How to Survive (and Thrive) Under a Nightmare Boss

Elda De La Pena: [: 00:00:00

It, I didn't think about who else can I reach out to? Where else can I go? And I think that's important. If you're in that position, I'd say get your. Get your head up a little bit and look around and say, it doesn't even have to be somebody who's directly within your own department. Look across the whole organization and develop those relationships with either other managers, other employees that maybe compliment you and your skills so that you can learn from them.

tion. Sometimes getting that [: 00:01:00

Organization and all of the stuff that you're going through, you forget that there's other ways of looking at things and getting someone to help you with that is, is incredibly valuable. Extending yourself out there with other organizations within the organization and get a mentor I really wish I'd had a mentor back in the day that could have said.

Elda what are you thinking? Really challenged me in the way I was thinking and the kind of manager that I was at the time. So there's so many different ways of getting mentors in today's world that I think it's really important for people to consider that. 'cause there's so much great information out there.

So I would recommend that they really look at that, look around, what, where can I develop that those relationships.

the crossroads that El Della [: 00:02:00

And when you're confronted with that situation, and this is your first time in a leadership position where you've now transitioned from being a peer into being a leader. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, you have all of your former peers who are looking to you to support them as they're working with a manager who just doesn't get it.

And on the other hand, you're a new leader in the chain of command and you have to do two things. You have to manage your manager, and you have to manage expectations for the people around you so that their work life is something other than miserable. We've all been there where we felt trapped in our circumstances, and we only see a couple of ways out.

line of fire, and option two [: 00:03:00

Today's story is about how you actually zoom out and get a broader perspective. And it's that broader perspective that's going to help you navigate the journey of your career in ways that make sure that not only are you driving forward in your career, but also driving the.

Careers of others forward as well. It's not an upper out conversation. It's about building, staying power and being able to zoom out to get the big picture so that you can see all the different pathways that are in front of you. That's the story that we're gonna tell today, and we're gonna be joined by El Della Pena, who is the Chief Administrative Officer at Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, and she's been in this role and in this company for quite a while.

to the table an interesting [: 00:04:00

Elda De La Pena: Thank you.

Dr. Jim 2.0: why don't we tear that bandaid off and tell us what happened early on in your career that really had you second guessing what you should be doing in that moment.

Elda De La Pena: the situation I had is that I reported up to a senior manager. I was the HR manager at the time and reported up to a senior manager who was very difficult to work for. And a lot of employees were frustrated with his management style. He was a bit of a bully, created a bit of a, an environment where it was very difficult, right?

Bordering on. Bordering on hostile but just made everybody uncomfortable and it was quite difficult. So as the HR manager, I felt that something needed to be done with that, but I was at a loss as to exactly what I could do. And I don't believe that what I, the actions that I took, I don't believe were the right ones.

at I learned to help me be a [: 00:05:00

Dr. Jim 2.0: that is what we call a great tease. So you just described a really interesting scenario. I wanna back up a little bit before we get into the details. You're reporting into a senior manager. You're the new HR manager, I'm assuming. Now, was this your first leadership role within that organization?

Elda De La Pena: yes. It was the first time I'd been in a management role in the organization. I'd already been with the organization for about, eight to 10 years at that time when I got that first promotion.

Dr. Jim 2.0: that makes it. A really tricky situation to navigate because I'm thinking about, I'm putting myself in your shoes. So I'm thinking about two sort of circumstances that have changed. You've gr, you've graduated from the ranks of individual contributor into a first time manager and you've been in the same organization for a while, so this has been a grow a growth position for you.

er. So that relationship has [: 00:06:00

So that's tricky. Tell us about what was going through your mind as you're in the middle of this first manager role, transitions in roles in relationships, and now you have this mess that you need to unwind.

Elda De La Pena: Yeah like you said there's so much that goes on with that. There was, I just felt that I needed to do something. I didn't wanna let down the team because I realized that they were going through that as I was, 'cause he was. Difficult with me as well as everybody else, and I felt that I had an obligation to try to do something.

I just wasn't quite sure what that needed to be. So I had a lot of anxiety and stress about what. Where was I going and how was I gonna help my new employees? As you said, they had been my peers before. Because also as a manager, I wanna make sure that they know that I am taking care of them as well as making sure I'm taking care of the difficult situation.

And being in [: 00:07:00

I'd worked for this person, the senior manager was somebody I had worked with for a long time, but in a different capacity. So now I was in this new capacity and I didn't feel comfortable enough to go to that person and say, Hey, there's a problem here. Your behavior is creating issues. 'cause that wasn't something that I could do with that person.

Dr. Jim 2.0: This is a really interesting situation that you find yourself in because it's not your first rodeo with this manager, and in fact, you had actually worked with that person before and figured out some way to have it be productive. So when you look at the new role that you're in, how did that previous experience shape what you could or couldn't do?

t of dealings. I didn't need [: 00:08:00

A lot of approvals of a lot of different actions. But I didn't have that type of relationship with him when I was just an individual contributor. So I did my job, I kept my head down. I did. The best I could to not really interact with him on a regular basis, except on a, Hey, how's your day going? Or or if I needed something, real quick and approved and, Hey, by the way, this is happening.

I, I learned to. Navigate his moods if that makes sense. Where I knew when he was gonna be in a mood where I could go ask for something, where he would say yes or where I could go in and have a conversation with him. He just was very much somebody who liked to have things his way and didn't like people disagreeing with him.

I did feel okay disagreeing with him at the time. But when I was became the manager, it became a different. Thing because now all the employees wanted me to be the go-between. They didn't wanna have to go directly to 'em anymore. And they said, oh good, now you can just deal with all of these different things.

t my direct reports, but all [: 00:09:00

He was not one that was open to that type of discussion. Even when I was in an individual contributor role,

dual contributor, you didn't [: 00:10:00

Elda De La Pena: Yeah luckily I did have I had a good relationship with that manager, so he, because I was one of those people who will volunteer for anything. I wanted to learn everything. So he knew he could come to me if he needed anything done. So I became the person that whatever bizarre project or whether it was good or bad, indifferent, I always said yes 'cause it was an opportunity to learn.

So I knew that I had his respect. For being able to do that. What I had to do when I became the manager was be able to, I, it was almost the same where I had to navigate, but I just couldn't keep my head down anymore. It was more of determining, okay, when or how do I approach it with him? So understanding his personality, understanding the days where maybe he was in a good mood or a bad mood or depending on what was going on and picking the moment where.

omebody who'd come to me and [: 00:11:00

I tried to be as clearer and approach it in a way that. I thought he would accept it, and sometimes he would, and sometimes I, I got a response that was completely off the wall, so you just never knew what you were gonna get.

Dr. Jim 2.0: when you think about good leaders that you've worked for, one of the things that as a hallmark of good leadership is generally consistency. Like day in, day out, you know where they're gonna be.

The what you're describing sounds like a day in, day out of. You gotta figure out what sort of eggshells you're walking out.

Elda De La Pena: That's exactly right.

Dr. Jim 2.0: Okay. So when you're confronted with that you're still testing out, okay, what are the approaches that'll work a and what won't work? And you teased this earlier on in the conversation.

about what you tried and how [: 00:12:00

Elda De La Pena: Yeah so I knew that everybody on my team was unhappy there. There was a lot of complaining. I understood that because he was very difficult. He was getting worse. And I thought I need to do something. What can I do? So I did go to, the person he reported to the senior vice president at that time in charge of that group.

And instead of just coming out or asking anything, what I did is I said, okay, I'm gonna test this out. I'm going to ask, I, I just made a comment about, Hey, there's this process that we're working on. And this manager, my manager, just isn't accepting it. It's something that the company has said that we really want to do.

Just to see what her reaction would be with me mentioning that manager and the reaction was one that I had not expected, which was, I'm tired of people, this was her comment. I'm tired of people complaining about this person. He can have a job for as long as he wants. He's been at the organization for so long, he's got knowledge nobody can replace.

to her at that point. And so [: 00:13:00

Was the CEO and I felt stymied at that point. I thought I don't know what to do because there's nowhere else to go, and my error was not looking for other alternatives or reaching out to someone else.

Dr. Jim 2.0: I wanna get into your head space a little bit. So you're thinking you have a solution and you do a skip level, which is, in most organizations perfectly fine. And you do that and then you're just completely shut down. So what was going through your mind as that was happening?

this person anymore, or wait [: 00:14:00

How I was feeling until that person decided to leave, which, who knows when that was gonna take place. So it was a dark space in my head where I just felt there was nothing I could do and just not a good place to be mentally.

Dr. Jim 2.0: So you're going through all of that, and then you're playing mental chess and looking at the pieces on the board, so you can't go to the skip level. This person's friends with the CEO, there's probably other relationships that they're tight with that you don't know about, and now you're really like, okay, what do I do?

So when you're sitting in that stuck feeling, what was the process that you went through to find your outs?

Elda De La Pena: I the process I went through was how do I leave, how do I get out of here? That was truly. To me in that moment, I felt that was the only thing I could do is to find a different job because I just felt that I wasn't being successful as a manager 'cause I wasn't helping my employees.

n the situation reporting to [: 00:15:00

Dr. Jim 2.0: is that where you landed as the solution or did something else reveal itself as an alternative?

Elda De La Pena: Yeah something else. Certainly not something I resolved because it got resolved in a different way. And it was just something I had not thought of, but other employees in the organization went to talk to a different executive. Why that had never occurred to me. I have no idea. But they went to someone who was neither the person's manager or the CEO.

And they went to the general counsel, which actually, now that I think about it made a lot of sense at the time. And they filed a complaint with the general counsel and they went as a team, right? So it wasn't just one person going in they, there was three of them who went together and said, Hey, we can't keep working in this environment.

en our general counsel, took [: 00:16:00

So everything started to roll at that time. And all of these things really created a different mindset for me where I just went, why? Why did I not think of that? Of of doing something else. So yeah, it was, that's what got everything rolling. I'm still with the same organization so I didn't end up leaving, but that, that created this whole moment for me where I went what am I doing?

What kind of manager am I that I couldn't have thought of something a different way of doing this.

f their career that you were [: 00:17:00

Weather the storm. What's your advice to those people in terms of how they can get a bigger picture of the landscape and look at all the options available versus just narrowing themselves down into one or two options that might make sense in the moment to.

Elda De La Pena: Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think the biggest thing is to. Not just keep your head down, right? Get involved in other things within the organization that extend your network and your relationships throughout the organization. I could have easily, if I'd had someone that I felt I could confide in or that I could have gotten some advice from, I think it would've been very helpful because I felt trapped.

ationships with either other [: 00:18:00

I think that would've been a great thing for me to do, and that's something I would definitely recommend anybody else do. Just really looking for what I call allies allies in your organization or even outside your organization if you're in a professional organization. Sometimes getting that outside perspective is so incredibly important because you're so mired in your own.

Organization and all of the stuff that you're going through, you forget that there's other ways of looking at things and getting someone to help you with that is, is incredibly valuable. Extending yourself out there with other organizations within the organization and get a mentor I really wish I'd had a mentor back in the day that could have said.

Elda what are you thinking? Really challenged me in the way I was thinking and the kind of manager that I was at the time. So there's so many different ways of getting mentors in today's world that I think it's really important for people to consider that. 'cause there's so much great information out there.

I would recommend that they [: 00:19:00

Dr. Jim 2.0: So I hear what you're saying and I'm thinking back to. When I was coming up in my career and I heard all that stuff before, extend your network externally, extend your network internally, build alliances within the organization, get a mentor. I get what those mean from like a definition perspective.

What always got me stuck was, here I am trying to like. Prove myself and make a name for myself and establish all of these different milestones to get recognition. I'm like zoned in on execution mode. All of this other stuff sounds like fluff. So when you talk about those other things that you need to do to build sort of your internal board of directors, how do you do that when you are zoned in on the execution side of your? How do you create space to do those other things that are necessary?

busy and how do we find the [: 00:20:00

We just feel that if we. Aren't as busy as we should be, that it looks bad. And actually it's part of our own career to be able to help ourselves in that way. Some ways to do that too is as you're doing your work, the context you have while doing that work could be your allies, right?

That just becomes part and parcel with the work that you're doing. So I could have easily, I worked with managers and employees across the organization as the HR manager. During any of my conversations with them regarding any of the issues they were having or some of the things that they wanted help with, I could have determined, Hey, is this somebody that I can definitely work with?

Would they be willing to then help me? And instead of doing that, I was always like, no, I'm the person who helps. I'm the person who has to get this stuff resolved, as opposed to looking at it and going. Here's someone who I think I could connect with and maybe have that person as either an ally or a mentor.

make ourselves available for [: 00:21:00

So if you wanna get a promotion, you wanna move ahead. You've got to see beyond the work that you're doing. And the way to do that is to connect with other people and it can be executive level. I think there's too much fear and myth about executives are an approachable I, I. Disagree with that. I think there, there are ways.

So if you find committees where you can connect with somebody who's at a higher level, whether it's executive or even vice president or wherever and it doesn't have to be a long-term. Very difficult process. It's having that conversation, Hey, how are you doing? How how are things going today?

eeting or an employee event, [: 00:22:00

If it's a town hall meeting, maybe ask a question during the town hall meeting, maybe stop by and talk to the people who are conducting the town hall meeting to say, Hey, I have an extra question, or, whatever the question might be, connect with them that way. There's all these little ways that these relationships can be built that don't really take a whole lot of time.

Dr. Jim 2.0: When I zoom out of what we've talked about so far, I think one of the things that I notice is that. You had a lot of baked in assumptions that created walls around yourself, and you basically imprisoned yourself within the confines of those walls. When you think through that and you look back, what are the mindset things that you picked up, having gone through that experience that might be useful for that person that's listening to this and watching this to keep them away from that trap of creating walls around themselves?

o feel that way, take a step [: 00:23:00

Is there nothing else I can do? What, where could I, there's so many ways I could have established different avenues and different paths for talking to people. Take a breath and look around and say, what are the resources that this organization has where maybe I feel stuck? For example, an EAP is great.

EAPs are there for both managers and for employees. Get that outside counsel and say, I'm in a dark place. I need help. I think if I had just reached out, I could have probably looked at all of these other ways that I could have handled that. So being aware of your own limitations and as soon as you feel that you have that.

uld you recommend I do this? [: 00:24:00

I think that was something where, I was honest with myself, but I also was like I've done everything I can have. I think that honesty about, is it just lazy for me to think I've done everything and this is just really hard. And yes, oftentimes we do that, right? This is hard. So this must be all that's out there.

And we have to work through that difficulty and say, it's my choice. It's a choice I'm making to either feel trapped or to try to find a way out of. That trap. So am I thinking too line linear, right? What's, what if I turn my head one way or the other, is there a different avenue that I can approach and look for those avenues?

'cause because they are there and I just wish I had. The, there, when I thought back after all of this happened, I thought I could have talked to so and I could have thought through it this way. I could have reached out to the AP to get some counsel. I could have done so many different things.

ng ways to break out of that [: 00:25:00

If there's a bad situation and everything's feeling, ugh, I let myself, I give myself a timeline for how I'm gonna feel for a period of time. And I say, okay, I can be upset or sad or frustrated until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. And then the next day I come in and I'm like, okay, I'm done. Let's look at all the different ways that we can solve this, because sometimes we do need to feel that way.

We need our emotions, we need to feel that, but then we've gotta give ourselves permission or a. A kick to move forward and then we've gotta do it. And I think establishing that has just really helped me to be okay with feeling however I'm feeling, but then moving on and not getting stuck in that way.

ften ask IT folks, because I [: 00:26:00

I would ask them their problem solving process. What do you do when you're stuck? When you get stuck? And the two things that you mentioned tie directly into those conversations. One of the things that they talked about is that if I'm feeling some sort of way about the problem that I'm trying to tackle, I allow myself the space to feel the things that I'm feeling, but I don't wallow in it.

I spend the appropriate amount of time reacting to what's going on, and then I zoom out and try and force myself to look at all of the different options that are available. So first, I list all the things that I've done that didn't solve this problem. Then I start thinking about, here are some other things that I could try.

need to do? And that's how I [: 00:27:00

Then zoom out, take inventory of what you might not have considered, and then look for other people that have input on other pathways out of the box that you're in. So I think that's a really powerful sort of framework that people should apply when they're in those moments where they're really feeling stuck.

When you think back to that experience. What other things did you learn? We talked about you. You have to build alliances. You should get a mentor. Feel the things that you want to feel, build a list of options that you haven't considered. Get outside counsel and open up.

So normally we only talk about a couple things you've already teed up four or five. What else you got in your arsenal that you learned from this experience?

you can't shut yourself off [: 00:28:00

You've gotta have a person in your life who will be, I'm gonna say brutally honest with you, because we all need that to be better leaders, we have to understand our own deficiencies. Or I don't like to call them weaknesses, but areas where we can improve. A couple of years ago we got executive coaches an executive coach here at the organization, and he did that for me.

At that point I learned a lot more. I feel like I'm a much more open-minded person. I really seek feedback from a lot of different people, which I think really helps and I ask them for what they would do. So that oftentimes when you do that and then you. Apply that. It really helps them to see that you're listening, right?

in what they are saying and [: 00:29:00

I've got a, I'm the Chief Administrative Officer. I have a lot of people under me. One thing we always have to remember is we never stop learning. Never get to a place where you're like that's it. I got it. I'm awesome. We have to continue to be that open mind where we continue to learn.

'cause the minute you shut that down, I think then we are, we're trapped again. We trap ourselves into not being able to continue to be better leaders. And that, that would be more advice that I would have is. Be a continuous learning person and find the people who will be honest with you so that you can continue to improve what, how you manage or how you lead or even being the kind of employee that you wanna be.

Dr. Jim 2.0: So I like your emphasis on being a continuous learner, but I think out of your answer, the part that I like the most out of what you said, and I'm gonna paraphrase this, is that you have to have people around you that's gonna tell you that your baby's ugly.

Elda De La Pena: Yeah, exactly.

elf people that are gonna be [: 00:30:00

Elda De La Pena: Yeah, I feel that it was a, an aha moment for me. I, you can read as many management co, books that you want. You can attend management courses, but until you experience something and kind of get through that I guess ugly phase or whatever you wanna call it. I was able to sit back and go, wow, okay what happened here?

to the things that I hadn't [: 00:31:00

Would stop and think and go, okay, no wait, there's other avenues. There's ways to do this. I asked, started asking for more feedback from employees, really getting those conversations going, developing the allies, not, working through the fear of. Working with what I'm gonna call the higher ups.

There's always this, oh my gosh, the higher up you go that you can't do that. Getting beyond that, people doing their job. That's what everybody does at every organization. And we have to get past our fear of a, I don't know if it's authority or higher level positions, develop them as allies.

rt really opening my mind to [: 00:32:00

I opened up a lot more in order to be able to take in that information so that I could be a better leader.

Dr. Jim 2.0: Yeah, it's interesting that you mention the the talking to execs part of it, and I think especially for early career and even mid career people. You get wrapped up into your own biases about the psychological size of the people that you're dealing with, especially if they have a title, and learning how to look past the psychological size of a title and deal with people as humans, which is what you just mentioned.

I think that's an important skill. I. To develop. There's a lot that we could continue talking about on this conversation, but I appreciate you hanging out and sharing your story and how you navigated this difficult situation. If people want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

ent people. So that would be [: 00:33:00

Dr. Jim 2.0: Awesome stuff, so I appreciate you hanging out Elda and sharing your experience. And it's it it's one thing to talk about this stuff like behind closed doors and amongst your network where nobody will actually see or hear it beyond those people. But

to go on camera and talk about things that you screwed up or made missteps. That's a whole different level, and I appreciate you being transparent with us in this conversation. When I think about the conversation that that we had, the key thing to remember is that you're always going to think that you're trapped. And the more that you think that you're trapped and the more that you think that you're limited, the deeper in that hole you're gonna go. So when you start feeling like you have the walls closing in on you, it's important to take a moment and understand what you're feeling, but also recognize that there are a lot more outs that are available to you.

out of the story that you're [: 00:34:00

Building a board of directors around you, building a network that's important. But a lot of this stuff is self inflicted and. It creates a spiral, so it's important to break that spiral and take a beat and hit pause, which will give you the space to look at the other options that are around you. So that's what stood out to me.

tening to this conversation, [: 00:35:00