Passed Over for Promotion & Pay Raise:
What To Do (and Not Do)
Right After
to Get Another Shot

How To Be A “Bad Boy” Employee?
5 Tools To Get It Right!
(Being a bad boy employee does NOT mean being an ASSHOLE but also not being a SPINELESS DOORMAT!)

The third DO, right after being passed over for a promotion, or a pay raise, or both:

3. Getting the “bad boy” employee mentality right

Remember we said it’s about political SOPHISTICATION? The sophistication is the “what”, the concept, the core.  Then you have the subtleties, and degrees of subtleties, which are the “how”, the execution.

This is tricky, and may take some practice to get it right. Especially if you’re used to being the “good boy” employee, and now you find yourself needing to completely switch your entire workplace mentality.

So let me help you there. There are 5 tools to get it right:

1.First and foremost, is to remember what “bad boy” employee mentality is NOT

It is NOT 2 things:
(a) It is NOT being disrespectful to your boss, or a jerk to everybody else. Absolutely not! You should always be respectful to your boss (well, to everybody, for that matter) –But, and this is (b) respectful ALSO does not mean, being subservient, or a doormat, or anything that is spineless. Remember that! This is the precise spot where “good boy” employees get lost, and mess it up for themselves!

2. Which leads to the second tool to getting the “bad boy” employee mentality right: Be respectFUL AND respecTED

What is ‘respect’ exactly? Here’s my definition:

‘Respect’ is addressing one – anyone – with an acknowledgement of him or her as humans, then, acknowledging their title, through the rights and privileges that go with it.

Thus, in the case of your boss, obviously he has the right to tell you what to do at the office, for example. You can try to influence him on that, but you must accept and respect that this is within his prerogative.

Another aspect of ‘respect’ is meeting people (obviously your boss included, as we are focused on your relationship with him)… so meeting people at eye level, and going into each and every interaction with an a priori goodwill intent.

That’s it!

Now, the next step after giving respect is getting it! Being able to COMMAND respect from others (your boss included)

Indeed, everything you hear on this channel, including what we’re talking about right now, has an undercurrent of just that.

So finding this fine line, between being respectful TO others, and being respected BY others, through commanding respect, is exactly where the psychological sophistication, and political and behavioral sophistication, will need to come into play. These are the subtleties and the degrees of subtleties that I mentioned before.

You know how some people project that they are not to be trifled with? Not in violent way, of course – well, there is that, but that’s not the case here – but with something in their air, and countenance – that’s what this is about! 

Speaking of which, here’s a fun fact for you: People like getting respect from people they THEMSELVES respect.

They don’t care about getting respect, from some spineless doormat. Of course that person gives them respect – that person does so to anyone, who has a bit of a backbone, so that’s no big deal. However, getting respect from someone who commands respect themselves – whoa, now you’re talking!

Which goes back to the bad boy/good boy paradox, from yet another angle:

Respect begets respect begets respect. Spinelessness begets pity.  And that’s from good-hearted people, whereas it evokes maliciousness in assholes.

By the way, even those good-hearted people… they may feel a need to protect the spineless person, but not respect, even from them. The only way to receive it is to command it.

3. The third tool to getting the “bad boy” employee mentality right is: Being goal oriented.

How? Set a clear goal, and keep repeating it in your head. Your goal is to start paving a NEW road for a promotion and/or a pay raise.

Why new? Well obviously the last one didn’t work…

How? by course correcting on most everything you did,  or did not do,  prior to your unsuccessful bid, starting with everything on this Masterclass series.

4. The fourth tool to getting the “bad boy” employee mentality right is: Be pragmatic.

If you want to achieve your goal,  you need your entire decision-making process to be compatible with that goal. And since your goal is to make sure you are not passed over the next time around, this takes precedence over everything else at the workplace!

So for example: If your colleagues are saying “hey let’s go out for lunch it’ll be fun”,  but you have a deadline you want to meet – order in,  and eat at your desk,  or bring food from home.

Yes,  it may cost you a bit in social currency,  but it’s a price you have to pay.
(I didn’t say you’d liked it.  I’m just telling you what you need to do realistically,  without the customary bullshit fluff).

Or maybe – here’s another example you may not like but must do: Maybe you would have preferred not to work with a certain colleague you don’t really like, on a specific assignment or project. Were it not for your focus on your goal, you might have tried to convince someone else to come onboard,  and would have wasted tons of time and effort on it,  or you would’ve tried to relieve yourself from that assignment or project,  using whatever excuse you could. But you realized,  that since that colleague is willing and available – working with him or her is the pragmatic thing to do, as it will enable you to deliver on time. So you talk yourself into this “partnership”,  because it’s not about your preferences, or your emotions! It’s about the goal!

Thus, keeping your focus on the goal is the “what”,  and pragmatism is the “how” that enables said “what”.

5. The fifth and final tool to getting the “bad boy” employee mentality right is: Doing the internal, introspective work.

This is crucial because putting on a show of you supposedly being a “bad boy”,  when you are actually a “good boy” employee won’t do – people will see right through you –  they won’t buy it And besides, we’ve already established in the 4 don’ts masterclass that you’re not that good an actor 

What you need is,  to be comfortable in your “bad boy” skin, so that it would come off as natural and as organic as possible,

PLUS you need to be CONFIDENT for it to work – otherwise your boss will call your bluff!

you cannot fake it ’till you make it in this case – BUT you CAN get there gradually overtime – not too much time though, to not lose momentum: So weeks. Months tops. Not years.

This is again the whole sophistication and subtlety I mentioned before. It’s not about changing your spots so much,  as it is about making sure you show them who you really are,  which is exactly why you need to do the internal introspective work,  before manifesting it to others.

The more your inside will become a true “bad boy” employee in the sense I have described it – the more natural and authentic it will come out as in your dealings with your boss and everybody else at the office.