I recently left my job after my team leader went out of their way to sabotage my career by not including me in important meetings with clients, refusing to train me, claiming credit for my work and giving me a negative performance review before putting me on a performance management plan that had immeasurable goals.

As I do not trust my team leader to give me a good reference, how do I explain this to a potential employer? And how do I explain why I left without badmouthing my ex-employer?

While your heart might want to “badmouth”, try to let your head take control and coolly explain.Credit: John Shakespeare

Sorry to hear you had such a horrible experience in your last job. Leading people is a difficult thing to do, but what you’ve described sounds like the actions of someone who wasn’t even trying to be a decent manager.

People at work don’t have to be best friends to work well together, but they do need to show a little bit of mutual respect – or, at the very minimum, courtesy. That doesn’t seem like it was the case here. It makes sense to me that you wouldn’t trust your team leader to provide you with a fair reference.

I think there........

© The Sydney Morning Herald