Why Your Relationship With Your Boss Matters So Much

A conversation I had recently with a young man reminded me for about the 300th time why a positive, constructive relationship with one's boss is such a critical element of the experience of work.

Frequent conflict with a manager takes an emotional toll on an employee.

Source: Matt Moloney / Stocksnapio

The young man worked in marketing and enjoyed his actual tasks, the job he did every day. But he didn't enjoy his relationship with his manager.

He felt his manager never communicated with him and seldom provided any feedback. When the manager did speak with him, which usually felt brusque and rushed, it was just to point out something he had done wrong.

Soon enough, the young man began to dread seeing his manager. He felt he was constantly being criticized, and it began to erode his self-esteem.

Predictably, he ended up quitting, leaving after just five months a job he had thought he was going to like, to take what he called a "mental health break" and regain his confidence.

People Leave Managers

The above story, unfortunately, is not uncommon. An old business saying goes: "People leave managers, not companies." There's ample truth to that.

As I've said many times over the years: A good relationship with your manager can make a bad job tolerable... but a bad relationship with your manager can make even a good job miserable (as my young friend knew all too well).

Employees in traditional in-office work environments spend nearly half their waking weekday life with their manager (considerably less in a remote setting, and more on that in a moment).

Small wonder that a strained, difficult, contentious, or downright nasty relationship with a manager can take a serious emotional toll.

Similar Dynamics

It doesn't matter whether you're a Ph.D. conducting experiments in a lab, a worker on a construction site, or a young man doing marketing in an office... similar interpersonal dynamics exist. If you have a seriously bad relationship with your boss, in all likelihood it will impact your experience of work negatively.

Perhaps there are things you can do to improve the relationship. If there are, by all means attempt them. Try to understand where your boss is coming from. What are the pressures he or she is under? Or is there something in your own job performance that could be improved?

Or perhaps there's nothing you can do, Maybe he or she just shouldn't be a manager, and doesn't have the right emotional tools for the job. Effective management is a legitimately challenging job requiring multiple skills.

The unfortunate reality is that many managers are chosen for the wrong reasons. They may have the technical skills but lack the requisite interpersonal element.

Or maybe it's just an unfortunate fit between the two of you, and it's time to vote with your feet and move on.

I personally believe management dynamics are a key reason why so many people enjoy remote and hybrid work arrangements. Employee-manager interactions are less (to use a technical term) "in your face" on a regular basis. Things are a bit more removed and relaxed. There's less widely disliked micromanagement.

But whether a relationship is good or bad, stable or volatile, one thing is certain: The employee-manager relationship will matter. That's something you can count on.