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What to Do When Your Boss Betrays You
Have you worked for an awful boss?
I have. And it stayed with me for 15 years before I learned to let go of the experience.
Ron Carucci, in Harvard Business Review, agrees that this experience can have a long-term impact on our work-life experiences and expectations.
“Boss betrayal can hinder our ability to trust others, remain optimistic and resilient during difficult times, and accurately judge complex situations. Our brains often process betrayal as trauma, and we expect that trauma to be repeated. Hurt and guarded, we sometimes engage in behaviors that are meant to be protective but have unintended consequences. When this happens, it’s not our boss’s behavior that should concern us.
“It’s our own.”
By Ron Carucci, Harvard Business Review
I have read many bloggers share their negative work experiences and frame it as trauma. While I can’t speak to whether this is true, I believe our brain does process the event like it does trauma. Also, I believe that we sometimes behave, later, with negative and self-destructive behavior.
