Has anyone ever won out over an emotionally abusive, bullying boss? I’m curious if it’s ever been done and what the win actually looked like.

I don’t know if this is what you are looking for But I once had a boss that was aggressively condescending on a daily basis. Demeaning employees and saying things like “no wonder you can’t close, it sounds like you have marbles in your mouth” In an open office setting was disastrous for morale. He would fire people in front of the entire staff and would throw phones and/or swipe a stack of papers off of somebody’s desk if they weren’t doing a good enough job. This was in the early 00s, mind you, where it wasn’t quite boiler room but definitely .com caliber “leadership.” The thing was, numbers were amazing and only continued to get better. He would overstep personal boundaries like calling people on the phone at 5:30 in the morning or 1030 at night to yell or reiterate what somebody had done poorly. The company ended up getting acquired and he took over a CEO of the larger company, which immediately nosedived, performance-wise. To be completely transparent, it was not his fault – there was a dramatic shift in the market place due to more legislative oversight – but his humbling came rapidly. Within a span of about nine months, he was Caught cheating by his wife (leading to a divorce) dressed down by his 15-year-old daughter (who came to our office to yell at him for accusing her of having an abortion), followed by nights where he would literally sleep in his luxury SUV in the parking lot, walking in to the office with bed head as if everything was normal. He ended up breaking his hip, and upon his return to the company and the office, everything had changed. He was more sincere, more patient, and frankly, a weathered and even beaten man. I’m not sure if this is “winning out over an abusive boss“ but seeing his demise was in someway gratifying even though overall it was really a sad scenario. The thing was, he had some great tools to offer as far as management maxims and at times, motivational strategies. But that said, never thought I’d end up seeing that occur to a near tyrant.

Not that it “worked” in the sense that they changed their behavior, but at my last job, I did work up the nerve to stare at an abusive very senior employee and deadpan ask her questions about her choice of words and tone - both 1:1 and in front of her team.

Made me feel better, and my constant questioning derailed her train of thought which was quite satisfying. Plus it inspired other folks around the office to do the same, which actually landed her in HR a few times.

I left before I could see it happen, but she was fired.

The win is your being successful and happy elsewhere.

I have one good story here, about a director. It starts with me going out on an unexpected leave about ten days before a HUGE client event (my wife miscarried - this is 15 years ago so it’s OK).

I went to the office to email the team a list of what was on my plate and told the big boss what was going on. The director (one level above me) hit reply all with the following gem:

“You cannot expect the team to cover this for you - this is remarkably unfair and unprofessional.”

Within 5 minutes the big boss called me to tell me she was going to handle it. When I returned to the office 4 days later, the director apologized to me.

Whereupon I told her she didn’t need to apologize to me because it wasn’t fair of me to be mad at her for being who she was. I also told her the only thing she was sorry for was for being found out.

9 months later I was put on another project with her - I told my team under no circumstances were they to do anything that was on her deliverable list. The project was a remarkable fail and I was able to make exactly clear why.

I don’t know if I “won,” but she lost.

I made a vision board that she would leave and she quit a couple months later. 😂 I was desperate. Life was so much better after. It really screws with your mental well-being. Some people, if they have issues, I don’t think can be won over. They’ll always be abusive.

Great thread. I work in different environments all the time (like a lot of us) and in one challenging role I was the go- between for two groups that basically hated each other, business and tech teams, we’ll call them. So I go in to this product guys office and start talking about starting work on this spec we’re supposed to create for a new platform. Immediately he goes into this diatribe about how “that’s what tech wants, we are not doing it their way...” blah blah blah. He says I should go tell the CEO he’s going to quit if we use the tech teams plan. This was 15 years ago, I’m basically this super green kid in my first freelance consulting gig in New York City. So I use that to my advantage. I sit down, take my glasses off like I’m about to say something profound, look him in the eye and say, “my job is to compile this spec. I don’t know what’s going on politically between you and tech, but if you could do me a favor and treat this as a professional conversation, I would appreciate that.”
He did not expect that, and never again did he go ballistic. I actually won a huge amount of respect that day for calling him out. I’ve used that line since then but that was the most powerful.
Hope that helps.

Yep. I left the job.

I fought the bullying/toxic system and lost my job. It was a small agency though that’s independently owned, which is basically the Wild West. With 80% turnover. Tread carefully. Best to leave on your own terms, so go job hunting.

My boss was a bully. To everyone. Just her MO to yell a lot. And to sink people she didn’t like and prop up those she did. All based on insecurity, of course. I “won” by leaving, just around the time she got divorced, had some health issues and realized she was utterly alone and had failed to make any allies in all her years as office bully. She confessed how miserable she was but that she had to try to hold on until retirement age because she was broke and had no other option.
Very sad. But she was a terrible boss in almost every way: never had my back, ignored me for years at a time, yelled, schemed, made excuses, never followed through, late or no show at meetings, ignored emails, lost emails...just a hot mess.

It’s not likely a boss like this can be won over. And in all reality the issue stems from other personal or professional issues beyond your control. Net, your best course of action is probably to exit the group or company to find something with a better situation. Either way, document everything for your protection. If the abuse takes place over email save and send to your personal email. If it’s all verbal, write down and email yourself. Keep the collection in the event you decide to go to HR. Or if your boss ultimately goes to HR, you’ll at least be doing anything in your power to protect your name and reputation. At the end of the day, you have to watch out for yourself because no one in the company is doing that.

You can’t change people, get out, you can get another job, life is too short to deal with assholes.

People don’t leave bad jobs. They leave bad bosses. Don’t know who first said that, but they knew what was up.

I had an emotionally abusive boss in my last position. I had joined the agency due to the amazing team of planners I bonded with in my interviews, and 9 months in everything changed. The agency decided to bring in this high-level dynamo, and in the process wanted to give him the "A Team" - so they let people go and as a result some others quit (taking us from 10 down to 3). Soon after he started the other two quit as well, leaving me as the last member. From day 1 I didn't mesh with this guy, and he seemed to make it his mission to get me out. He wanted to hire his own team, and I was the last remnant, so he cut my work load, wouldn't give me new accounts, told me I didnt know how to be a planner and I was just "ok" at research and chastised me for being "too driven" - telling me that I should just focus on family. I hung on for a little over a year, primarily due to my stellar reputation in the agency and ability to find my own work to remain billable - but in the end he was able to lay me off due to inconsistent billability. The bright side is that it only took me 3 weeks to have an offer and im now positioned in a global agency where I am respected, looked to as a mentor and considered a sr. leader by management. And to top it off, he ended up leaving the agency, taking a top client with him and formed his own competing shop (which is not doing well). Karma :)

I quit, stated my own agency, and dominated them professionally without ruining them. But it was really really painful every step of the way. I was as traumatized as I was driven.

Mine “left the agency to freelance” (was forced to quit), but because of an accumulation of things that had started well before I was at the agency.

Idk if that’s winning, but it wasn’t losing.

Went to HR repeatedly. They got fired

My machiavellian, shotgun-wedding GM “partner”, who got made into my abusive, bullying boss by a holding company sleight-of-hand, got fired after she pulled some shady shit involving me that landed the network agency into legal soup. It felt gratifying to see her walk out of our lovely glass offices holding her cardboard box. Petty, awful person left all my Xmas gifts over five years in her office. Turns out there were more than a dozen HR complaints against the monster. I still occasionally have nightmares about the whole thing. Whew, that felt good. 😇

I left the team and now i know not to put up with abusive shit. Because of that, I am happier. I won.