ARE SOME BOSSES JUST INSENSITIVE AND ARROGANT OR ARE THEY JUST HUMAN WITH FRAILITIES?
Arrogant Boss - Generated using Dall E
No matter if you are early in your career or late in your career you will come across bosses who valued you and those that were just difficult to get along with. I am not just talking about those that are direct or straight on your face with their feedback, but more about those that are just mean and insensitive. Without laying the blame entirely on the bosses, I would say many times the responsibilities are share by the bosses and their subordinates. How subordinates react to the bosses’ feedback will impact their relationship? It is also critical to have some fierce conversations so both sides can set boundaries and develop respect for each other.
I distinctly remember couple experiences from my college days. I worked one summer doing research for this elderly gentleman who was very focused on his research. We used to meet once a week and after about a few weeks of niceties things got a little rough. One day when I walked into his office he appeared to be grouchy. I started by explaining what I had done in the past week. He didn’t let me complete more than a few sentences before he started screaming at me for not being productive. I was young and rebellious and didn’t take that too easily and challenged him right on his face to give me some respect. He probably did not expect that reaction from me and was taken aback. Instead of him threatening me, he now felt threatened by me. After things calmed down we both came to an agreement to have mutual respect for each other. I also discovered that his irrational behavior that day was more driven by his expectations. He was anxious to hear what I had accomplished the previous week and was getting impatient when I was describing the process that I had followed. I would have got to the results eventually which would have satisfied him. I learned something about communications that day. It is important to understand who you are communicating with and how they would like to be communicated. There are some who would like their answers first and then maybe they would be interested in hearing your process of getting the results and there are others that would want to know every nitty gritty detail of how you arrived at your result. I have had bosses of both types. You will need to invest time in finding out your bosses’ preferences and make appropriate adjustments.
A summer or two later I had the occasion to work for another gentleman with whom my interactions were cordial till summer was coming to a close. I had taken on the job to earn some money over summer, but the professor had hired me to get something to be completed over summer. Clearly misaligned expectations that we had not discussed clearly at the start of the summer. End of summer was approaching, so I forced the discussion with the professor about handing over of my work which was clearly not completed yet. That’s when things started going downhill. The professor thought he had the upper hand and started to threaten me that he would take me to the dean and that it would impact my academic record. I had done nothing wrong and had worked earnestly over summer, but sometimes research projects cannot be completed in set amount of time and take longer. It was more a resourcing issue and not a work ethics issue. I had all my information well documented and so when we went to the Dean, the Dean took my side and not the professor’s. Later on, in my career as a supply chain professional this experience helped me quite a bit when negotiating contracts. When we have a well-defined scope it is better to negotiate a fixed bid contract with clearly defined expectations on deliverables. The professor could have negotiated with me in good faith rather than threatening me and perhaps this would have led to a different outcome. He was just trying to get things accomplished as he had provided the funds but he had negotiated a bad contract.
Fast forward a few years and I had taken on a new job that required me to travel and work with clients. I flew back home late and didn’t have a chance to check my messages till the following morning. There was a long voice mail from my project boss (you really don’t have a boss in consulting, you just report to your project managers for the duration of the project). He was extremely upset after hearing from one of my peers, that I was very quiet and didn’t speak up during a client meeting. He left me strong feedback stating that if I didn’t change my behavior he would have to roll me off the project. I was flabbergasted, I had not expected this in the least. Consulting was new to me and I was on my first project. I think it was just my second week on the project. He could have sat down with me face to face to provide the same feedback or at least spoken to me over the phone giving me the feedback, so I had a chance to respond or ask questions. To leave feedback in a voicemail I thought was his way of having to avoid dealing with my reaction. It was more a coaching moment and as a project manager he should have used the conversation to provide me some coaching as to how I was expected to behave in a consulting environment. His feedback and how it was delivered a bad taste in my mouth and I did not have much respect for the individual after that. I only wish I had provided him the feedback on what I thought of his feedback so he could have made adjustments the next time he gave similar feedback to someone else.
In the work place you not only experience this yourselves but also are witness to other experiencing this behavior from those that they work for. I had a young lady who worked me who complained to me once about how she was being treated by a manager she had to deal with as part of doing her work. I coached her to having a bold conversation with this manager which she then did by scheduling a one on one with him. Instead of calling him out in a meeting with ten other people she got his attention during a one on one and explained to him how she found his behavior was disrespectful. By having the guts to do so, she not only earned his respect but also changed how he dealt with her at meetings afterwards. It is important to fend for yourself when you are feeling disrespected but do so in a manner that will earn you respect. If she had chosen to confront him in a group setting it might have had a different outcome.
Office politics is bitter and divisive, and it does leave bad taste in your mouth. It is especially bad when you get caught between two individuals who are having a power struggle. Usually, one of them has an upper hand based on the circumstances and starts using you as an agent to deal with the other. This happened to me once in my career and lasted for about a year and was perhaps the worst year of my working life. Both were my bosses in a matrixed organization and hence made it very difficult for me to maintain my sanity. One of them would ask me not to share information or restrict what I shared with the other. When I challenged him, he would get upset and let me know who the boss was. It was a very challenging twelve months that I had navigate with caution as I was lower in the pecking order. I can only imagine the plight of a parent who must mediate a struggle between two of her offspring. In my case it was a struggle between two mature adults who knew exactly what they were doing. It is hard to prescribe what to do under circumstances, but I always found that I could resolve me dilemmas by sticking to my personal ethics and by being diplomatic in conversations. Competition in a matrixed organization forces some people to behave in this manner. Collaboration might have been more productive but then people are afraid to collaborate.
