Dear Susan: I always considered myself to be someone who is supportive and sensitive to others’ needs. I feel that I have a gift of ‘being able to get on someone’s wavelength’ to understand where they are coming from. This was valuable when I worked in contract negotiations as well as in adapting my approach to different people as a Project Manager. People I have worked with have commented on and told me they appreciate this. Several have suggested that I would make a great manager.
One day, my former boss suggested that he add additional employees in my function because of an increasing workload. I agreed and suggested that I manage the new people. My boss, however, was very hesitant. When I asked about his concerns, he suggested that I be responsible for recruiting, hiring, and training them and that he would decide based on my performance.
I brought up the subject asking for performance feedback concerning my management skills in scheduled one-on-one meetings at least once a month. His responses were “OK” without any suggestions or elaboration.
After a year, I was becoming increasingly frustrated, not only because I did the work without the promotion, but also because he was becoming increasingly involved in the detail level of my work. In several cases, he made decisions within my responsibility “over my head” without having all the information or informing me. In all cases, this led to errors that cost the company time and money.
I felt that I couldn’t get through to him nor get any feedback out of him. Our relationship became highly stressed. He canceled meetings frequently and seemed to be avoiding me. We once had a very positive working relationship.
One day, out of the blue, he called me into a conference room and told me that he was giving me six weeks to ‘improve my personality’ or get out. The complaints were valid, but not what I would consider a significant problem.
I did: interrupt others, provide unsolicited advice, over-communicate, disagree with others’ ideas, and support my own ideas. While I agreed, I didn’t feel that any of it was frequent enough to pose a problem or overpowering enough to pose a problem for my work.
He said that my work results were excellent, but my personality made me impossible to work with. He also added that it had ‘always’ been a problem but he had been hoping it would work itself out.
I’m not sure what to believe: The company was having problems and had filed ‘corrective actions’ against other employees during the same period. I was getting stock options at a value far below market because I had been with the company so long.
In the same conversation when I asked for a promotion, my boss suggested I dump my husband and move in with a ‘sugar daddy’ such as himself instead of taking on additional responsibility for a higher salary. Odd, my main argument for the promotion was that it would be a good career building experience and I thought he would make a good mentor for a new manager.
I’m also far from perfect and have undergone counseling in the past for problems I’ve had with people in authority (over-controlling father during my childhood). I also get stressed and defensive when asked to take on overly detailed work, especially when it pertains to administrative and social duties not conductive to the success of my professional duties and objectives.
My boss told me that I was qualified for much higher levels, but hadn’t and would never ‘make it’ due to my ‘problems’.
While that was two years ago, and I had another job since (which I was laid off from when the company was sold), I’ve lost so much confidence in my own EQ that I’m totally blocked in my job search. I feel that if it weren’t a problem anymore, I wouldn’t feel the need to think about or discuss it anymore. Unfortunately, I can’t afford counseling because of my job loss.
Since I made a great deal of effort not to let control/authority issues affect me in that company, I’m convinced that it’s an EQ problem. Some of my coworkers supported him in his complaint actually providing examples with quotes. Unfortunately, I wasn’t told who said what so I couldn’t discuss it with them. There was obviously something they didn’t tell me during a period of over three years which makes me seriously question the presence of any EQ talent what-so-ever.
I’ve read Emotional EQ and know it intellectually, thought I was good at it, but question my ability to put it into actual practice. I’m concerned about competing in a competitive job market with ‘one brick short of a load’ 😉 I’m also considering a job change where my ‘problems’ shouldn’t have an effect on success in the job or work environment. What advice do you have to help me build my EQ and EQ confidence?
Sincerely, B
P.S. If you publish this, please do not use my real name.
Dear B,
A boss who would suggest you dump your husband and move in with a “sugar daddy such as himself” instead of taking on additional responsibility for a higher salary has such a low EQ I wouldn’t listen to anything he said. Why would you work for someone like that?
This is a wonderful experience for you to learn from, because look at what it did to your self-esteem. Resilient people learn from experiences and experiment with behaviors. Congratulations on your decision to work on your EQ!
To me your boss sounds like a micro-manager who didn’t know how to handle constructive discontent, and was nave in that he assumed problems work themselves out.
However, you are reacting to this like a pessimist would – making it personal, pervasive and permanent and going into a downward spiral. The essence of optimism, an EQ competency, is avoiding that downward spiral, so put a stop to it right now, and take action.
How to start?
- a.. Be relentlessly and adamantly self-forgiving, not defensive.
b.. Take a look at some of the EQ books on my website and buy them secondhand on one of the online bookstores. I read voraciously and I try not to pay more than $3-$4 per book.
c.. Look for free resources on the Internet. There are some free assessments on my website, and other coaches offer free ecourses, free ebooks, and sometimes a month’s free coaching.
d.. Check on www.coachfederation.org and other coaching organization sites for career and other coaches who do pro bono coaching.
e.. Email me and I’ll enroll you in my Strengths course.
Hire a coach as soon as you can, but until then, I’ll tell you how to practice an EQ competency, because they must be put into practice and practiced for a long time.
You were criticized for “interrupting others, providing unsolicited advice, over-communicating, disagreeing with others’ ideas and supporting your own ideas” and you agreed you did this occasionally. You also said you got worse under stress, which is normal.
So you want to practice in quiet times and OVER-learn positive behaviors, so when stress hits, you can still manage yourself and your emotions and what comes out of your mouth and your nonverbal behavior.
Now, we can dismiss the last two. Of course you disagree with others from time-to-time and support your own ideas. That’s how we contribute. If two people in an organization always think the same, then one of them is superfluous. And if you work for a boss that doesn’t welcome your positive contributions, find another boss.
If you are interrupting and providing unsolicited advice, stop doing that. That annoys people. It sounds like, particularly under stress, you start talking and can’t stop yourself. There’s a better way to handle this. Disagreeing with people automatically and constantly just to be oppositional, or out of habit, serves no positive purpose. This is Intentionality, and it requires an honest look at yourself and your motives. Is your intent to annoy people and provoke people? If so, you’re sabotaging yourself, and it’s up to you whether you want to keep doing this or not. But don’t do something you know annoys people and then act surprised that it annoys them. Be conscious of your motives, and Authentic.
What can you do instead?
- a.. Don’t beat yourself over the head, just get ready to learn a fun new way of doing this that will increase your flexibility and therefore your resilience. This is for YOUR benefit, so enjoy it.
b.. Work on your optimism. Attribute what happened to something non-personal (i.e., my boss was impossible), non-permanent (this hasn’t happened before and I doubt it will again), and non-pervasive (and it’s funny because overall things are great).
c.. Become aware of your interrupting behavior. How much and with whom? Look for patterns. Just observe.
d.. Practice NOT interrupting and NOT disagreeing. Just for a while, just until you learn the opposite. We are always healthier emotionally when we have many different ways of relating at our disposal.
e.. Clamp your jaws together and breathe deeply while someone talks. If you’re talking just to release tension, tap a pencil in your hands, or tap your feet on the ground.
f.. Allow yourself to be really curious about the other person and what they have to say. Put your “self” out of it.
g.. Let them talk until they’re through. Choose someone who isn’t a compulsive talker themselves. If you interrupt someone like that, it’s out of self-defense!
h.. After they stop talking, take 5 deep breaths before you speak. If they start up again, let them talk some more. This is to discipline yourself, and to learn how to manage a behavior.
i.. Do not allow yourself to think ahead, anticipate what they’ re going to say, form an opinion, or complete a sentence for them.
j.. Lighten up. Unless it’s really important to something that ‘s going on, don’t be so quick to disagree or to give an opinion. For instance if they say “It always rains here in July,” that’s not important enough to correct, right or wrong. Your ego isn’t on the line! Rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. If it’s a 5 or less, let it go by.
The opposite of interrupting is being quiet. Practice doing this until you’ve got a grasp on the difference and have that behavior under your control.
So those are just a few tips. Email me for the Strengths course! Think well of yourself. You’re learning and growing, and that’s the important thing. Good luck!
Warm regards,
Susan Dunn, THE EQ COACH
Susan Dunn, MA, Marketing Coach,
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