Called out by the boss? How to handle it -- Career Center Blog

March 5, 2013

Called out by the boss? How to handle it

4 Comments |
E-mail |
Print
- Share:

By Lisa Quast
NWjobs

(Photo: Microsoft Free Clip Art)

Scenario 1: You're staring at your boss during your performance review and can't believe the criticism you're receiving.

Scenario 2: You've just presented an idea during a staff meeting and your boss criticizes it in front of the entire department.

You want to tell her what you think, but you know that if you do, you'll likely damage your career. What should you do when you want to call your boss the B-word?

Be professional and proactive
The most important aspect of handling criticism is to exhibit professionalism. Take a deep breath, remain composed and do not become defensive.

"View the criticism constructively as a growth opportunity. If you feel it is unwarranted criticism, absorb it and, at a later time, ask for a meeting to discuss your concerns calmly and professionally," says Seattleite Kathleen M. Sturgess, MA, NCC, a professor at the University of Phoenix and a mental health professional.

A tactic to pre-empt public criticism from managers is to meet with them early on in your relationship to discuss communication preferences and boundaries. During this discussion, "set a 'contract' with your manager on what is considered appropriate and inappropriate feedback," advises Bruce Avolio, Ph.D., executive director for the University of Washington's Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking at the Foster School of Business. This proactive approach can help prevent negative criticism from occurring in a public forum.

Don't take things personally
It can be difficult not to take criticism personally, especially when it is unexpected or given in front of others. But as Sturgess says, "It's not about you, really. It's about the chance to improve and develop within your career. If you immediately become defensive, ask yourself why. What is the internal issue you're struggling with that elicits such a reaction?"

Also remember that sometimes criticism from bosses might be due to factors not related to you or your behavior. They might be angry because they were irritated by their own boss. According to Avolio, this is called the fundamental attribution error. "When you feel the urge to blame yourself, zoom out and see how the situation or context may have impacted what happened."

Try to control your (hurt) feelings
Realize that this is a work situation, not your personal life. "This is your boss, not your bestie," reminds Sturgess. "Hear what your boss has to say, thank her and move on. Having an argument with her is not going to do anyone any good."

Don't let your hurt feelings affect your performance. "Localize your feelings to the problem at hand and don't let it spread," Avolio says. "Feelings are recoverable, and there are states of being, so you go from one state to the other by the choices you make."

If you feel the criticism was unwarranted or given in an inappropriate location, consider discussing the situation with your boss. "Ask for permission to provide feedback, as your boss may not realize [he or she] hurt your feelings," Avolio adds. "Many times they don't know."

Lisa Quast is the founder of Career Woman, Inc., a career-coaching and business-consulting company. Email her at lquast@nwjobs.com.

4 Comments |
E-mail |
Print
- Share:

4 Comments

| Leave a comment

Dave Mc | March 16, 2013 5:46 AM | Reply

Great article and agree you must be thoughtful and self controlled in your handling. Unfortunately in my 31 year career at a major corporation iI witnessed and was the object of dysfunctional management. Be aware of the office politics sometimes there is a dysfunctional and even abusive boss for a reason, albeit the wrong reason. The ultimate solution is to leave, therefore your must manage your career so that is possible. Many times we see the best people leave because of the boss. But that said the article is the word to the wise to be thoughtful and self-controlled in your response..

George Hilbert | March 16, 2013 7:39 AM | Reply

The author of this article assumes that people are generally reasonable and will respond well to reason, which contradicts the very subject he is writing on.

Lisa Quast | April 30, 2013 8:29 AM | Reply

Dave & George,

Thank you both for sharing your thoughts. I too have had several bad bosses throughout my career who behaved badly and some who believed they needed to resort to verbal abuse to manage others.

Through it all, I learned what Dave mentioned, that you "must be thoughtful and self controlled" when handling these types of people.

It does no good to lower yourself to the level of people who are unreasonable by acting the way they do (poorly). In most cases, it merely hurts your own career if you stoop to their level.

Yes, one option is to leave the company due to a badly behaving boss. However, I've never liked the idea of a bad boss negatively impacting my career by making me leave a job or company.

My personal choice has been to always act professionally and work together with other reasonable people within the department/company to alleviate the person's bad behavior, or, in the worst case, to rid the company of the bad apple so they cannot do any more harm - even if the bad apple is the boss.

~ Lisa Quast

BK | May 18, 2013 5:59 AM | Reply

Lisa,
How to act professionally when you do the work which is done by no less than seven people in the same company's other field office,
when you work 16-hour days for five months, and then 20 hour days for six weeks, and have continuous stretches of work of 40 to 60 hours,
when, though being signed up as manager and being promised a team, you do not get any people for the team,
when your own mother dies because you were unable to attend to her needs in nursing home,
when you get racial insults and taunts and work,
when safety and HR people are the first to insult you like that,
when you develop double vision towards the end of the work day after working for +20 hours,
and you actually have to cover one eye when you drive home at night to get that precious one hour of sleep,
when your work gets praised for quality on a $2 billion project (which is a portion of a $40 billion project),
and when you are wondering how come you are able to function at all after nine months of that.

And, when, despite calm and controlled warnings and cautioning for months, all you get from managers is laughter.

You have to leave just to stay alive.

And then, when you find out that a person actually committed a suicide by hanging on that same project about ten days after you left, you are quite sure that you have done the right thing.
But it does not help you find new job, because nobody believes something like that is possible.

Any better examples for "damned if you do, damned if you don't"?

Yes, this is a real life example, from a project in a well paid industry, for biggest companies in the world. And it is a first-world white collar job in the richest country in the world, in a labour market with the lowest unemployment in the world.