Few things can be more maddening to anyone with leadership potential than working for a leader who doesn’t lead. What may be most frustrating is that the majority of bad bosses have no idea how bad they really are as leaders. So what should you do?

Start With Your Heart

You need to come to terms with the fact that it’s not your job to fix your boss. Nor can you. Instead, what you need to do is find ways to work with your boss, not against him or her. That process needs to start with a change of heart.

Develop a genuine relationship with your boss. The first natural reaction most people have when working for a bad boss is often to withdraw from him or her and build relational barriers. It comes from the urge to protect themselves. You need to fight that urge. If you make your leader your adversary, you will create a no-win situation. Instead, build a relational bridge. Try to get to know him or her. Find common ground. Build a solid professional relationship. Your boss’s inability to lead doesn’t mean you have to make him or her your enemy.

Identify and appreciate your boss’s strengths. Everybody has strengths—even an ineffective leader. Strive to find them in the person you work for. Is your boss kind, creative, detail oriented, outgoing, able to focus, able to dream? Look long and hard to find positive traits. Search for skills.

Find ways to complement your boss’s weaknesses. Don’t point out weaknesses. And don’t assume your boss is aware of his weaknesses. Be tactful. For example, you might ask where your boss would like more help. If he asks for help in an area of weakness, then offer to fill that role, and then carry the ball in that area. Or help someone else to fill in this gap.

Build Relational Chemistry

The key to developing a productive relationship with your boss is good chemistry. Sometimes that chemistry comes naturally, which makes things easy. However, if it’s not there, you can build it. But you will have to be the one to adapt.

Listen to your boss’s heartbeat. Just as a doctor listens to someone’s heartbeat to know that person’s physical condition, you need to listen to your boss’s heartbeat to understand what makes him or her tick. That may mean paying attention in informal settings, such as during hallway conversations, at lunch, or in the meeting that often occurs informally before or after an official meeting. If you know your leader well and feel he or she would be receptive, you may want to be more direct and ask questions about what really matters to him or her.

Know your boss’s priorities. All leaders have duties that they must complete, or they will fail in fulfilling their responsibility. It’s the short list that your boss’s boss would say is do-or-die for that position. Make it your goal to learn what those priorities are. The better acquainted you are with those duties or objectives, the better you will understand and communicate with your leader.

Earn your boss’s trust. When you take time to invest in relational chemistry with your leader, the eventual result will be trust—in other words, relational currency. Consider the concept of relational “change in your pocket.” When you do things that add to the relationship, you increase the change in your pocket. When you do negative things, you spend that change. If you keep doing things that your boss perceives as negative—whether they really are or not—you harm the relationship, and you can eventually spend all your change and bankrupt the relationship.

Carry the Weight

At the same time that you are developing relational chemistry, there’s another thing you can do to help your boss: Reduce their load. If you help lift the load, then you help your leader succeed. You may feel reluctant to help your boss succeed, but know this: It is almost impossible for you to win if your boss fails. On the other hand, when the boss succeeds, the organization succeeds.

Start by consistently doing your own job well. Hall of Fame baseball player Willie Mays said, “It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What’s tough is being good every day.” When you are good every day, you do the first important step in lifting your boss’s load—you prevent him from having to lift yours.

Any time you find a problem, provide a solution. Always be prepared with at least one viable solution when you go to your boss with a problem. More than one is even better.