I have one boss who is always complaining, whatever task he gives you he is complaining about it. And this is not only for me but also many employees, his behaviour reduces the morale of the workforce.

He gives you an assignment, and you ask him how he wants it done, say to prepare a certain report. You prepare it as per his instruction, but when you submit it to him he makes a lot of corrections and complains, asking why you did it that way, and sometimes throws it away, even though it is what he asked for.

Please assist on how we can handle this situation.

I can sympathise with this situation, because I had a manager like this once!

I think you need to understand why this is happening before you can tackle it. My guess is that this man is not well organised, is very busy, and not a good delegator.

I have discussed the art of delegation on a sister site, please follow this link and read this post

Delegation

The salient point here is that before you give the task to someone else, you have to make sure you know exactly what needs to be accomplished, and how. If you are doing it yourself you can decide how to tweak the work as it progresses. But once you hand it over you need to give specific instructions.

And I think this the problem you are experiencing. He has not had the time, opportunity or inclination to think the job through in exact detail. To some extent, you will have to accept this as a fact of life. But there are a few things you could do to mitigate the effects

There is some relevant advice about report writing here , http://www.managementskillscourses.com/writing-effective-business-reports/

Before you even begin to research the report, be certain you and whoever has commissioned the report are clear and in agreement on the topic, scope, and objectives of the report. If this is a large project, perhaps for a client, consider a written summary or statement of objectives to ensure the target is clear.

Perhaps you could adopt the same principle for any task allocated to you. Take notes, go over them with him, check you are both in agreement. Take the notes when you hand over the task to him, and point out, politely, that you have done as asked.

But you do have to accept that ideas evolve, and when he sees your work, other ideas may occur to him. He will see ways he can improve and build on what you have done. And surely it is for the best reasons that he improves on your work? The objective is to get the best outcome for the company, not to keep everyone happy.

So, build it into the process, so that it does not present a problem and cause bad feeling and poor morale. Your job is to gently introduce the idea to him, perhaps as if it was his own.

When he gives you a task, take a brief from him, and suggest that you draft something up, and then run it past him to see if he wants to review the work so far, make any changes, add anything. Welcome his changes, and then polish your draft up. Don’t be surprised if he wants to make more changes when you have done that !

Consider it collaboration. If you all accept that this is the process, and take away the blame and complaining, life may be a little easier.