15 Signs Your Boss Doesn't Respect You and What to Do.

They know that this will cause your subordinates to look down on you and disrespect you and they will not want to encourage this. This is however not the case for the boss who has no respect or regard for you. When they are in public is when they choose to put you down, and even when you are with them privately they never talk respectfully to you but almost always put you down to make you feel small.

2. They talk down on you.

You cannot remember the last time they addressed you well. They appear to always speak to you condescendingly like they find you irritating.

3. They ask for your opinions and either never use them or pass them off as their own.

This is another common thing disrespectful bosses do, consistent with their disregard and disrespect for the employee in question. They may make it a point to ask your views and then brush them off as inconsequential only for you to hear them reciting the same ideas to other people and painting it as though they came up with it. You may even be in the same room when they present the idea and they will deliberately ignore you and pretend you are not there.

4. They do not respect your time.

An unprofessional boss that has no respect for you always disrespects your time too. He/she will make it a point to wait until the very last minute to give you a task that they probably knew about all along. And to make matters worse, they give you a very unreasonable deadline to accomplish the task.

5. They assign you tasks without clearly defining what you are to achieve or what their expectations are. And when you do it the way you understand it, they complain and make a fuss.

This one can be pretty annoying because even when you ask them to provide you with all the information you need to do it the way they want, they shout at you to figure it out. They may even couple it with an insult or two.

6 Subtle signs your boss doesn’t like you.

When your boss hates you, you tend to see it displayed in these 6 subtle signs that tell you that your boss doesn’t like you.

6. They exclude you from meetings and important information.

You’ve found meetings going on without you only to realize that you’re the only one in the office who didn’t know about the meeting. Or maybe your boss makes major changes around the office and everyone else but you are in the loop about these changes. It is no accident but a deliberate and subtle way of telling you that you are no longer in the boss’s good books.

7. They are passive-aggressive towards you.

When a person doesn’t like you, you can tell from their entire body language and demeanor towards you. They tend to act in a passive-aggressive way to you because they know that they cannot be overtly mean to you because of social etiquette rules.

8. They treat other employees better than they treat you and especially those on the same grade/level as yourself.

This is another body language they display to let you know subtly that they don’t like you. They speak kindly to everyone else and may even laugh with everyone else but you. They deliberately ignore you but speak to others around you. All this to show you that they don’t like you without letting you know in clear terms that they don’t like you anymore.

9. They blow things out of proportion when it involves you.

When you make a very small slip up, one would swear that you burnt down the organization or something along those lines, because of the way they would react. They always tend to blow things out of proportion when it concerns you and you are starting to feel like they have a personal vendetta against you. And no you are not imagining it because you can see a marked difference between how they react to your slip-ups and how they react to similar slip-ups from your colleagues.

10. They will rarely ever compliment your efforts even when it is so glaring for all to see.

And it doesn’t matter how hard you work or how much effort you put in, they just couldn’t be bothered. They feign ignorance of the amount of effort you put in at work to make the company look good and you are starting to doubt if you are valued in the company. It is only because your boss doesn’t like you. And what even hurts more is that you hear them compliment your other colleagues effusively even when they don’t do half the work you do.

11. They rarely want to meet you face to face/in person at work.

And there is no logical or reasonable explanation for this. At first, you thought you were imagining it until you tried to schedule a one-on-one meeting with them and they just kept giving you the run-around. This one is the worst case of a boss who doesn’t like you. They can’t stand being in the same space as you and this is the reason for the duck and dive around an in-person meeting. Sometimes they may even communicate messages to you through other people instead of telling you themselves.

4 Signs your boss doesn’t trust you.

Nothing sucks like working for a boss that doesn’t trust you. In case you have doubts about whether or not your boss trusts you, look out for these 4 telling signs.

12. They make it a point to supervise everything you do at work.

You start wondering why they bothered employing you if they had no trust in the work that you do. This does not deter them though. They are always looking over your shoulder with every task they give you. This is a telling sign that your boss doesn’t trust you.

13. They tend to micromanage what you do.

Not only do they supervise every work/task they give you, but they also want to micromanage every aspect of your work. And you might notice that they are not that way with everyone; just with you. It is no accident. They do not trust you and this is why they micromanage every aspect of your work life.

14. They never give you feedback on your work.

And this is because they don’t see the point since they don’t trust the work anyway. Since they don’t trust your work, they decide that they don’t need to give you any feedback because they also don’t trust that the work will improve after the feedback.

15. They give you mundane work that does not challenge you or build you professionally.

Does it feel like they give you work that no one else wants to do? Even when you are clearly overqualified for the mundane task in question. Sometimes, some bosses will add insult to injury by giving your subordinates more challenging and interesting work than they give you. This is because they don’t trust you.

You may also like 12 Signs your boss wants to promote you.

What to do when you feel disrespected by your boss.

When you find yourself faced with a disrespectful boss situation at work, here are 3 ways to handle the situation.

1. Raise your concerns with your boss.

Raise your concerns in as conciliatory a tone as possible. It is best to gather concrete evidence before having this conversation so that your boss does not turn things around on you and accuses you of seeing things that do not exist. You should however be mentally prepared for the possibility of your boss denying everything and becoming defensive and unwilling to change anything or address any of your concerns.

2. Do not retaliate or let it affect your output.

Sometimes it can be tempting to want to return tit for tat and start disrespecting your boss. You may even decide to become indifferent to work or even start ignoring work calls. None of these are good for you professionally.

Remember that the person who stands to suffer at the end of the day from taking this approach is not your boss but you. You are the one who will become stale and irrelevant in your industry if you choose to let a disrespectful boss affect you and your work ethic.

Resolve to remain productive and grow professionally. Challenge yourself and see it as a chance to develop and work on yourself outside of the constraints of work.

3. If the situation continues to get out of hand, consider finding another job.

Ultimately you may have to accept that it is time to leave the job because no job should deny you of your self-worth. The longer you stay at a job where your boss either disrespects you, doesn’t like you, or doesn’t trust you, the more your self-confidence takes a hit. And in the long run, this will cause you to start to doubt yourself and your competence even when you are good at what you do. And if you are still not sure it is time to leave, read our article on When to quit your job immediately for more reasons why it is in your best interest to quit.

Check out our helpful article on What to do when people don’t respect you for more tips on what to do when you are being disrespected at work.

Frequently asked questions.

1. What are the signs your boss feels threatened by you?

When your boss feels threatened by you, he/she will start to pick at everything you do. They will start to look for errors and mistakes in your work just to convince themselves that they are better than you and make you doubt yourself. They will start to talk down on you and make snide comments about you.

2. My boss doesn’t respect me, what should I do?

Check out the last section of this article for the 3 things you can do.

3. My boss ignores me. Is this a sign that my boss doesn’t respect me?

Yes, this is one of the signs that your boss doesn’t respect you. It can also be a subtle sign that your boss doesn’t like you.

4. Why does my boss avoid me?

It is most likely because he/she doesn’t like you. This is usually one of the subtle signs your boss doesn’t like you.

5. My male boss avoids me. What does this mean?

If you are female, it could mean one of two things. It could either mean that he finds you attractive but doesn’t want to cross the professional line. And so, avoiding you is the best way he can avoid that occurring. The other thing it could mean is that he doesn’t like you and can’t stand being around you.

6. My boss excludes me from meetings. Is this one of the signs of disrespect at work?

Indeed it is. It is also one of the signs that your boss doesn’t like you and is hoping that you can do him the favor and quit work.

7. Should I have no respect for my boss as a way of responding to an unprofessional boss?

It is not advisable to do this. Two wrongs never make a right, and the person who ultimately gets to suffer professionally isn’t your boss but you. You will taint your professional reputation and for what exactly? It isn’t worth it.

If you feel that you can no longer respect your boss, then the best thing for you to do is to quit work and still have your reputation intact rather than ruin your reputation by choosing to stay on and disrespect him.

8. Is ignoring work calls a good thing?

The only time it is acceptable to ignore a work call is if the call comes after hours. Your time after hours should be yours to use as you deem fit without unwanted interruption. Work calls at any other time that is deemed work time must be answered and ignoring them at those times is not a good thing.

Conclusion.

Disrespectful bosses can be a pain to deal with at the workplace. You know such bosses by the signs listed in this article. When the boss has no respect for you, it could eventually turn to dislike and he/she will show it in the signs of a boss who hates you listed in this article. And if your own problem is that your boss for instance micromanages you, then it is more likely that they don’t trust your work.

Any of these types of bosses ultimately make the workplace a toxic place to be. And the longer you stay in such a toxic work environment, the more your self-confidence erodes. The best solution to such a toxic work environment is to quit and find another enabling work environment to grow in.