Tips to Set Boundaries at Work

If you are like most people, you spend a lot of your life at work. Work is a place with many possibilities for stress, conflict, risk, and loss. It is a place where you put in the best of who you are. You are serving, and at times sacrificing, trying to please, and also establishing friendships on the teams with whom you work. So it naturally follows that you can experience some emotionally trying times there.

In addition, you have a job to do. Sometimes, in the course of doing your job, you have to establish boundaries with other people who are not doing their jobs well. They may be your colleagues or people you manage and supervise or your supervisors and bosses. Much rides on your ability to communicate well. It may make a difference not only in how you feel on the job, but also whether your company or department performs well.

When you look at leadership research, management theory, and all the things that have ever been studied about how good work environments operate, two areas always emerge: task and relationship. Work has to do with getting a job done (the task) and getting along well with the people who are doing the task (the relationship). We work hard at tasks, and we do that with other people. It’s important that the two work together.

Both of these areas depend on establishing good communication and confrontation skills. To get a job done, we have to solve problems and “face” things. To get along well, we have to work out relational issues with each other through facing things as well. So the entire arena of work requires good confrontation skills to work well. Confront well, and you will work better also. The best teams, and the best work cultures are those that confront well.

People are afraid to confront those over them as well as those under them. Often there are accountability structures established at work, and policies in place streamline interactions along the chain of command. The problem is more often that people don’t confront rather than that they can’t. That is why I regard a lack of confrontation as more of a personal issue than a “work” or “authority” issue. What can you do? Here are some helpful tips for confronting people at work:

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