5 Ways To Deal With a Toxic Female Boss (Without Conflict)     

Toxic female bosses are difficult to handle, especially when their abusive, negative behavior begins affecting how efficiently you can perform your tasks. Confronting her is tricky since she’s your superior and might resort to retaliating, making your work life even more stressful. However, it is crucial to address this issue before circumstances become utterly uncontrollable and unreasonable.

You can deal with a toxic female boss by coming clean to her and respectfully telling her how she is negatively affecting you. You can take it as a challenge and strive to meet her expectations. As a last resort, ask HR for help, especially when things get out of hand.

Let’s begin! This article will discuss different ways to deal with a toxic female boss without creating too much drama in the workplace and resorting to conflict, including adopting and working with her chosen leadership style and simply meeting her expectations while striving to live up to her standards. I will also provide tips on empathizing with her and why asking for help is the best route when the situation becomes too much to handle.

How To Deal With Difficult/Toxic/Mean Female Boss

You can deal with a difficult/toxic/mean female boss by taking it from her perspective and understanding where she’s coming from. Come clean, tell her how you feel, or ask HR for help. If it’s her leadership style, learn to adapt, but if she’s singling you out, find ways to nip it in the bud.

Here are some tips on how to go about it:

1. Just Do Your Job

If your toxic female boss is extremely particular and critical about how you handle your job, leave your ego at the door and do your job — distinctively well. As long as they’re reasonable and sensible, follow all her instructions to a tee. Don’t hesitate to ask for assistance and clarification if something is unclear.

Get out of your comfort zone and show your demanding female boss what you’re really made of. 

She might be a perfectionist who expects nothing short of excellence from her team. She might also be trying to push you to exert yourself more so you can enhance your skills in the workplace. Take this as a challenge and show yourself what you’ve got.

Get out of your comfort zone and show your demanding female boss what you’re really made of. 

2. Work on Your Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand the emotions of people around you — in this case, your toxic female boss — and manage your emotions. It involves five essential factors:

• Empathy. This pertains to your ability to consider and be in tune with other people’s emotions. 
• Self-awareness. It’s about having a solid understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses. 
• Self-regulation. This pertains to the ability to view things objectively. It can help you avoid making impulsive decisions you might regret later on. 
• Interpersonal skills. This refers to how well you’re able to interact and work with other people in your organization. It has a lot to do with teamwork, collaboration, and synergy. 
• Motivation. This refers to your motives for your words and actions. If you’re a good team player, you know that you can’t always control other people’s feelings, so your goal is to understand them, adjust to them, and figure out how best to interact with them to create a harmonious workplace environment. 

When working on your EQ in dealing with your toxic female boss, make it a point always to take on a positive stance. Rather than focusing on her inappropriate and unpleasant behavior toward you, try to understand her perspective and work with her toward achieving the set goals. In the end, she might appreciate your efforts and start viewing you as a reliable, competent partner in the team. 

Essential Factors of Emotional Intelligence	Description
Empathy	Ability to consider and be in tune with other people’s emotions
Self-awareness	Understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses
Self-regulation	Ability to view things objectively and avoid impulsive decisions
Interpersonal skills	Ability to interact and work well with other people in your organization
Motivation	Motives for your words and actions, and ability to understand and adjust to other people’s emotions

3. Let It Out

Letting it all out is one way to deal with a difficult female boss. Let her know what you think and feel about her behavior toward you. Express your thoughts calmly and respectfully, considering that she is your superior.

Remember, there’s always a possibility that she is unaware of her negative impact on you. In this case, you’ll help her become a more effective boss by highlighting areas she must improve. After all, being a boss has much to do with people management — leading and managing her team toward growth and success — and she might appreciate your honesty.

On the other hand, don’t forget that this can ultimately backfire on you. It might turn out that your female boss is a narcissist; hence she believes she’s better than everyone else and never wrong, this happened to me once, and it was nasty.

She might think that since she’s higher ranking, she can act however she likes. If this is the case, you might not be able to change how she treats you, but at least you now know what kind of person you’re dealing with. 

4. Take a Step Back

Rather than confronting your toxic female boss, taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture would also be great. Is there a reason why she’s acting this way toward you? Have you done something recently that didn’t sit well with her? Is she singling you out, or does she treat everyone on the team the same way?

Identify the cause of her behavior and try to rectify the situation. Doing this will help you better understand where your boss is coming from if she’s singling you out because you recently did something to upset her; own up to your mistakes and commit to improving yourself by turning this into a learning experience.

Recognize that her seemingly unfair treatment toward you isn’t something personal. Perhaps she’s going through some challenges in the workplace or a difficult situation in her personal life. Rather than counterattacking, empathize with her and create as little drama as possible by striving to meet her expectations.

Rather than counterattacking, empathize with her and create as little drama as possible by striving to meet her expectations.

If you realize that she treats everyone in the team the same way, understand that this type of behavior could be her leadership language style. Learn to work with this and use it to your advantage by allowing her to mentor and push you toward excellence and success. As long as she isn’t doing anything harmful that goes beyond the scope of the workplace, learn to adjust to her style since this could also fortify your character. 

5. Call for Backup

As an employee, there’s only so much you can do. If you’ve done everything you can by trying to reach out, understand, and tolerate her, but you can’t handle the situation by yourself anymore, it’s time to ask for help. If your toxic female boss is already making a profound adverse impact on your ability to perform your work well, you can turn to higher management for assistance.

The Human Resources department typically handles situations like this. They can help you navigate this situation within the boundaries of company policies. Take screenshots of text conversations, save pertinent emails, and provide detailed written descriptions of relevant incidents. The HR will need proof of your claims, so provide reliable documentation and credible witnesses.

You can also turn to a skip-level manager for help — your toxic female boss. Since this person is superior to your boss, they can call her out on abusive and inappropriate behavior, mainly after you’ve provided sufficient proof of your claims.

Strategies for Dealing with a Difficult/Toxic/Mean Female Boss	Description
Just do your job	Follow instructions and ask for clarification if needed. Show excellence and take it as a challenge.
Work on Your Emotional Intelligence (EQ)	Understand and adjust to others’ feelings. Consider others’ emotions and view things objectively. Understand your strengths and weaknesses.
Let It Out	Help the boss become more effective by providing feedback. Express thoughts calmly and respectfully.
Take a Step Back	Analyze the bigger picture and identify potential reasons. Rectify the situation and learn from mistakes.
Call for Backup	Seek assistance from higher management if needed. As an employee, there’s only so much you can do.

Be mindful that your mean female boss might retaliate, so be discreet and strategic when you choose this route. A vengeful toxic boss is undoubtedly more brutal to deal with. 

Here are a few tips on how to deal with a toxic female boss.