Start a record now and get advice. Skip “trying harder”. |
| Exit rule | Stop trying to fix it once you’ve made the request, the time you set has passed and nothing has moved. | Move on when the clash remains after you’ve both adjusted, because effort doesn’t change someone’s style. | No waiting period. Use the formal routes and outside advice. |
The kinds need different next steps because the same step can be right for one and wrong for another. Going to HR about a disorganized manager is premature. HR can’t make someone better at planning, and you’ll have spent a formal step on a problem a conversation might have fixed. But for harmful conduct, going to HR or another senior person may be the right first move. Asking a hostile manager to change their tone one more time just keeps you in harm’s way for longer.
Real managers don’t always sit neatly in one column. A manager can be two kinds at once, such as disorganized and a poor fit for how you work. A manager can also move from one kind to another. You’re also judging all of this from inside the problem while you’re tired and upset. So there are two misreads to watch for. One is treating poor fit as harm. A manager whose style grates on you every day can start to feel like an enemy even when nothing they do is aimed at you. The other is treating harm as poor skill. It’s easy to explain away a pattern of put-downs as “just how they are” when it’s something you shouldn’t have to accept.
If your manager is a micromanager, an absent boss or someone who takes credit for your work, that’s a poor-skill or poor-fit case. Our guide to managing up has a playbook for each of those, and it’s the place to start for managing a bad manager day to day. If what’s bothering you is one decision you disagree with, that’s a narrower problem, and it’s covered in how to push back on your manager.
What if it is harassment or abuse, not poor management?
If you think your manager’s behavior falls in the third column, the order of steps changes. You don’t have to spend months adjusting first. This also isn’t a problem you can solve with a better-worded conversation. Our guide to giving feedback to your boss already makes that point, because no script protects you from a manager who punishes people for speaking. What follows is what two official bodies say, so you know where you stand and who to ask. It isn’t legal advice, and we can’t tell you whether you have a case. Only someone who knows the law where you work and the facts of your situation can do that.
If you’re in the US, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sets out what counts as unlawful harassment. The EEOC’s harassment page says it is “unwelcome conduct that is based on” a list of protected traits. The list starts with race, color, religion and sex. It goes on to national origin, older age (from 40), disability and genetic information. The page notes that sex includes sexual orientation, transgender status and pregnancy. The EEOC says the conduct becomes unlawful when putting up with it is a condition of keeping your job. It also becomes unlawful when it is “severe or pervasive” enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would find intimidating, hostile or abusive. The page is also clear about what falls short. It says “petty slights, annoyances, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not rise to the level of illegality.”
The EEOC also treats retaliation as a separate wrong. Its retaliation page lists examples, including a performance review “lower than it should be” and a transfer “to a less desirable position.” Making your work harder on purpose is on the list too. Protected activity includes telling a supervisor or manager about discrimination or harassment, and answering questions in your employer’s investigation of harassment. There are also time limits. The EEOC says you have 180 days to file a charge, and state laws may extend that. Federal employees have 45 days to contact an EEO counselor. Don’t use those numbers to work out your own deadline. Use them as a reason to get advice early. The EEOC’s harassment page also says its information is being reviewed and will be revised. That’s one more reason to check with someone who knows the current position.
If you’re in the UK, Acas is the public body that advises on workplace disputes. Its page for people who think they’re being bullied says it’s “usually best to raise the problem informally first.” But it also says that if your manager is the person bullying you, you can talk to someone else. Your organization’s policy may name who that should be, such as another manager or HR. Acas suggests keeping a record of each incident. The next section covers what that record should contain. If informal steps haven’t worked, or the situation feels too serious for them, Acas says you can raise a formal complaint called a grievance. Acas points you to the Acas helpline for advice on your own situation.
If you’re in India, we haven’t checked the law and won’t guess at it. Start with your company’s HR policy, which should say who to go to with a complaint about a manager. Also get local advice from an employment lawyer, or from a union or employee body if you have one.
There’s one more thing the EEOC definition makes clear. “Bad” and “unlawful” aren’t the same. A manager can be rude, unfair and exhausting to work for without breaking any law. Poor management with no link to a protected characteristic isn’t harassment under the EEOC’s definition. That doesn’t make it fine, and it doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. It just means the rest of this guide is about steps that don’t depend on the law being on your side.
If you’re still trying to work out whether what’s happening is a pattern, our post on dealing with a bully manager goes through what it tends to look like. But if you feel unsafe, you don’t need to have it all sorted before you tell someone.
Can you fix it yourself before you escalate?
The first two steps for poor skill and poor fit are ones you take on your own. You make a change you can control, and you keep a record in case it doesn’t work. Both steps are cheap, and they make every later step stronger.
Adjust: what counts as having tried
Later on, you may need to say honestly that you tried to fix this. So it helps to decide now what “tried” means. Our suggestion is one clear request, made once, in the form the feedback-to-your-boss guide teaches. Before you make it, pick a time window such as four or six weeks. That window is the point at which you’ll decide whether anything has changed. Setting it in advance stops you from waiting forever, and it also stops you from giving up after three days.
An adjustment isn’t quietly working around the problem. It also isn’t waiting for your manager to notice how hard things are for you. Neither of those gives your manager a fair chance to change, and neither leaves a trace that you tried. If the problem is a known boss type, the managing up guide has specific adjustments for each one. If the trouble began because you lost your temper with your manager, start by repairing that relationship first.
Skip this step for harmful conduct. A clear request to someone who is targeting you puts you in front of them again with no protection.
Document: what to write and what to keep
Keep a short note each time something happens that matters. Acas’s list is a good model for what goes in it. You write down what happened and how it affected you. You note the date and time, any evidence such as emails or screenshots, and anyone who saw it. Acas adds that bullying tends to happen out of sight, so a lack of witnesses shouldn’t stop you reporting it.
A note you can use later reads like a plain account of an event. It says what was said or done, when it happened and what it changed in your work. A note you can’t use reads like a diary of feelings. It might say your manager is “impossible” or “always” undermines you, with no dates and no examples. Your feelings are real, and the Acas list includes how the event affected you. But the person reading your notes later wasn’t there. They need to see what you saw, and a judgment of character gives them nothing to check.
Write each note close to the time, while the details are fresh. Keep the notes somewhere you control, such as a personal notebook or a document only you can open. If you want to see the same idea from the other side, our post on performance documentation shows what managers are told to write when they record a problem with someone’s work.
One caution, and this is our judgment rather than a rule we can point to. Keeping your own account of what happened is different from copying confidential company material. Forwarding client files or internal reports to a personal email can break company policy, even if your reason is a good one. So check your company’s policy on what you’re allowed to keep before you save anything that isn’t yours. Keep the notes factual and short. They’re a record rather than a case file, and they don’t guarantee any outcome.
What does each step up the ladder cost, and what should you have in hand first?
If adjusting hasn’t worked, there are four more steps. The order we suggest is talking to your manager’s manager, then going to HR. After that comes moving to another team, and last comes leaving. That order is our judgment and not a law. You can skip steps if one doesn’t fit your situation. The order is different for harmful conduct anyway, as the section above explains. HR or outside advice may come first. Each step also costs you something. It might cost goodwill, time or your standing with your manager. Once you’ve taken some steps, you can’t take them back. So before each one, look hard at what it will cost and what you need to have ready.
Talking to your manager’s manager
A skip-level conversation is a meeting with the person your manager reports to. Its purpose is to give that person facts and one request. It isn’t the place to complain about your manager’s character, because a senior person can act on a fact but can’t do much with “he’s hopeless.” Bring your notes, one or two specific effects on the work and the one thing you want to change.
Here’s an illustrative example. It’s a composite, so Emily and the people around her aren’t real.
“I don’t know what I’m working on until Thursday.” That’s how Emily described her week to a friend. She’s a marketing analyst, and her manager Greg changed priorities without telling anyone. Twice in six weeks, Emily had finished a campaign report only to learn that Greg had promised a different one. She had let it slide for months before saying anything, which she later admitted made it harder to raise. When she finally did, she made one clear request. She asked Greg to agree a short list of priorities with her each Monday. He said yes, and for a week it happened. After that it stopped, and Emily’s six-week window ran out with nothing changed.
So she asked Greg’s manager Diane for twenty minutes. Emily didn’t call Greg disorganized. She said that two finished reports had been dropped in six weeks, and she named the dates. She explained that a client deadline had slipped because of the second one. Her one request was that Diane help make the Monday priority list a fixed habit for the team.
Diane listened and took notes. She said she’d talk to Greg, but she didn’t say what she would do. A few days later Greg was noticeably cooler with Emily, and she guessed he’d heard about the meeting. The Monday list came back for two weeks and then began to slip again. Nothing got worse, but nothing was fixed either. Emily had her notes and a senior person who now knew the facts, and she was still working for Greg.
That’s what a skip-level conversation can cost. Your manager may hear about it, and the relationship may cool. The senior person may side with your manager, because they’ve known them longer and rely on them more. You may be seen as someone who goes around the line. Whether that’s a fair risk is a judgment only you can make. The senior person also owes you nothing, and they may do nothing at all. If you’d like to know what managers are told about these meetings, our post on skip-level meetings is written for the person on the other side of the table.
Going to HR
What Acas and the EEOC say about formal routes is in the harassment section above, so it isn’t repeated here. But Acas has a separate page on grievances, and it adds some details worth knowing before you go to HR.
| UK (Acas) | US (EEOC) | |
|---|---|---|
| When to go formal | When raising it informally hasn’t worked, or the issue is very serious | When the conduct may be harassment or retaliation as the EEOC defines them (see the harassment section) |
| Bringing someone with you | Employers should let you bring a relevant person to a grievance meeting | Read your company’s complaint policy, and ask HR before the meeting whether you can bring someone |
| If you disagree with the result | Employers should let you appeal | Check whether your company’s policy offers a review or appeal. Filing a charge with the EEOC is a separate route outside the company. |
| Timing | Raise the grievance as soon as you can | 180 days to file a charge with the EEOC, which state laws may extend |
| Where to get advice | The Acas helpline | The EEOC, or a local employment lawyer |
The Acas guide to the grievance procedure says your employer should let you bring a relevant person to a grievance meeting. It also says your employer should let you appeal if you disagree with the outcome. It says to raise the grievance as soon as you can. Acas adds that your organization should have its own grievance procedure, and that it should be in writing and easy to find. That procedure is where you’ll learn how to raise a grievance and who it goes to. Acas’s bullying page also points you to your organization’s own policy, so read that policy before you raise anything.
This is how we’d think about HR, though it’s our judgment and not a fact about any particular HR team. HR is part of the company. It’s there to deal with problems that affect the company, and yours may well be one of them. But you should assume that what you say may be written down and shared with whoever needs to know. That includes your manager, in some cases. So bring facts and dates rather than feelings. Bring your notes and say what you’re asking for.
The biggest cost of this step is that a formal complaint is hard to undo. Once you’ve raised a grievance, there’s a record, and your manager may learn about it. If things change for you after you raise a concern, write those changes down too. That includes a sudden lower review, new scrutiny or a move to worse work. The EEOC lists those kinds of changes as possible retaliation when they follow a complaint about discrimination or harassment. None of this is legal advice. If the stakes feel high, talk to the Acas helpline, the EEOC or an employment lawyer before you go formal.
Moving to another team or manager
A transfer can be the step with the least conflict. That’s its main appeal in our judgment, because you don’t need to make a complaint or win an argument. You just stop reporting to the person. But it raises three questions you need to answer for yourself first.
The first question is whether there’s anywhere to go. A transfer only works if your company has another team that needs what you do. There may not be one in a small company or in a specialist role. Look at internal job postings, and ask colleagues in other teams what work is coming up.
The second question is how the move will look. Some people may read it as running away from a problem. Your old manager may also be asked about you, either formally or over coffee, so a transfer doesn’t fully cut the tie. That’s one reason it helps to leave on as good terms as you can, even when the relationship has been hard.
The third question is how to ask. Frame the request around the work you want to do next, not the manager you want to leave. “I’d like to move into the analytics team because I want to work closer to the data” is a request someone can say yes to. “I can’t work with Greg any more” turns your request into a complaint, and it puts whoever hears it in an awkward spot.
This is the step the poor-fit exit rule in the table points to. If the clash with your manager is about style, and it stays after you’ve both tried, a different manager may solve it without anyone being in the wrong.
Leaving
Leaving is the last step, and it’s sometimes the right one. The Gallup study of US adults published in 2015 shows how common it was among the people it asked, since one in two had left a job to get away from a manager at some point. That doesn’t prove leaving is right for you. But it does mean you wouldn’t be unusual if you did. When to leave depends on which kind of problem you have.
If your manager has poor skill, you can afford to give it more time. Managers can learn, and a new priority or a new boss above them can change things. But more time doesn’t mean forever. If you made the request, your window passed and nothing has moved, the decision is yours. You’ve done what was fair, and you don’t owe anyone another year.
If it’s poor fit, leaving may make sense sooner. A clash of style doesn’t go away with effort, because neither of you is doing anything wrong. If a transfer isn’t possible, leaving may be the only way to work for someone who suits you.
If it’s harmful conduct, you have no duty to stay and put up with it. But get advice before you resign, because the way you leave can matter. Acas’s bullying page says you might be able to claim constructive dismissal if you had to leave because of severe bullying your employer did nothing about. That only applies if you have the legal status of an employee. The page also advises thinking about resignation very carefully. US readers have a different reason not to wait, which is the EEOC time limits in the harassment section. Linking these to your resignation is our inference, not legal advice. So check with the Acas helpline or a local lawyer before you hand in notice.
Whatever the kind, a few things are worth doing first. Line up your next role if you can, because looking is easier while you still have an income. Keep your own account of what happened, in case you need it later. Read your contract too, so you know your notice period and any other terms. Those details are yours to check, since they differ from one employer to the next.
Where does this ladder break?
The ladder above assumes a few things that aren’t true everywhere. It assumes there’s a manager above yours who will listen. It assumes there’s an HR team that is separate from your manager, and another team you could move to. In a small company none of that may exist. If your manager is the founder, there’s no one above them to talk to. If HR reports to your manager, or to your manager’s close ally, going to HR may feel the same as going to your manager. Some steps simply aren’t there in those cases, and you may reach “leave” much faster than this guide suggests.
The sort you made at the start can also change. A poor-skill manager can turn hostile after you go over their head or raise a grievance. If that happens, your case has moved into the harmful-conduct column, and the order flips. Retaliation is the point to stop working through the steps and get advice. So the table near the top isn’t a label you apply once. You may need to come back to it after each step and ask whether your answer is still the same.
You’re also judging from inside the problem, which makes the sort harder than it looks. You may read a poor fit as harm because you’re exhausted. You may also read harm as poor skill because you don’t want it to be true. A trusted outsider can help here. That might be a mentor, or a friend who doesn’t work at your company. In the UK it could be the Acas helpline. Talking it through with someone who isn’t caught up in it is part of the sorting, not a sign you can’t handle it.
The evidence behind this guide is also thin where it matters most. The one research definition we could verify is from 2000. The Gallup figures are from 2015. We found no reliable source on how often any of these steps works, so we haven’t claimed that any of them does.
Even a well-sorted, well-documented case may end with you leaving anyway. You can make the request, keep careful notes and take the right steps, and still find that nothing changes. That can be a reasonable outcome rather than a failure. If you’re weighing what comes next for your career while you decide, our guide to growing your career without becoming a manager is a good place to think it through.
Say it out loud before the real meeting
Every step in this guide involves a conversation you’d probably rather not have. There’s the request to your manager and the meeting with their boss. There may also be the transfer request or the talk with HR. Reading about these conversations is one thing, but saying the words out loud is another. If you want a sense of how you handle disagreement in general, the conflict resolution assessment takes a few minutes. Our guide to conflict resolution for individual contributors goes further.
You can also practice the conversation itself. Merlin can play your manager or your skip-level, so you can try your opening line and hear a reply before it counts. It runs natively in Slack and Microsoft Teams, or on the web. If you use Merlin on your own, your organization doesn’t see what you discuss. If your company assigns you a plan, HR receives session summaries and engagement level, but never the details of your conversations. If what’s happening to you is harassment or abuse, a practice session is the wrong place for it. Take it to HR or a lawyer, or to Acas or the EEOC.
Practice the conversation with Merlin before you book the meeting.