Let’s face it, people are terrible. Obviously, I don’t mean all people. I think there are a lot of great people. In fact, there are a number of truly good-hearted people who are doing extraordinary work. Unfortunately, however, in the people business, and in leadership, sometimes, the under-performers and trouble-makers take up more than their fair share of our time and attention. Also, unfortunately, though we think of the trouble-makers among junior employees, bosses and other people who can influence your life can also be a trouble-maker for you. While you have some control over subordinates, you have a lot less control over this other group of supervisors and influencers.

With our articles and teachings, one thing that we pride ourselves on is that we are not going to just share all positivity. Sure, always keep a good attitude and a sense of humor, but bad things happen in life, including in your professional life. We would do our readers a disservice if all we shared were success stories, when, in the real world, you can be dealt with some serious challenges in your professional life and life in general.

Let me list a few examples to illustrate what we mean by “Mistreatment”. All of these are real life examples I have learned about from people whom I know and have worked with or have observed myself.

1. A new Administration Pastor was hired at a mega-Church, and, among his first acts as the new Admin Pastor, he set his cross-hairs on an otherwise successful youth minister and succeeded in getting him fired. Being betrayed in this way in a Church environment was devastating to the youth minister, and he attributes this moment of betrayal with consuming his thoughts, and eventually leading to his losing his wife to divorce.
2. A talented young executive was invited to be a part of a management buyout of a subsidiary in a larger corporation where he had been a rising star. However, 30 days prior to the planned closing date on the transaction, senior execs in the corporate parent conspired with his business partner who had invited him into the deal, with the intent of excluding him from the deal and ousting him from the corporation. A deal he thought was a God-send, due to a medical condition he was contending with, instead, was ruined, and, further, destroyed his career with the corporation where he had been a rising star. Worse, once he exposed what these executives had done, rather than accept responsibility for their corporate misconduct, they demonized him and blackballed him for a decade in the city where he and his family lived, FOR A DECADE, ACTUALLY 10-PLUS YEARS.
3. A star retail manager once worked for a store manager, her supervisor, who, for over a year, tried to undermine her and get her fired or make her so miserable that she quit. At times, she feared that his efforts to undermine her reputation with senior management would be effective. Fortunately, in the end, senior management figured out what was going on, and terminated the store manager.
4. Not long afterward, this same retail manager, also worked for another store manager in an entirely different organization, who tried to do exactly the same thing. The new organization was more sophisticated than the one where she had previously worked. But, this new store manager was also more cunning and more difficult to expose. He employed many sophisticated tactics of deception and political manipulation to undermine the junior leader. Again, it took about a year for this situation to be resolved. This time, the store manager was not terminated. In fact, the full scope of his mistreatment was never fully exposed, or I believe that he would have been terminated. Instead, it was chalked up to poor job performance, not a good fit. He was transferred to a different geographic region, where he had people who would accept him onto their team.

These are just a few examples from corporate environments, even churches. We know of many, many more examples. Of course, in addition to career mistreatment, there are other mistreatment events: divorce or other family issues, mistreatment by teachers or professors in school, coaches and volunteer board members manipulating youth sports for their own gain or to put their children on advantaged teams, and others. For this article, we are primarily focused on career issues, but this advice will help in all instances in which you or someone you know has been mistreated.

Realize, that a career will only be 20-30 years long, on the long side, sometimes longer, sometimes less. So, when someone in a position of power mistreats you in a way that sets you back for years, that is a serious setback, and some of these setbacks set these executives back a decade or longer. And, there are worse instances of mistreatment.

In the end, regardless of how long it sets you back, regardless of how much it costs you, regardless of how much it may hurt, regardless of the psychological trauma that it may have caused you, all you can control is how you react to it. It can be bewildering. You want to know what happened, and sort through and make sense of it all. So, I am going to give you a few cardinal rules, so you can re-focus as quickly as possible on what’s next, which needs to become your laser-like focus.

CAREER CHANGING OR ONGOING MISTREATMENT: First, let’s differentiate between relationship-ending mistreatment and ongoing mistreatment, where someone is trying to undermine you. Remember, we had 2 examples in which career change was automatic, because they lost their jobs in the process. The other two examples were ongoing mistreatment, undermining efforts in a professional work environment. When you are living under threat, due to mistreatment, the name of the game is to outlast your opposition. You are not trying to win or get retribution, very important. When it is relationship-ending mistreatment, your objective should be to re-establish your new path as quickly as possible, and get the event in the rear view mirror as quickly as possible.

ACTIVE, ONGOING MISTREATMENT: Outlasting your opposition can take a very long time. In our examples, we had an excellent manager being undermined by her supervisor, not once but twice, two separate and unrelated instances. The reason she tended to attract this kind of attention is because she was so competent. This lady is an extremely hard worker, who also works smart. She wears an Apple Watch, which records how far she walks over the course of her business day. A 12-hour day for her is almost a given. She has not worked an 8-hour shift in years. Over the course of her workday, on her “slow” days, she will walk 6-8 miles. Routinely, she walks 8-14 miles. During busy seasons, she walks 14-21 miles over the course of her work-day. She often walks half-marathon distances most days of her work-week. This is a person with an extreme amount of stamina to sustain these levels of activity over the course of 12-16 hour work shifts and to then repeat that pace day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year.

She is not only physically active, she is also extraordinarily bright, observant and strategic. She can easily keep up with minute detail about her employees, even in this high-turnover industry and even with well over 100 employees to manage. She can have 50-plus new employees for “season”, and she will remember off the top of her head the days they are available and their family situations. Not only can she remember vast numbers of people, but conversations, even months later, word for word. That extends to the location of products on her store floor. All that information is available for her, right off the top of her head. Whereas other managers often need a computer to store, look up and use that kind of information, she has savant-like memory. Her memory and mental speed is akin to Rainman.

For marginally-competent managers and incompetent managers who are already burdened with insecurity, this creates discomfort. Promotion to a position of authority, despite competence deficiencies, is usually the result of either cronyism or deception. So, a highly competent subordinate manager with these extraordinary capabilities is a threat to their professional existence. A person who can remember every conversation, months later, does not fall for the deception, pivoting, shifting, twisting, insinuation and suggestion that a smooth talker uses to deceive. Despite her diplomacy, it ultimately becomes apparent to them that this woman is a threat to their survival. To senior management, she represents a cog who can easily be placed in the manager’s position, a ready replacement for a struggling Store Manager.

STAY ULTRA-PROFESSIONAL: I will not belabor these points, but just wanted to set the stage for what happened in both instances, and why someone might be targeted like this, twice. I would add that the woman is super-professional. Despite her managers’ deficiencies, she approached each day trying to do her best job, regardless of what was happening, despite the non-support from her manager and the unnecessary obstacles thrown in her path. That was extremely important to her ultimate success. If she had started to complain about the manager, report him to senior leaders, and the like, she would have played right into their hands. When a manager is undermining you and placing unnecessary obstacles in your way, they are likely expressing unfavorable things about you to senior management. Once they plant that seed in senior management minds, they will be looking for confirmation in everything you do. So, if the manager is telling senior management that you are undermining them, and you complain to senior management and/or are reporting him or her on the company hotline, those actions are viewed as “confirming” to senior management. Then, they may conclude that you are the subversive element that your manager said you are. So, YOU HAVE TO STAY ULTRA-PROFESSIONAL.

PREPARE FOR LONG-TERM OPPOSITION: In a situation like this, you have to be prepared for long-term opposition. Managers do not change every day, every week or even every month. Those assignments are viewed as permanent, for all practical purposes. Senior Management has made a decision to place that manager in that position. Even if the manager struggles initially, Senior Management, is highly unlikely to turn around and make a change anytime soon. Even once they begin to sense that this person may not work out, which could take 3-9 months, they will counsel the manager in the hope of coaching them into the manager they thought they could be, when they first gave them this assignment.

Remember, retail manager in our stories was working for bosses who were undermining her for over a year in each situation, OVER A YEAR. How long can you keep your head down and remain professional? That means that this lady has had to spend well over 2 years of her professional career, working for direct supervisors who would like to see her gone. That is a very long time. Imagine going to work day after day, week after week, month after month, bleeding into years, and wondering when senior management will wise up and bring about the change you and the organization so badly need. Your professional life is “on hold”, because there is almost no way you are going to get promoted under those circumstances. If the top leader is marginally competent, at best, then, that means the organization is not likely performing as expected. Unfortunately, senior management often has the mentality that if the organization is not achieving its potential, then no one must be doing a great job in that organization. I liken that reasoning to someone concluding that Hank Aaron must not have been a good baseball player all those years, when the Braves were not a winning team. It is a boneheaded mentality, but that is the reality you may be facing under such circumstances. So, hunker down for the long haul. Remain the epitome of professionalism. Go to work every day, and do everything you can possibly do to professionally support your manager, even though you know what they are trying to do to you. Never let them see that you see right through their deception. Don’t complain to senior management, unless senior management asks you direct questions. Even then, be careful. Survive to fight another day. Take comfort in your position of wisdom. You know what they are doing. You know what your objective is. Do not allow their lack of professionalism to get you off course. They may needle and torment you every day. Don’t let that get you down. Smile and accept it. Know that the change you, your organization and the business needs is coming. You are not trying to win every day, just win in the end. So, do not allow the day to day get you down. You will certainly be frustrated, but don’t let your emotions hang on every day.

TRUST THE SENIOR LEADERS APPOINTED OVER YOU: In the Old Testament of the Bible, there is a story of King Saul and David, who would later succeed Saul as King. Saul was in pursuit to kill David. David and some of his men had hidden in the back of a cave. As luck would have it, Saul went into that very cave to relieve himself. David was in a position to easily kill Saul. However, with King Saul having been anointed to be King by God, David did not see it as his position to kill the King. Instead, he stealthily cut a piece from Saul’s garment, while Saul had partially disrobed to relieve himself.

This is an excellent example for those being mistreated to follow. David was trusting God to make the change in God’s time. Likewise, if you find yourself in a position of someone out to kill you, professionally, do not take it as your job to kill them. Trust the leaders appointed over you. Accept the condition that your tormenter was appointed over you for a reason. There is a lesson that God wants you to learn from that situation. Reflect upon your situation with that spirit and attitude, and not only will things work out for you, you will get everything God has in mind for you from that situation.

In David’s situation, some time later, Saul killed himself, falling on his own sword, rather than be captured in battle, in a battle in which he also witnessed the death of his own sons. I cannot promise that your situation will turn out this way, or that it will all turn out the way you want it. But, I can assure you that this is the best course of action. Consider your tormenter as anointed by God, appointed over you for a purpose. Learn from it what God has in mind for you to learn. And, like David trusted God, you can also trust God and the other, more senior leaders, appointed over you. It may take longer than you wish, but change will eventually come. You, for your maturity and professionalism will be wiser and will earn greater respect for your maturity and professionalism.

CAREER CHANGING MISTREATMENT: