What To Do About Mediocre Leadership

Don't be the servant employee. Be a bit more self-centered. Think about your job as a resume builder. What can the job offer you--training, travel, mentoring--that makes you a better you.
If you work in development, communications, HR or any field museums share with other non-profits, are there job opportunities that build your skill set away from the field, but allow you to stay in your community, city, town?
Read last week's post on More Than a Mentor and make sure you have a posse.
Consider taking on an outside project as a consultant or a volunteer. Again, be strategic. What will it do for you? Allow you to work with folks you admire? Be a resume builder? Earn some extra money to fund either a vacation (re-charging in these situations is important) or professional development that your institution might not pay for.
Look for opportunities and take them. Is it your turn to schmooze trustees through your department? Don't avoid it because the trustees hired the incompetent leader in the first place. Meet them and sell your own piece of the pie.
Finally, as we said last week, always check-in with yourself. Only you can know how sad, angry or tortured a job is making you. If it's making you sick, step aside. You're smart, well educated. There are other jobs in other fields. This may be the universe telling you to press pause on the museum field, so listen. Are you working for the stress-you-out director? How do you cope? Joan Baldwin