Dealing with a nightmare boss can prove so difficult that sometimes you feel you have no option but to leave. That is not always the best solution. You may have no job to go to and you may feel as if you have thrown in the towel.

According to David Cotton, a trainer and coach who specialises in behavioural change in individuals and companies, dealing with difficult people can be a matter of changing your own approach.

David, who will be holding workshops on the subject at the forthcoming Crème show in Manchester, says: “It is really a matter of communication skills and about understanding the subjective experience of the person you are trying to communicate with. Very often, we are the ones being difficult, although we put that label on someone else.”

So, rule number one is to try to see yourself through the other person’s eyes.

If the feedback that we get at Crème is anything to go by, PAs and secretaries often work for genuinely difficult people — bosses who lose their tempers, who are bullies or who use stony silences. How do you deal with this sort of unacceptable behaviour? The answer is that you try to change it by using subtle techniques, such as those employed in hypnotism.

“Most people speak in rather a British way when it comes to issuing commands,” says David. “For example, they will tell a dog, ‘Sit down’, with the first part of the command spoken high and the second part spoken low.

“It is inappropriate to issue commands like that in a working environment. What you need to do is work out the commands you want to issue, and then embed them in longer, fluffier sentences, with the command itself on a downwardly inflecting note.

“Very often, bullying tactics are used not just to put the other person on the defensive but to make them come out fighting. Refuse to fight. Use a ‘fogging’ technique which means that you always agree with the boss first.

“For example, if the boss says to you that your paperwork is in a mess, reply: ‘Yes, I agree, it is a little messy. What specifically would you like me to do?’ In other words, pass the fight back to them. If you argue with someone, they will keep attacking. If you refuse to argue, they will go and play their game with someone else.”

Being calm and assertive are key, David says, but he recognises that for many PAs and secretaries it can be difficult to climb out of what he calls “the pit of submissive behaviour”.

“Ask yourself, ‘How am I behaving? How am I giving this person a licence to behave towards me in this way?’ “Body language can be useful. If you stand up when you are speaking, the tone of your voice changes and becomes more varied. Psychologically, too, it is easier to bully someone who is sitting down because they appear smaller.”

How should you treat the boss who, more subtly, uses silence as a weapon? According to David, most people look into the other person’s left eye when talking to them. Try looking into their right eye instead. It creates a greater level of intimacy that will make them open up to you.

Another gesture that will draw someone’s gaze to you is to open your eyes wider without raising your eyebrows. This is another hypnotist’s trick. If you feel that your boss is only giving you half the story and that you need more information, simply match silence with silence until he speaks.

Use body language — your head tipped to one side — to suggest that you are waiting for more. This matching and mirroring technique is useful to generate rapport and to equalise the relationship.

But aren’t there times when a straightforward confrontation would thoroughly clear the air? “You should always adopt a quiet, unemotional approach so that you are not the one dancing around being angry. Express your emotion, but don’t lose control. Say that you are very disappointed, and say that you are very angry, but don’t show these emotions.”

Terrifying bosses are a problem in a number of sectors, David says. He has come across the phenomenon in the Civil Service and academia, where a divide exists between those in senior positions and those perceived to be lower down the food chain. He says that it is common for administration staff in universities to fear certain academics.

David runs courses in confidence-building, where the majority of attendees are women, often working in fairly senior admin positions. He says that many are overweight, believing that the fatter they are, the more invisible they are to overbearing colleagues.

He believes that many bosses are unsuited to their roles: “It’s the Peter principle. They have been promoted to a level beyond their competence.

“They may have specific abilities in one area, but they lack interpersonal skills and are socially dysfunctional.

“Most of the people I coach on a one-to-one basis are men who have been newly promoted to senior positions and, typically, they have two problems. They are terrified of public speaking and they feel that they are failing to influence their board of directors. They think that they are frightened of failure. The strange thing is that they are actually frightened of success.”

• David Cotton, of Kingsgate Consulting, will be speaking at the Crème show in Manchester on December 1 and 2. For further details, visit www.thetimescreme.co.uk or call 01923 690635

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