Working for the Wrong Boss: How to Stay Professional, Protect Your Reputation, and Take Back Control in Difficult Work Environments

By Jacques Retief

Working for the Wrong Boss

Some bosses do more than make work difficult. They make your role unclear, your confidence unstable, and your professional reputation harder to protect.

Working for the Wrong Boss is a practical, intelligent guide for professionals who feel trapped in confusing, inconsistent, or destabilising workplace dynamics. Whether you are dealing with unclear expectations, poor communication, shifting blame, quiet reputational risk, emotional volatility, or a leader who creates more chaos than clarity, this book offers a calm and strategic way forward.

Drawing on extensive experience across leadership, education, human resources, industrial relations, organisational strategy, and high-stakes workplace negotiation, Jacques Retief provides grounded guidance for staying steady, thinking clearly, and protecting your long-term career.

Inside, you will learn how to:

recognise when a difficult boss has become a genuine professional riskstabilise yourself before reacting emotionallycreate a clear paper trail that protects your positioncommunicate firmly and professionally without escalating conflictmanage upwards without losing your boundariesprotect your reputation, credibility, and professional identityrespond to blame, misrepresentation, and shifting expectationsstay calm in toxic environments without absorbing the chaosbuild strategic visibility so your work is understood and valueddecide when to stay, adapt, escalate, or leave

This is not a book about revenge, office politics, or winning arguments.

It is a book about protecting your integrity, confidence, and future when the person above you is making work harder than it needs to be.

If you have ever found yourself overthinking emails, replaying conversations, second-guessing your instincts, or working harder just to feel safe, Working for the Wrong Boss will help you regain clarity, control, and professional steadiness.

A flagship guide in The Professional Self-Defence at Work series, this book offers practical frameworks, clear language, and real-world strategies you can use immediately, wherever you work.

How to Stay Professional, Protect Your Reputation, and Take Back Control in Difficult Work Environments

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 192367420X
• ISBN13: 9781923674202
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Retief Libris Publishing
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"