What Good Leaders Can Learn from Bad Bosses with Mita Mallick | 351

Summary

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This Is Woman’s Work with Nicole Kalil

Episode 351: What Good Leaders Can Learn from Bad Bosses with Mita Mallick

Release Date: October 8, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, host Nicole Kalil and guest Mita Mallick—corporate changemaker, LinkedIn Top Voice, and author of The Devil Emails at Midnight—dive into a refreshingly honest conversation about “bad bosses,” leadership learning, and workplace culture. They explore how bad leadership is formed, what good leaders can learn from negative examples, and practical ways for managers to self-reflect, grow, and foster healthier teams. The discussion is candid and nuanced, infused with humor, empathy, and a no-nonsense approach to rewriting the leadership playbook—especially through the lens of women’s authentic experiences at work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bad Bosses Aren’t Born—They’re Made

([03:41]–[06:46])

• Leadership is Learned: Both Nicole and Mita emphasize that no one is inherently a bad boss; rather, it’s learned through circumstances and modeled behaviors.
• Three Sources of Bad Leadership (Mita):
  1. Market Stress: External pressures like industry changes, competition, or organizational crises.
  2. Trickle-down Behaviors: Leaders model what they've seen, often unconsciously mimicking previous bad bosses.
  3. Personal Catastrophe: Personal turmoil spills into professional life, leading to negative behaviors at work.

“The opening of The Devil Emails at Midnight starts with, ‘I’ve been a bad boss. And chances are so have you.’ ...I have much more empathy for my bad bosses than maybe I did five years ago because I’ve been one.” – Mita Mallick [04:14]

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2. Self-Awareness: The Mirror Test

([06:48]–[09:23])

• Self-Reflection: Good leaders courageously reflect on their own behavior after meetings or tough moments.
• Journaling as a Tool: Mita suggests dedicating a brief weekly review to personally auditing your actions and impact.
• Feedback Culture: Beware the trap of seeking praise when asking for feedback; embrace genuine input instead.

“Most of us, if you walk out of a meeting...if you have the courage to sit in silence and think about what just happened, most of us have instincts that something didn't land well... Do you have the courage to sit with yourself and be self-reflecting?” – Mita Mallick [07:06]

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3. Classic Bad Boss Behaviors—and Why They Persist

([10:08]–[14:28])

• Micromanagement: Still rampant, especially with new managers unsure how to shift from doing to directing.
• Inaccessibility: Leaders too busy for their teams send a clear signal about priorities.
• Leading with Fear: Short-term results may be gained, but long-term exhaustion and attrition are inevitable.

“If you consistently email at midnight but don't have time for your teams during the day, I'm not sure why you're leading.” – Mita Mallick [10:46]

“There’s nothing like micromanagement to kill the joy at work.” – Mita Mallick [11:27]

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4. Modeling Healthy Leadership & Setting Boundaries

([14:28]–[18:37])

• Email/Work Hour Boundaries: Sending emails at odd hours—despite disclaimers—can unintentionally pressure employees. Model the work-life balance you want your team to have.
• Attractive Leadership: Leaders must make leadership look appealing—not punishing—if they want to inspire new leaders.

“You can put all the taglines or say all the things and be as well-intentioned as possible. And sometimes we inadvertently model something.” – Nicole Kalil [17:12]

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5. Making Time & Delegating as Core Leadership Skills

([18:41]–[21:30])

• Audit Your Calendar: Regularly declutter meetings and ensure 1:1s are prioritized and not repeatedly delayed.
• Delegate to Develop: Leaders must resist the urge to do and instead empower others, nurturing future leaders.

“The number one job of leaders [is] to develop more leaders.” – Mita Mallick [20:46]

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6. Servant Leadership vs. Doing It All

([21:30]–[23:07])

• Healthy Interpretation: Servant leadership means being in service to the team—supporting their growth—not protecting them from “grunt work” that helps them learn.
• Teach and Train: Empower juniors through responsibility and coaching, not by shielding them.

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7. Getting Credit & Addressing Stealthy Sabotage

([23:13]–[24:55])

• Advocating for Yourself: Document your contributions, ask to present, and make your work visible.
• Amplifying Others: Publicly credit colleagues’ ideas to foster reciprocity and a culture of recognition.
• Limits with Credit Stealers: If your boss continually takes credit, consider an exit plan; recognition is tied to promotion and advancement.

“The more we give credit to each other, you’ll see it coming back.” – Mita Mallick [24:17]

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8. Retention as the Ultimate Leadership Metric

([25:13]–[27:11])

• People Leave Bosses, Not Jobs: High turnover is a warning sign of leadership issues, not perks or benefits shortages.
• Inclusion & Recognition: Employees stay where they feel seen, valued, and recognized for their work.

“We’re chasing the wrong things. We’re trying to do band-aid solutions rather than actually going to the root cause.” – Mita Mallick [25:36]

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9. Gender, Bias, and Stereotypes in Leadership

([27:11]–[31:04])

• Gendered Labels: Challenge yourself to apply feedback and labels equally to men and women; scrutinize bias in “difficult” or “aggressive” attributions.
• Ask Open Questions: Interrupt group bias by deliberately considering if the same standards are being applied across genders.
• Different Leaders for Different People: A good boss for one may be a bad one for another; context and subjective fit matter.

“If you are going to put a label on a woman, ask if you would put the same label on a man.” – Mita Mallick [28:32]

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10. Managing Up & Knowing When to Move On

([31:01]–[33:29])

• Managing Up Tactics: Retrain bosses by subtly modeling the behavior you want and channeling feedback through process tweaks (e.g., changing response timing, using shared docs).
• Action Plan for Surviving Bad Bosses: If you must endure a difficult boss, focus on what you aim to gain from the stint, set an “expiration date,” and maintain boundaries to protect mental health.

“You can certainly try to retrain them and you can try to create more processes and ways of working as a team and so they don’t feel personally attacked by it. But there is a bit of managing up…know what you want to get out of this moment in your career.” – Mita Mallick [33:06]

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Memorable Quotes

• “Bad leadership isn’t gendered and anyone can be an asshole.”
  – Nicole Kalil [02:51]
• “It’s hard to be what you can’t see, right?”
  – Nicole Kalil [03:20]
• “Fear drives short-term results. ... But long term, it has disastrous results.”
  – Mita Mallick [13:31]
• "Check your own behavior, make adjustments, keep learning. Good leaders aren’t born, they’re made.”
  – Nicole Kalil [33:54] (conclusion)

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• 03:41: Introduction of Mita Mallick & book premise—bad bosses are made, not born.
• 07:06: Self-awareness, reflection, and journaling as key leadership habits.
• 10:46: The ubiquity and consequences of micromanaging and out-of-hours emails.
• 14:28: Boundaries in digital communication and being a leadership model.
• 18:41: Strategies for leaders to make meaningful time for their teams.
• 20:46: Shifting from doer to developer of leaders.
• 23:38: Self-advocacy for recognition and the risks of working under a credit-stealing boss.
• 25:13: Employee retention as a signal of leadership health.
• 28:32: Gender bias and the double standard in leadership labels.
• 31:50: Managing mental health under bad bosses; exit and “managing up” strategies.

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Actionable Takeaways

• Leaders must regularly and honestly self-reflect on their own impact.
• Audit your schedule to prioritize real connections over unnecessary meetings.
• Model healthy boundaries; your behavior sets organizational norms.
• Actively develop those you lead—let others step up.
• Give and ask for honest feedback.
• Recognize and credit the work of others consistently.
• Use retention as a reality check: perks don’t replace healthy leadership.
• Scrutinize gendered assumptions about leaders and hold yourself/others to the same standards.
• If you’re led by a bad boss, document your learning and set boundaries—sometimes survival is strategic.

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Final Words

Nicole reminds us that leadership is a choice and a series of learned behaviors—ones we are each responsible for examining, evolving, and modeling. Mita’s wisdom and practical tools offer hope that we can all be better, more inclusive, and more authentic leaders—by growing from even our worst workplace experiences.

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For further resources and links (including to Mita Mallick’s book), see episode show notes or visit nicolekalil.com.

Transcript

[A]

Upgrade your laundry routine with a durable and reliable Maytag Laundry Pair at Lowes. Like the new Maytag Washer and Dryer with performance enhanced stain fighting power designed to cut through serious dirt and grime. And what's great is this laundry pair is in stock and ready for delivery when you need it the most. Don't miss out. Shop Maytag in store or online today at Lowe's. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast and even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. I am Nicole Kahlil, and you're listening to the this Is Woman's Work podcast, where together we're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. And today we get to talk about bad bosses and friend I have been waiting for this one because we all know them. We've all experienced them. The micromanagers who think hovering as a leadership strategy. The glory stealers who conveniently forget who actually did the work. The masters of the midnight email who have us wondering if it's okay to actually have a life outside of work. Honestly, we could spend the next 30 minutes just trading war stories. Toxic. Ridiculous. Inappropriate. Pick your flavor. We've all been there, and I need to be upfront about my own bias. When I think of bad bosses, my brain usually defaults to men because statistically they're in more leadership positions. Because historically workplaces were built by and for them, and because, well, my lived experience. But let me be really clear. Women can be terrible bosses. Too bad leadership isn't gendered and anyone can be an asshole. So the more important thing here isn't my bias. It's understanding that leadership is learned. Nobody is a born leader or a born dictator. If you've worked for a bad boss, you likely either mimic what you saw or you swing hard in the opposite direction. And I have to believe that most of us want to be good leaders. It just might be harder to do that if we haven't experienced it. It's hard to be what you can't see, right? Which is why today's conversation really matters and why I'm so excited to have it. Our guest today is Mina Malik, a Wall Street Journal and USA Today best selling author who's on a mission to fix what's broken in our workplaces. She's a corporate change maker with a proven track record of transforming businesses. A highly sought after speaker who has advised both Fortune 500 companies and scrappy startups, and a LinkedIn top voice who regularly contributes to places like Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Entrepreneur. And her new book, the Devil Emails at Midnight, what Good Leaders Can Learn from Bad Bosses is both a title that made me cackle, literally out loud, and what will become a necessary read.

[B]

For all of us.

[A]

So, Mita, thank you for joining us today. As I said in my intro, we could just like, you know, I mean.

[B]

Nicole, what can I say? After that introduction, we're done. Thank you. Thank you so much. I so appreciate that. Thank you.

[A]

Oh my gosh. Well, I love that I, I don't want this to be a venting session, though it really could be. So I want to start by talking about something that you say in your book and that I basically stole and put in my intro, and that is that bad bosses aren't born, bad bosses are made. Tell us what you mean by that and what are you seeing or what are some of these really common ways that we're learning unconsciously how to be a bad boss.

[B]

So the opening of the Devil Emails at Midnight starts with, I've been a bad boss. And chances are so have you. And I have now as I sit here in this conversation with you, much more empathy for my bad bosses than maybe I did five years ago because I've been one. And bad bosses, who are they? They are usually misdirected, hurt, misguided individuals who are wreaking some level of havoc in the workplace and sometimes also in their homes. And so I've seen bad boss behavior creep up three different times that I've studied and researched. Number one is something's happening in the marketplace. Oh, we're sitting in the US right now. Tariffs continue to be a big part of the conversation. You have a competitor who comes out with an innovation that you didn't expect, goes gangbusters. You have a merger and acquisition that's failed that people are trying to bury. No one wants to talk about it. So that's number one. Number two, as I say, in our house, poo poo trickles down. Right? I have children and we say that that trickles down. So if you are working for me, Nicole, and I'm the bad boss, and this is your first time leading teams and people, it's a learned behavior. You don't know any better. You might just be grabbing onto some of those behaviors that I'm exhibiting. And then number three, as I talk about in the Devil emails at midnight, something cataclysmic, an earthquake has happened in your personal life. You've lost someone you've loved, you've had a miscarriage, you're struggling with fertility, a divorce, breakup, move. You're sick, someone's sick. I could go on and on. So many things happening in the world today, and that is causing you grief, stress, and you're coming into work. We try to compartmentalize these things. It doesn't really work. You try to leave it at home and you try to show up at work. And whether it's you're feeling a loss of control, you're feeling angry, you're feeling sad, you are going to take it out on the people closest to you. And sometimes that is your team.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. I'm so glad that you said that you have more empathy for your bad bosses, because I feel the same. And I can look back and at my leadership journey and pinpoint several times where I'm like, horrified what I did or what I said. And I will reiterate what you said is bad bosses, first and foremost are just humans, like all of us. And we make mistakes and we have challenging times and we're learning as we're going. And I feel like when you're in a leadership position, there is an inherent extra responsibility or it's necessary that we clean ourselves up a little bit more, a little bit faster. I always think those situations might explain it, but it doesn't excuse it.

[B]

That part. Yes.

[A]

So rather than talking about all of the bad bosses, how do we start with ourselves? How do we look at what we're doing and evaluate it? Because I think it's easy to look at somebody else and be like, you know, absolutely. So how do we begin to do that?

[B]

Well, I love how self aware you are and I hope people listening think about this. Most of us know when we've behaved badly. The Devil emails at midnight is not for the leaders who were so toxic and terrifying. They've made headlines. They've wreaked so much havoc on their organizations, they don't need another executive coach, quite frankly, they need therapy and they need help. It's for the rest of us. And so most of us, if you walk out of a meeting, hang up with a phone call, come out of a big presentation, if you have the courage to sit in silence and think about what Just happened. Most of us have instincts that didn't land well. I'm watching how people were reacting. I'm rewinding in my head something, something's amiss there, something's awry. I need to think about that. So do you have the courage to sit with yourself and be self reflecting? Now? I'm not saying that you have to do this for hours on day. I'm saying what if you actually spent 10 minutes at the end of every week? And I'm a writer, as you know, writing is healing for me. I used to journal a lot personally. I have career journals now. That's how I've been constructing my books. I go back through things I've observed and thinked about, thought about and witnessed and researched. What if you just kind of jotted down how you think your week went? You could also pull up your calendar to prompt different things. But think about that, that's really important. I think the second thing we talked about self improvement, second thing is look for the signs. The signs are there. Sometimes we ignore them. I hope companies are doing exit interviews. Maybe they're canceled. They better not be. But you know, people will tell you things. Sometimes they won't be honest, but there are signs. If. If I work for Nicole and I have had five people leaving my team over the last month. Who's asking the questions as to why these people are leaving? I think about am I watching the non verbals? Are people suddenly quiet around me? Are they anxious? Are they less engaged than they used to be? Am I the last person to know what's happening in the business? All signs of something's amiss. And then the last thing is how often are you asking for coaching from others and feedback and we can get into that. I think the open ended question is the worst. I had a boss, one of my bad bosses at the end of my performance review every year would say, mita, tell me what you think I should be doing differently. And the one time I channeled Brene Brown, I was kind and clear. He lost his mind.

[A]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

That is not what happened. That's not, not true. And then guess what I did after that, Nicole? I just smiled. The next time he asked that question, I said, everything's fine. Yeah, all good.

[A]

Yeah. I find so often when we ask for feedback, what we're really asking for is praise. And we get so. Yes, caught off guard and defensive when we get what we actually asked for, which is a problem in and of itself. Okay, so you said a lot of incredibly important things in there. And, you know, there is this distinction between you need therapy and just, hey, this is an opportunity for growth. And I. Again, my. It's anecdotal, but my own experience is, yeah, you feel bad. You're not proud of yourself. There's some instinct that.

[B]

Ooh.

[A]

That didn't go the way I wanted it to. I know a trigger for me is I. I start overthinking. So if I'm still thinking about that interaction hours later, days later, most likely there's something in me that's letting me know that there is an opportunity for repair or discussion or collaboration. Okay. I think there are a few things that we all would agree is bad boss behavior, and yet it's still happening. Like micromanaging comes to mind or emailing outside of normal working hours. Let's identify a few of those. So what are some of those things?

[B]

If you consistently email at midnight but don't have time for your teams during the day, I'm not sure why you're leading. And I talk about that. I mean, I treat my calendar like my wardrobe. Declutter, recycle. People will say to me, I don't have enough time to meet with my teams. Yes, you do. What are meetings? I mean, listen, if you get anything out of this conversation today, have the courage to cancel a meeting. How many times Nicole, have we showed up to a meeting and everyone's like, chitty chatting, bantering for, like, 10 minutes, and then you realize, Meeta's not in it. She's the decision maker. Oh, she's on vacation. Or actually, we don't need to have this meeting anymore because the project's canceled or, oh, this meeting should be discussed elsewhere. So this idea. Time is the most precious commodity. That's the thing that in any relationship is the complaint. You don't have enough time for me. So if you are leading teams, make time for your people. So that's. That's, like, one of the first things I would say, you know, the second is really, you know, micromanagement. God, there's nothing like micromanagement to kill the joy at work for me. And so what I challenge people to think about. And this, Nicole, happens often when you go from doing to directing for the first time. The first time I managed a team, it was a circus. No one had. No one told me what to do. I never got any training, but no one taught me. It's like, you're not. Yeah. I'm now overseeing Nicole's career. I'm not doing her job for her. I'm teaching her how to do it and helping her and coaching her and training her. And so we hire talent and I say, you hired me to do a job, let me do the job, don't do the job for me. Right. And there's a difference between micromanaging and accountability. Cause people will push back and say, well I need to know what my team's doing. I have standards. I'm like, you can still do that without doing the work for them. And then the last one I'll throw out there, which is really one that I'm still appalled about. And I think sometimes it is the exacerbated behavior. But I still people people leading with fear. Fear drives short term results. You know, I worked for my boss, Medusa, who I call nicknamed her that for a reason. It's in the devil emails at midnight. And, and I had never at this point in my life had anyone scream at me. Not my parents, not my husband, not my brother, certainly didn't tolerate it from friends. And here I am working for an adult having full blown blown tantrums. This is the boss who threw a Chanel shoe at my colleague. Right. It's like how does this happen? And how do we allow someone to stay in a workplace like that when they're treating with people with so much disrespect and so we can go on and on. Those are some of the top three.

[A]

And I love that you use the word appalled because that is, it is, it's appalling. And I didn't think about that. I'm so glad you called it out. Under no circumstances should we as adults forget leaders, but as adults be screaming or yelling at co workers or people in the workplace like this is just ridiculous.

[B]

And I will tell you, I have, I have shouted and screamed, particularly after I lost my father. Really suddenly I talk about this. I became the bad boss that I was trying to run away from. But I also, to your point, knew that I had done that and afterwards apologized. And so what happens is in moments of stress we are drawn to fear based leadership. Isn't it interesting because if we can scare ourselves and each other, we might move a little faster. But long term it has disastrous results. Because guess what? If I come to work every day scared, at some point I'm exhausted about being scared. I just can't. That adrenaline, that adrenaline rush is going to go away.

[A]

Yeah, my version of that was biting people's heads off. I didn't scream or yell, but I was like real snarky and exactly what you said. I felt disgusted with myself pretty quickly. And. And the longer I waited, the worse, you know, to address it or repair it, the worse I felt.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So I've seen some people do something at the bottom of their email that says something to the effect of, I'm emailing when it's most convenient for me. You can respond when it's most convenient for you. I kind of like that. Like, letting people know, like, hey, I'm doing this for my reasons. But that doesn't mean that you should be emailing back at midnight or whatever. Any thoughts on that?

[B]

I. I like that. And it works if for the following. Okay, I'm the boss and I write this on my response. Listen, I have. I have young kids. I've many times done the evening shift on email, but if I put that in my note and I'm sending these notes and then Nicole starts responding, who works for me? And I respond back, game over. So this is often what happens, right? It's not that you just send that response. It's then, oh, and I have this like, disclaimer, but then Nicole responds and I respond back, and then you're in a back and forth. And then Nicole feels obligated. Right, Right. And so I think that's really important to think about. And I also ask, like, I've been guilty of this. I just want to get it out of my inbox onto yours. Why does it have to be BE at midnight? Can I write it in a notebook? Can I put it in the teams doc? Can I wait to tell you in person the next day? So this anxiety we have on staying on top of things and overworking and being super productive, that's also what I'm talking about. The double emails at midnight. Not everything needs to be an email.

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[A]

Your teen adjective used to describe an individual whose spirit is unyielding, unconstrained, one who navigates life on their own terms, effortlessly. They do not always show up on time, but when they arrive, you notice an individual confident in their contradictions. They know the rules but behave as if they do not exist. New Teen the new fragrance by Miu Miu defined by you. You know that reminder in there for me of like we are modeling as leaders, we are modeling behavior and you can put all the taglines or say all the things and be as well intentioned as possible. And sometimes we inadvertently model something. I remember a leader gave me feedback in my more corporate days and they were like, if you want people to aspire to leadership, we were really focused on growing leaders. You have to make it an attractive proposition. And the way you are working is, is not at all attractive. Like why would somebody want leadership? And it was like, you know, and I could not have been any more grateful for the feedback because it was completely accurate.

[B]

That's great. And other thing I'd add here is that there are times we're going to drive hard. What I'm asking you to think about is this, how you consistently operate as a team. Then you really have to rethink this quickly. But there are moments where you might be grinding for the weekend because you've got a client proposal on Monday. And then when your boss does ask for a late night meeting, the urgency is there, you believe it, you believe it and you're going to show up to help deliver versus this constant emailing at off hours.

[A]

I want to dive into a little bit more of this making time.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Because I see this a lot and it's, you know, sometimes it's not having time, sometimes it's showing up late to everything. And I think we unconsciously often see leaders giving the impression that their time is more valuable than anyone else's. If somebody listening is being self reflective and they're noticing that maybe they're not giving their team the time that they need or they might unconsciously be sending the wrong message, what are some tactics that we could be doing to help address this problem?

[B]

Well, we talked about audit your calendar, take things off that shouldn't be there. Have the courage to cancel things that are being discussed elsewhere. If you're in a position to delegate, delegate. If you have someone overseeing your calendar, make sure my one on ones with me to once every two weeks. Do not move these. They're 20 minutes, 30 minutes. And if you have to cancel or reschedule, let her know why and do it within the week. Don't do the reschedule, reschedule. It happens like in a year, right? So that's so important. And obviously meeting in person, having that time is really important to coach, teach, train, catch up on things. But you also can be using Slack or email as ways to show people that you know they're there. Like, Nicole, I hope your daughter's basketball tryouts went well. Just was thinking of you this. This week, right there. There are ways that you can still show people that you're thinking about them or like, great job on that project, great job on that presentation. And so the takeaway is not that you give every person on your team 90 minutes a week, but I'm asking you, if you looked at your direct reports, how much time are you spending them with them on a monthly basis? And if you're spending no time and it's all over email, then there's a problem there.

[A]

I wonder, too, if some aspect of this is asking yourself if you even need to be there in the first place, or this is an opportunity to elevate another leader on the team. You mentioned that transition from being a doer to a leader, and I found that to be really, really hard. And I think sometimes leaders still think they need to be involved or they forget that part of a leader's job is also developing other leaders.

[B]

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you just said it. The number one job of leaders to develop more leaders. Right. That's like one of the biggest jobs. And it's this idea of FOMO and Jomo. It's like, what? What? I'm actually really happy Nicole's gonna go lead this initiative. And guess what that means. Every Wednesday's at 10, I'm not gonna be in the meeting. I'm gonna trust her, that she's gonna come back to me. Oh, wow. So, you know, later on, maybe Nicole isn't up to going to those meetings and she needs to be coached and trained. But, you know, she's in that role. Let me give her that shot. And let me tell her practically this is how the meeting goes. I'm going to have you go every Wednesday at 10am to represent our team. Here's the updates you should be providing. Here are the questions you should be asking. If you need me, call me. Right? If you need me, call me. Let her go and lead and sort it out herself.

[A]

A hundred percent. I'm Curious. Your response to this. Somebody asked me this, and I don't know if I handled it very well at the time, but it was this concept of we were talking about that transition from doing, deleting and letting other people. And the question was around, how do you reconcile that with the concept of servant leadership? This person was kind of arguing the point that servant leadership meant them doing the things, not saying, this is beneath me, or she was still doing some of the, and I'm just going to put in air quotes, grunt work because she didn't want her team to think that she thought she was too good for it or whatever. And it was all sort of wrapped under this idea of servant leadership. What are your thoughts on servant leadership and still letting go and letting other people do the work?

[B]

I actually think of servant leadership, and I don't love the term servant, but I just think it's in being in service of each other. And so it is more or less of a pyramid, which so many of us are still operating in. Right. I'm here and everyone's down there and in a circle. But that doesn't mean that you don't hold people accountable when someone's more junior. Certainly in my career, a lot of that grunt work I learned a lot from. And so you're actually doing the person a disservice if you're not. If you're. If you're like, oh, they might perceive I'm being. Being too senior, acting like I'm. I'm too good to do this work. So let me take it off your plate. And actually, it's like, I know this grunt work is tedious and tiresome, but there's a reason I'm having you do it, and that's the piece of being in service. Each other is creating a culture of constantly coaching each other and teaching and training.

[A]

Yeah, you answered that better than I did.

[B]

Okay, well, now you can go back and say, we have this conversation.

[A]

Yeah, it was like seven years ago, so it'd be a little weird for me to go back, but yeah, one of the behaviors you call out in the book is taking credit for other people's work. I think that is a tough one. What advice do you have for those people who feel unseen, undervalued, underappreciated, under recognized by their bosses, asked to get credit?

[B]

It sounds so simple. But too many times in my career. Also, I'm the proud daughter of Indian immigrant parents. My parents taught me humility at all costs. Being overly humble hasn't served me well in my Career. So oftentimes I was okay with taking the backseat. I was okay with creating the proposal, not presenting it, but ask. Asked to come to the meeting. Ask to present that piece. When you're sharing things, document it. I hate to say that, but if you're creating a doc and you make sure your name's on it, make sure your ideas are there. You know, I also think the more we give credit to each other, you'll see it coming back. So what do I mean by that? I'm in a meeting and we're talking about a project, and then I hear this idea and I say, actually, I just want to point out that's Nicole's original idea. She actually brought it up last month at another meeting. Oh, okay, cool. And Nicole hears that I did that for her. Nicole's gonna do that for me. So part of making sure we receive credit for the things we're working on is when we say each other's names in rooms when we're not in, you'll start to see that credit will start coming your way. And sometimes when you have an absolute credit stealer, a credit hog boss, you have to decide how long you wanna work for that individual before you try to find your next assignment. Because what's gonna happen is if they're not giving you credit, it's going to be hard to get promoted and recognized and acknowledged for the things that you're doing if they're taking all the credit for it.

[A]

Right. Good advice. I want to talk about something you mentioned briefly earlier, but it stuck out to me. I think one of the ways, maybe one of the best ways that leaders can self assess or leaders can assess whether or not they're doing a good job is retention.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

We hear so many statistics about people not leaving their jobs, but they're leaving their bosses or their leaders.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And if you have constant turnover, probably a pretty good sign that you're not doing a great job. So am I on track there? Is retention a good metric? What are we looking for? What does it tell us? How do we use that?

[B]

Yeah. And you know, what we're doing is instead we're giving out oversized free hoodies and another water bottle I don't need and a free meditation app. When my boss is emailing me midnight, consistently, constantly, and you're like, what's happening? So their cha Ret. We're chasing the wrong things. We're trying to do band aid solutions rather than actually going to the root cause. And I would argue, you know, we've lost the plot when it comes to inclusion in our workplaces, and inclusion is tied to retention. I work for you. I seem, I feel, seen, recognized, valued. My work matters, my voice matters. I come to get a paycheck. Some of us have found our purpose. But the worst moments in your career are when you wonder if anyone knows that you're there. Does anyone know what I'm working on? People are stealing my work. I'm being interrupted, interrupted, dismissed, talked over. I'm not even in the meeting, Right. And so think about that. That is what inclusion is and that's. That's tied to retention. And so yet so many of us won't take the time to look at that data and instead, what happens? Go back to meterworks for Nicole. All these people keep leaving, and then Nicole just might call recruiting and say, we need some more job descriptions up. We need to fill these roles. Right. Rather than being like, hey, what's happening on that team? And I'm telling you, think about those moments in your career where you were just so happy to be there and you were happy to make impact. I swear to you, if someone had come and asked me, giving me an offer for 10,000, $20,000 more, I wouldn't have taken maybe for 100K. But, you know, it's like you can't put a price on that. You really can't. Right? And so think about that. That's like the biggest retention tool we have and we're chasing the wrong things on how to keep people.

[A]

Could not agree more. It bodes well with my personal experience and all of the conversations I've had. You know, people really want to feel good and feel like they're adding value and doing a good job. And there, I'm sure there is a price tag, as you said, but very rarely would somebody consider leaving or they're certainly not out there searching if they're happy and where they were. Yeah, I said at the beginning of this episode that I do have a bias and I have to be conscious of it all the time. And I've seen and heard of horrible bosses, regardless of gender. I do think some of this stuff feels like it has a gender element, like the being dismissed or, you know, I think of. I hear from women being asked to take notes in meetings versus feeling like they're at the table in the meeting. Or maybe sometimes women feel increased sense of needing to nurture or help or respond quickly or. I don't know. Any advice for when it's happening or when you see it happening? How do we address it head on? How do we look out for ourselves? How do we look out for each other? So I think of the thought came to my head of I heard about the women, women in the Obama White House making a pact with each other to are there things that we can be doing in our workplaces like that?

[B]

If you are going to put a label on a woman, ask if you would put the same label on a man. Mita is being difficult. She is not collaborating, she's not staying in her lane, she's being aggressive, all of these things. Would you use those labels for a man? And what I love that you're bringing up is a big question, is that are women more often labeled bad bosses than men? We didn't talk about this. Right. Context and situation matter. Someone who's a bad boss for me could be a good boss for you.

[A]

Right, Good point.

[B]

But also there are times where maybe I've been characterized as a bad boss unfairly because we have stereotypes. Mina's cold. Your immediate assumption is Mina should be caring and warm. Right. And a caregiver. Well, do you expect that of Matt as well? Because if you do, then that's fine. So we have to have an equal level of playing field, which I know we're still on a journey in our workplaces, but I love that question you prompted is, you know, our own biases on who's a bad boss and not and the labels that we stick on people. So again, always for me it's about asking open ended questions in those moments. You know, the classic example that I always remember in like a talent review is that, you know, Meena just had a baby, but she's up for a big promotion and someone in the room says, well, Mina just had a baby, she can't do that promotion. It requires too much travel. And you know, who gave you permission to slow down Mita's career?

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's the question I want to ask. But what I would ask is have we talked to Mita? Have we asked her what her career ambitions are? I don't know if you know, but Matt also just had a baby. He actually just had a second baby, so. And Matt's on the promotion list. Are we asking Matt who's taking care of his kids and family? Do you see how we're. So we're inviting in, we're asking open ended questions and we're trying to get people to self reflect and interrupt those biases that you just mentioned.

[A]

What a simple and profoundly impactful tool. Just ask yourself, would I say this? Would I do this? Would I Think this if and replace the woman. You're thinking of both leader and lead, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And I think even putting the name not just a general, would I think this of a man, but would I think this of a male leader that you know or the peer. Yes, exactly.

[B]

In the subset of where you work. Absolutely. Think about that way.

[A]

And if nothing else, it has you in the practice of thinking inclusively, it has you in the practice of thinking holistically, it has you in the practice of thinking openly and being curious. I mean, these are all leadership skills and it's a great way to practice all of them. I'm so, so, so glad that you brought up two the, you know, bias towards the leader and that a good leader for one person may be a bad leader for another, and vice versa. So if somebody is listening and they have a leader that isn't so much working for them, what is our responsibility as the person being led to communicate what does and doesn't work for us?

[B]

So if there's a situation where your mental health is being really impacted, that's a call that you need to make, is how much longer can you stay there? Can you afford to stay there? What do you need to do? What's that exit strategy? If you, sorry, years ago worked for me and I was micromanaging Mita, the question is, how long can you stand to work for me? Is it six months? Is it 12 months? What are you going to get out of the assignment? I'm not encouraging you every time you have a bad boss to resign, that's not going to work. But what you can do is you can pull up your resume and you can say, I have to work for micromanaging meter for six months. Months to a year. I'm going to actually put down on my resume what I want to get out of this. Isn't that a cool idea? Like future forward, Step into that so you have an action plan. You can also try to like. People don't like this advice. It is how the world works. Manage up to your boss. I don't think it's about managing up. It's about helping each other be better in the workplace. And so what do I mean by that? My last example is Goss, Gosh. I had a boss who would text Nicole At 6:30 in the morning randomly, often. Why are you texting me? It was nothing urgent. It was like thoughts about a project, something we need to do for a meeting. And so in that case, I started to retrain her. I would never respond over text. I would wait till 8:30 I would log in respond over email. I started a Google Doc that I shared at a team meeting and I said if you have any fun ideas about projects or ideas, why don't we put them in here? Right? And so there is a way because you might not be in a position where your boss wants to hear the feedback. You can certainly try to retrain them and you can try to create more processes and ways of working as a team and so they don't feel personally attacked by it. But there is a bit of managing up, have that expiration date and know what you want to get out of this moment in your career.

[A]

Yeah. Mita, thank you for the exceptional advice for writing this book. It's so necessary and for being here today. Listener definitely go order the devil emails at midnight for yourself all the leaders you know. And maybe leave an anonymous copy for a bad boss. He really needs to read it. And you can also follow me on LinkedIn. All the links can be found in Show Notes. Mita, again, thank you so much.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

All right, here's the thing about bad bosses. They're everywhere. And that doesn't give you permission to be one. If leadership is learned, then we get to decide what lessons we're carrying forward, what we can unlearn. And we can choose to lead differently, to lead better. Because the truth is, most people don't quit jobs, they quit bosses. And most of us want to be the kind of leader others want to work with, not the story someone shares at a happy hour 10 years later or on a podcast with a half a million people listening in, it's time to take the mirror test. Let's be willing to check our own behavior, to make adjustments and to keep learning. Because good leaders aren't born, they're made. Which tells me that part of the job, a necessary requirement of leadership, is redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to lead. And that is woman's work. Every minute your finance team spends wrestling.

[B]

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[A]

Of $45 per three month plan $15 per month equivalent required.

[B]

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[A]

Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com.