“My Boss Drives Me Nuts!” How Your Mindset Shapes The Way You Perform At Work.
(PART 2 OF SERIES)
Lissy* comes to our session bursting at the seams with news she wants to share about her boss, Jeremy.
“So then he says to me, ‘I’m going to need you to work this weekend,’ even though he KNOWS that I requested to have this weekend off for my boyfriend’s cousin’s wedding. I asked for the time off almost TWO MONTHS AGO! It’s been on the department calendar FOREVER!”
“Hmmmm…” I nod, and begin to take notes.
“YEAH!” She shakes her head in frustration. “Can you believe the nerve of that guy?”
Lissy dives headlong back into her story about Jeremy, who is in her mind, ‘The world’s WORST boss.’
She tells me how angry she is at Jeremy; how she hates working for him and how she thinks he is a really selfish and thoughtless person.
Lissy signed up for life coaching with me last month because she feels unhappy in her current job and wants to figure out a different direction for her career. In the three sessions we’ve had so far, she has started each time by sharing a lot of stories of incidents at work to explain her reasons for hating her job and disliking the people she works with… especially her boss.
As Lissy’s coach, it’s very important for me to listen to her carefully. My role, rather than becoming emotionally invested in her discomfort and past experiences, is to hold space for her and help Lissy to look beyond the surface to figure out what is really going on for her at work. Later I will provide support and accountability as she decides for herself what she wants to build in her career.
“So, your boss told you that he needs you to work this weekend, even though you had the time off,” I reiterate.
“Yes! Can you believe that!!!”
“What crossed your mind when he said to you, ‘I need you to work this weekend?’”
“I thought, ‘How dare he treat me like this! He doesn’t value me at all!’”
“Ok. So when you started thinking that your boss doesn’t value you at all, how did you feel?”
“ANGRY!” Lissy exclaims. “Sooooo frustrated. Now I have to tell my boyfriend Mark that I can’t go to his cousin’s wedding after all. I already bought my dress and I was really looking forward to going to the wedding. It was going to be SO much fun!”
“Got it,” I reply. “When you were feeling angry at your boss, what did you do?”
“Well, I sure as heck let him know that I was NOT happy! I marched straight down to HR to let them know that I do NOT appreciate being asked to work on my scheduled time off. We actually had a department lunch off-site that day and I told all of those guys about it. I told everyone what a dirtbag move Jeremy pulled, and what a bad boss I think he is.”
“I see. What would you normally have been doing that afternoon, or talking about at lunch, if this situation hadn’t come up?”
“Oh gosh,” Lissy sighs. “I guess I would have been working on finishing up the presentation I’m supposed to give next week in Atlanta. It’s really important… we’re trying to land a new client. I wanted to get all of my work done on that project before the weekend, because I THOUGHT I was going to be at a wedding with my boyfriend! Now I still have a bunch of things left to do.”
“So… you’re telling me that when you felt angry, you spoke with a lot of people including your boss about how unhappy you were. You then talked your boss down openly. You didn’t finish your work or make sure you were fully prepared for your presentation next week?”
“Yep,” Lissy agrees. “That about covers it!” She nods, looking slightly sheepish. “I do wish I’d gotten everything done.”
“Do you normally talk people down at the office?” I ask.
“No,” she shakes her head. “Only this guy. He’s the worst!”
I smile at Lissy. “The reason you hired me is to help you figure out what is happening inside of your brain… so you can set new goals… and discover the right career path for your future.”
“That sounds so great,” Lissy grins for the first time since we started our session. “I can’t wait to do something new.”
“Before we can move on to something new though, we need to understand the patterns you’re currently working with. We need to figure out your habits, because those come with you to any new job.”
“When your boss told you that he needed you to work this weekend, you immediately thought that he does not value you… which made you feel angry. After you started to feel angry, you talked negatively about him to many people at your work including HR and you didn’t focus on completing your work to the best of your ability.”
“That’s fair,” she nods.
“Do you see then that the result of thinking that your boss doesn’t value you is that you were not valuing your job?”
“YES!” she agrees, “I DON’T value this job. I can’t wait to get a new one!”
“Not only were you not valuing your job… you were actually making yourself a bit less valuable to your workplace, in that moment.”
Missy nods silently.
“Why do you think you aren’t valuing your job right now?” I ask.
“Well there are a million reasons!” she says, “But at the top of the list is that I hate my boss!”
“I know you think that the reason you don’t value your job is because you hate your boss. But really, the reason you don’t value your job at this moment is because you are thinking that your boss does not value you. We don’t even know if that is true.”
“Well obviously, he doesn’t! If he valued me, he would have honored my time off!”
“I know that seems correct in your brain,” I respond, “But actually, it’s just the way you’re looking at the situation. Why do you think he asked you, of all people, to work this weekend?”
“I don’t know,” Lissy murmurs with her eyebrows furrowed. “Maybe because I’m in charge of the department? I guess he didn’t trust my team to have it finished correctly for next week.”
“Do you really think that is why he said he needed you, specifically?”
“I mean,” she sighs. “It’s a really crucial presentation. He didn’t ask just me to stay… he told a few of us who are flying to Atlanta that he wanted us to work over the weekend. I guess he wants us to practice the presentation before we fly out there. Who knows, maybe he’s feeling nervous. There’s a lot riding on this for the company,” she admitted.
“I see. So, were all of the other people he asked to work this weekend as mad as you were?”
“No, I dunno. I don’t think so. I mean, nobody wants to work on a Saturday… but nobody else had a wedding to go to.”
We are only 10 minutes into our session, but we’re ready to dig into powerful stuff. I begin to help Lissy explore her mindset more deeply. She has been so convinced that her boss is out to get her, she hasn’t been really paying attention to how she herself has been showing up at the office. She hasn’t noticed how strongly her thoughts about the boss are actually affecting her job performance.
As Lissy’s coach, I get to hold up a mirror for her so that she can get to know what’s happening inside of her brain. I am helping her learn how to manage her own mind so that she can show up at work as a strong, competent colleague in the most effective way possible.
I get to support her as she begins to understand how to find peace within her current job while she works on developing the career of her dreams.
I can help Lissy take her creative power back and make more efficient use of her time, rather than handing it off weekly whenever she gets pissed off at her boss or feels that something unjust has happened.
We still have a lot more work to do together but we are making progress. By the end of our 60 minute session, Lissy has had an “Aha!” moment, seeing that her boss may actually have asked her to work over the weekend because she is especially good at managing two of the creative team members who are designing the digital pitch deck for their Atlanta presentation. “Those guys are great, but really flaky,” she explains.
Lissy is less angry now, and able to think clearly about she wants to show up to work over the weekend, how she wants to direct her team, and what she wants to contribute. She is now refocused on the Atlanta presentation; which, if it goes well, will lead to new opportunities for her.
Lissy is not alone. Many of my clients are working on figuring things out at work; transitioning to new jobs or even pursuing totally different career paths. Working with difficult colleagues is often a catalyst for people to consider making a change… sometimes even to leave a job they once loved.
We take our same brain into every new job though, and we use it to think thoughts about our new coworkers… so some of the best support I can possibly give my clients is to help them do the lasting work of developing their own productive, effective mindsets.
To learn more about more ways in which having a life coach on your team can tremendously improve the quality of your relationships, plus help you develop the career of your dreams, check back soon to read my upcoming article about Unconditional Love!
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I coach by invitation or referral only. If you or someone you love want to make powerful and exciting shifts in your career and transform your dealings with colleagues, you may contact me to describe your situation and request an invitation.
Contact me at: hello@thinktothrivecoaching.com or click here.
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“My Boss Drives Me Nuts” is loosely based on the collective experiences of a few clients. I’ve merged their stories to show readers how coaching works! *Names and details of this story have been altered to protect anonymity.