"Can bosses get better? Sure," he says. "They do so because they discover new things and realize how badly they've been doing. But relying on that is like waiting to win the lottery. You can't teach your boss."

Sidebar

Nobody's all bad

Regardless of the approach you take, don't just label your manager as "bad." Define for yourself exactly what "bad" means.

"All bad bosses are bad in different ways," says Paul Glen, author and president of C2 Consulting. "There's the drunk-with-power boss, the 'I want the title but not the job' boss, the 'I want to do my old job' boss, the milquetoast boss who doesn't protect his team from the forces of the outside world."