Helene Lerner's Blog, page 47

3 Tips For Dealing With A Bossy Boss

In most cases, you don't choose your managers, so what do you do when they turn out to be "bossy"? Here are some tips that may be useful. 

It's not about you. Your boss's behavior is about him/her, not you. If you take it personally, you will end up being reactive and defensive - and you'll add to the problem.

Take responsibility. No, not for your boss being bossy, but for your ability to manage your boss. Take your power back. You've probably heard the maxim, "We train others how to treat us." Apply it in this scenario.

Speak up. Pick the right time and language to let your boss know you work best when you feel you're being asked, not ordered. You need to assert yourself if you want the situation to change.

See the positive. You can choose to focus on a person's strengths or weaknesses. Make a list of your boss's positive traits.

 

 

 

 

- Alan Allard, Creator of Enlightened Happiness. For more from Alan, sign up for his newsletter at alanallard.com.

6 Quotes To Help You Accept Yourself No Matter How You Feel

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
– Lucille Ball

“Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“I’m realizing, you don’t need to change anything about yourself. This is who you are, and it’s okay. That’s daring.”
– Uzo Aduba

“Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth, and everything else will come.”
– Ellen DeGeneres

“The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are.”
– Goldie Hawn

“My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself. I don't use special creams or treatments - I'll use a little bit of everything. It's a mistake to think you are what you put on yourself. I believe that a lot of how you look is to do with how you feel about yourself and your life. Happiness is the greatest beauty secret.”
– Tina Turner

6 Ways to Stand Up To People Who Abuse Their Power

 

When someone abuses power – at your expense

A gifted communicator and relationship builder, Denise was suddenly informed that her role was being “adjusted.” That she would now be “teeing things up” rather than managing her projects from beginning to completion… and that the commissions she’d been promised were being reduced. 

Reeling from this unexpected news, Denise tried to find out why this change was happening. Here is what she learned: she had an enemy and her name was Diane:

Diane was a Senior Vice President with a powerful role in the organization. She ran a department that was extremely successful, and had a great deal of power due to her results.  In terms of how she dealt with people she was someone who took the low road. She had no problem putting people down; saying destructive things about them behind their backs. Denise included. Here is some of what Denise discovered:

Finding an enemy in your camp: As she looked into her situation Denise found out that for many months Diane had been saying demeaning things about her behind her back. Denise’s positive approach to things, her ability to get important appointments and build successful business relationships had been demeaned as “little miss sunshine,” and, “who does she think she is?” 

Don’t back down: Many people find themselves dealing with destructive people. There are many companies where destructive behavior like this would never be tolerated. Unfortunately, even though one of this company’s values was “Treating everyone with civility and respect” – this was something clearly absent in Diane’s behavior. Without seniority, regardless of her success, Denise was at a disadvantage, and while walking away may have seemed as though it would be heaven, she decided to stand up for herself instead.

Here is what Denise said she would tell someone in her position:

Stand up for what’s right:
You have to stand up for yourself – even when “they” don’t like it or want you to back down. `It isn’t easy, but you have to draw on your strength in many ways, one of them being to fight for what has been promised to you.

As part of that you have to support yourself with the facts:
Write down everything that happened. Write down all the results you produced. Keep a record of conversations you have, emails that are relevant, including the things you’ve been told were said. Put everything in chronological order.

Find an ally – someone you can trust:
You need an ally you can turn to, someone you can trust, someone who truly wants the best for you. Talk in confidence with someone you have a strong relationship with who can advise and guide you. Don’t talk with someone who doesn’t want the best for you.

Draw on your inner strength:
You need to have certainty that this will somehow work out for the best. Don’t give up. Maybe in the end you’ll decide this isn’t the right job for you. As Denise said, “I know I considered the alternative of leaving. Maybe this is a sign to move on. But know there will be challenges in the next job – they will just be different challenges. So do your best on your own behalf with this one.”

Remember that an organization’s culture needs to be really what it says it is – not just words on a piece of paper:
If you do decide to look for another job, remember  – you are interviewing them as well as they are interviewing you. Ideally you do want to work somewhere where they authentically treat everyone with civility and respect. 

Don’t give up the high road yourself. It is the only road worth taking:
You can stand up for yourself, confront what is happening, by taking the high road and not stooping to the destructive behavior you are dealing with in others. Remember that even when you are taking a stand for yourself, even when you are confronting things you are upset about, the high road is the only road worth taking.

 

 

Jane Firth, M.Sc., career coach and founder and President of Firth Leadership Partners

6 Quotes to Help You Forgive Even If You Do Not Really Want To

1. “Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.” – Joan Lunden

2. “As we know, forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.”
– Joan Baez

3. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

4. “You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.”
– Maya Angelou

5. “Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
– Corrie Ten Boom

6. “The remedy for life's broken pieces is not classes, workshops or books. Don't try to heal the broken pieces. Just forgive.”
– Iyanla Vanzant

5 Ways To Respond To Abusive Talk

As much as you may love your job, workplace and coworkers, nothing is perfect. Unfortunately, when it comes to climbing the career ladder, some people can rest their ladders on the foundation of bullying and verbal abuse. 

Particularly in high-powered jobs, people sometimes pride themselves on being ruthless, cutting and downright mean. Often, that doesn’t just apply to their competitors, either. It spills over into the way they manage their teams and speak to colleagues. 

So how do you deal with it when a coworker makes a snide remark or when your boss puts you down in front of the team?

Here are five ways to respond to abusive talk in the workplace:

1. Recognize abusive behavior
The first step to solving any problem is to recognize that there is a problem. Some abuse is easy to discern. Yelling and screaming as well as name-calling are all pretty easy to flag as abusive behaviors. However, other methods of abuse are not as clear. 

It’s important to know that even if you think it’s a normal part of the job, any of these things may be considered abuse as well:

Snide remarks about the way you act or dressHostile body language or gesturesScolding or belittling you (even for mistakes)

And you don’t have to put up with these antics.

2. Stand up for yourself
The next step is to stand up for yourself. 

It can be very easy to ignore verbal abuse because it’s easier to do that than to stand up for yourself. If it was easy to stand up for yourself, everyone would do it. 

However, you don’t deserve to be treated poorly in the workplace or in any other situation. As soon as you can after an abusive comment, approach your colleague or manager and tell them to their face that it’s not okay to talk to you that way. 

Make it clear to the office bully that you’re not going to tolerate their behavior, and many times, they’ll get the message. 

3. Call out the abuser in public
If you’ve talked to the culprit in private and they are still verbally abusive toward you, start calling them out in public.

The next time your coworker tells you an idea is stupid, your project is worthless or that you’re not good at your job in front of your team — or worse, in front of clients — come back at them immediately. 

Not only are you standing up for yourself, but by stating in front of other people that you don’t like being called stupid or you don’t like it when someone is condescending toward you, the bully will take note of how they look to everyone else in the room.

No one wants to look like a jerk — at least we hope not anyway. 

4. Document the situation
Make sure you take note of every instance of abusive talk that occurs from this person. Chances are you’re not the only one who is affected by the office bully’s bullying. 

By documenting the abusive situation, it can show the abuser that they are being verbally abusive. It can also prove to someone higher up like a manager or even to human resources that there is abuse occurring in the workplace.

5. Enlist help
Don’t be afraid to go to someone else about an abusive colleague or manager. Even if not everyone is being personally attacked, they’ve likely witnessed an office bully in action and can help you take action against them.

If the abuser is a colleague or teammate, you can go to a manager about the problem, but if your abuser is your manager, you may have to go to HR. Human resources is there to help solve problems like this in a diplomatic way. If you can’t fix it one-on-one, get help.

Verbal abuse in the workplace is a too-often occurrence, but it shouldn’t be. By using these tools, you can stop office bullying and make the workplace a more comfortable place to be for yourself — and for everyone else, too.

 

 

 

Sarah Landrum is the founder of Punched Clocks, a site dedicated tosharing advice on all things career. Follow her on Twitter@SarahLandrum for more great tips!

8 Ways To See What You Are Really Capable Of

 

A truth about your potential… 

“I actually forgot that I have potential. Somehow I had closed down or turned the switch off in myself… I feel as if I’ve come to life again…”

These are the words of someone we’ll call Remy. Remy had come to what felt like a dead end. Although she was very committed to her work, it had come to feel uninspired and burdensome. Here is how Remy brought things back to life for herself.

Tell yourself the truth about how uninspired you are
It takes a certain kind of honesty to recognize when you are at a turning point; you have to see what isn’t working. In Remy’s case that involved seeing she had allowed her work to become routine, and she saw just how much she did not look forward to coming to work each day. It wasn’t always like this…

To know where you want to be, you first have to know where you are – and why
Remy knew it hadn’t always been like this; she knew there was a time she felt enthusiastic about her work. And so she answered the following question: When had her work become so routine? If she went back to the time just before, what was happening at that time? 

Find the moment things changed
The moment for Remy was her last review. Expecting a great review she was surprised to learn that someone else was being hired for a position that would include some of Remy’s current responsibilities. Remy was taken off guard and left her boss’s office in a state of profound disappointment. 

Recognize what this moment has cost you
Reflecting back on that moment Remy saw how she had begun to shut herself down. She saw how she had lost her connection to her aspirations. Putting food on the table paled with the excitement she once had felt about her career. Her current work felt more like a dead end rather than a path forward. 

Now what? Is there a conversation to be had?
Seeing how deflated she had become, she looked at what it would take to re-energize herself. In Remy’s case she decided that what she had not explored was a conversation with her boss that allowed her to address what had occurred; one that would let her know what she needed to do on her own behalf. 

Decide how to stand up for yourself
Remy asked for time with her boss. Before she did, she worked through the upsetting emotions left in the wake of this experience – her reflections brought her clarity and a sense of equanimity. From there she wrote down the points to be covered. During the discussion she addressed the fact that her boss had promised to serve as a sponsor for her. Although her boss apologized, she told Remy that her hands were tied and tried to explain why this was so. Remy also shared how she was taken by surprise during her review and asked why her boss had allowed her to be blindsided and not taken the time to prepare her for what was to come. 

Turn a negative into a positive
In a perfect world, people who promise to help forward your career come through with flying colors. But sometimes people can really let you down.  Facing this will empower you – you will either see a different path forward where you are currently employed or feel a freedom to move on. 

Disappointment isn’t a dead end
Rather it is a signal to welcome a turning point in your life, one that you generate from within. You are not in charge of whether someone comes through for you or not, but you are in charge of generating new opportunities to step into your potential. You may not know at this moment exactly what your potential is, but it will be exciting to find out.

 

 

 

Jane Firth, M.Sc., career coach and founder and President of Firth Leadership Partners

4 Ways Mama Was Right

When you were a kid, your mother’s advice might have felt completely out of touch with reality. You couldn’t imagine how anything she said could be true. She just didn’t understand. As you got older, though, you started to realize how wise she was. Here are 4 things Mama was right about:

High school drama doesn’t end after high school
Whether we were on the receiving end or the one dishing it out, we all experienced drama during our teens. Unfortunately, the gossip, cliques, and jealousy don’t always end once we reach adulthood. There will always be that one ex-boyfriend who lies about you to his friends, or the co-worker who gets mad at you because you got the promotion, or the loud neighbors who are always fighting. However, if you surround yourself with the right people and live your life with integrity, you’ll notice the drama doesn’t find you as often.

Your true friends will stand by your side through it all
Friends get married, move far away, sometimes they simply develop new interests that you don’t share. It’s natural for you to grow apart, but real friends will always be your pals. You might not see each other every day, you might not even talk on the phone more than once every few weeks, but they’ll always be there for you when you need them.

Lying will get you into more trouble than telling the truth
Who was throwing a ball in the house? Were you jumping on the bed? Did you finish your homework? You might have thought you could get away with lying to Mama, but she always knew if you were doing something you weren’t supposed to – and the punishment was always greater when you were lying. The same applies to you as a grown-up. Everyone makes mistakes, but lying about them will only lead to a loss of trust. Your friends, co-workers, and spouse will have a lot more respect for you if they know you are upfront with them.

Everything will work out
You experienced your first heartbreak, you didn’t get into your first-choice college, your spouse unexpectedly got laid off – your Mama knew that you would be okay because she’s survived hard times too. It might not be today, tomorrow, or even a year from now, but eventually, you will get through it. You have an inner resilience and Mama’s undying support to keep you going.

4 Tried and True Steps for Turning Around Negative Self-Talk

Just as you’re about to start a new endeavor, a voice in your head whispers, “You can’t do this. Who do you think you are? You’re not good enough.”

You want to argue with this critic, but how?  You recognize the voice; it’s yours. You back away from the endeavor; your moment of excitement lost. Can you accomplish what you were about to try? What if you fail?

You’ve heard it, the negative tape playing in your head, that one that turns on without conscious thought and derails you.  Would you like to transform your skewed-toward-the-negative internal conversations? You can. Here’s how.

Be aware
Bring your critic’s voice into the open. We all hear inner-head chatter, but we half-tune it out. Like elevator music, it plays in the background and from that secretive vantage point, it rules us.

Starting today, write down your self-talk. Once you see it on paper, the truth hits home.  Instead of an inner voice ally that cheers you on, “You rock!  I’m glad I’m you. I love you!” your inner voice whispers doubts and put-downs.

Challenge your inner critic
Next, challenge your inner critic with turn-your-thinking-around questions. You take over the self-talk game when you pose questions, forcing your inner critic to pony up answers that crowd out negative inner-chat with self-reflection.

Try these questions on for size:

“Hey, critic, would you say that to a seven-year-old? What makes you think you can trash me that way?”“What’s the real evidence for the slam you just sent my way?”“Are there other ways you could look at this situation?”

Beat your critic down to size
If your inner voice uses a megaphone to trumpet critical statements, realize you’re allowing it to ramp up the volume and can instead say “shush” or “off.”

Want proof? Try this experiment. Think of a beautiful place in nature or the happy face of one of your children. Focus on that scene or face, making it even brighter and more vivid. Let it be all you can think of. As you increase your focus and the mental picture’s vividness, do you find yourself feeling even more positive?

That’s what we do with negative thoughts and incidents. We focus on them, making them larger, brighter and more vivid. We say the wrong thing at a staff meeting and think, “Everyone now thinks I’m a fool.” In truth, at least half of those present were thinking other thoughts, which had nothing to do with you, and those noticed your gaffe have already forgotten it. 

What if you instead focused on everything right with you?  

Try out new talk
Now that you’ve chosen to take control of your inner chat, tell your inner voice what you want it to say. Here’s the conversation you can have with your inner voice. “Okay voice, let’s talk. What’s good about this situation? If I were my best friend, what would I say to myself? What’s the best thing that can happen? What can I do to solve this problem? What can I learn from this situation to do better next time? What do I need to do to achieve success?” 

Force forward-moving talk – and while you’re at it, try out a few inner cheers. “Hey woman, you got this! I believe in you.”

 

 

 

© 2016, Lynne Curry, executive coach and author of Solutions and Beating the Workplace Bully. For more from Lynne, follow her @ lynnecurry10 or on www.workplaceocoachblog.com or on www.bullywhisperer.com™

4 Steps To Becoming More Confident Than You Are Now

A truth about confidence: It comes and goes… but there is something better that can serve you well – your purpose…  

Would it surprise you to know that no matter how competent, intelligent, and experienced a woman might be, the possession of her confidence in not always within her grasp? Let’s look at someone who struggled with this.

Sarah’s competence in her field was way above average. Her goal was to make partner in the not too distant future. To meet her and talk with her you would have no doubt that she knew her “stuff.” Yet, as a woman, she found that people in her office considered men the go-experts. She could see that no matter how hard she worked or how diligently she’d prepare for a meeting, her confidence was not what it should be. And so we went to work to see what impact we could have. Interestingly, the end result was that she had her best year ever – Sarah won an account that everyone thought was all but lost. Here is how she accomplished this:

She took her eye off of the idea of having more confidence and began to answer this question: Why do you do what you do? This is a really important question to answer for yourself; it can lead you to understand the greater meaning in what you do… once you find the exact the words for yourself you will have identified a sense of purpose that will energize and empower you – personally and professionally. 

She found the words that hit the mark: Although she struggled to find them, Sarah kept trying. Finally she found the words that captured the essence and meaning of her work. 

She kept them present for herself: Something different becomes possible when you have found, as she did, the essence of why the work that you do matters. She began to keep those words near her. She wrote them onto a card, seeing them and feeling them each day. Little by little they began to enhance her thinking and her behavior. She found that: she spoke differently. She listened differently. She connected differently with people. This had a positive impact on her results.

She stepped into a challenge that presented itself: You will find that an opportunity arises that tests what you have been working on. In Sarah’s case it required her to compete for a new client against “one of the best” in her field. Here is what happened: The morning of the appointment, a severe snowstorm caused her flight to be cancelled. She was unable to get to the meeting. Later that day she heard through the grapevine that the other competitor had “hit it out of the park.” In the past this would have intimidated her. Yet, on the day of her rescheduled appointment she found herself feeling very calm and certain. She could feel the power of her purpose as she connected with the client. She spoke. She listened. And at the end of the meeting she was given the assignment. 

If you decide to explore the deeper meaning and purpose of your work you will find that “the game” will change for you, as it did for Sarah. A sense of purpose is a key to your ability to evolve. Allowing that to enhance and empower you, you could quite possibly have your best year ever!

 

 

 

 

Jane Firth, M.Sc., career coach and founder and President of Firth Leadership Partners

3 positive thoughts confident women have

We all want to be acknowledged, seen at our best.  What are the things on the minds of confident women? Read on.

I have fear but I can do it. Confident women are afraid but they don't let their fears stop them. In fact, they know if they are feeling fear, it probably means that they will experience a growth spurt.

I like new challenges. They are not content with the status quo. They see the big picture and want to make whatever they are tackling better than it was before. They are committed to something greater which drives them.

I will bring someone else along. They are generous and want to give back, help another "sister." (Yes, there are some that may not live up to this but those are not the people we want to emulate).