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Creating boundaries doesn’t make you a jerk
Contributed by
Heather Monahan
I was on a coaching call with a client earlier today. She is kind, smart and talented however she doubts herself. She doubts herself because she is young because she is in a male dominated industry and because she doesn’t have as much experience. Here’s what I want you to know: People will treat you the way you teach them to treat you.
Mic drop moment.
You are always teaching someone how to treat you. My client was explaining how her client hung up on her, didn’t show up for a scheduled meeting and then when they did meet he questioned everything that she said on the call.
Pump the breaks!
I asked her to reframe this call and to role play it with me. The next time someone hangs up the phone on you – you address it.
Promptly send an email to the offender: Jim, I am not sure what happened just now but you dropped off of our call. I hope everything is all right. If we are to work together, we will work together under the mutually agreed upon commitment to be respectful of one another. Respecting one another means we will not raise our voices or hang up without signaling it is time to end the call. Let me know if you would like to continue working together.
Respectfully, Heather Monahan
My client was concerned with being perceived as “bitchy”. Here’s the real problem: she was hesitant to create boundaries for herself, respect herself and command respect from others. When we command respect from others in a respectful way, they begin to respect us more. Think of someone in your life that is very direct, decisive and unapologetic. I would imagine that people pay attention when the speak and view them as an authority. We roll played how she would manage her client and as soon as she finished she mentioned she had been having some challenges with her staff too. Her accountant hadn’t been responding to her emails or updating her account receivables. Her assistant had been missing work and not acting like herself lately. I asked my client why in the world this was happening. She said, “I am just too nice”. No. This is simply not true. No one can ever be too nice. However, she is being taken advantage of and she is not standing up for herself or taking responsibility for the bad behavior that she is allowing for. Many people have a hard time hearing that. We are teaching people how to treat us.
I asked her to set clear expectations for her accountant with a Friday 3pm weekly deadline on all reporting and a standing 4pm live zoom meeting to review the numbers. Once we clearly set expectations it is up to the other party to deliver on them or fail to do so. Either way we have our answer. In this case she will either have her receivables paid or she will realize she needs a new accountant. She knew she was going to have to do the same with her assistant. She asked for a meeting and then re-established the responsibility of the role. Her assistant was clear and told her she was having personal problems. My client felt terrible. Here is the thing: everyone will have personal problems throughout their lives and while we can be understanding of isolated issues we cannot tolerate trends that are disruptive and unprofessional. Have the conversation, set the expectations, establish the boundaries and allow the other person to respond, show up and deliver or decide to move on. I am crystal clear on how to handle these situations because I didn’t handle them earlier in my career. As a VP of Sales who had just given birth, I received a phone call from my then CEO asking me to board a plane and give a speech on his behalf 10 days after giving birth. I simply agreed and left. Today, I would respond differently. Today, if I was in that situation and received that call I would laugh! Then I would respond, “wow, you didn’t hear that I just had a baby a few days ago! I will send you pictures. I am sure there is someone else on the team that hasn’t just had surgery that could make this trip on our behalf. I will send you the pics now!” Same situation, different response and different outcome.
Creating boundaries doesn’t make you a jerk. But it does mean that jerks can no longer hurt you.
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