What you really want to say is, "You're not the boss of me!".
But, you can't. You have a bossy coworker.
And you need to know how to deal with coworkers. who think they are your boss.
Spoiler alert: You definitely don't need to
submit to bossy coworkers and do their bidding. I'm glad you're here
because your bossy colleague has actually given you an opportunity
to grow professionally and hone your skills, dealing with difficult coworkers.
No need to thank them. If you are seizing that opportunity,
tap that like button.
And let's jump right in to dealing with bossy people at work.
The first step in dealing with bossy coworkers is to stay
calm.
When you have a bossy colleague trying to tell you what to do,
it can be very easy to react. What you really want to say,
"You're not the boss of me!" But, ya can't.
If you've been subscribed for a while, and if you're not, you should be.
You'll notice that the last few videos that I've done about workplace issues and.
Dealing with difficult people at work,
one of the key ingredients to success in these
scenarios is to remain calm and in control. And if you're reacting, you're not
doing either of those things. There's a saying that I heard in the 11th grade
from one of my teachers and I loved it so much that I wrote it down.
I'd have carried it with me ever since. I mean, not always, literally,
but you know what I mean? Life is 10%. What happens to you and 90%,
how you react to it following emotional
impulses is not going to help you deal with your bossy coworker, maintaining
composure and staying calm is going to serve you much better in this scenario.
And basically every other scenario in life.
Really what I'm saying is I want you to take a deep breath in,
let that breath out, and then we'll move into the second step to
deal with bossy coworkers,
and that is to reflect and consider the context.
There's a lot of reasons why your coworker might be bossy.
They might be ambitious, but immature completely unaware of how their behavior.
is perceived. Or you just might be dealing with control, freak at work.
Ultimately, the reason why your boss, your coworker is a bossy coworker,
doesn't impact how you're going to deal with it. The question that matters much
more is why does it bother you? Do you feel disrespected,
threatened, insecure,
or is your bossy coworker trying to assign you menial tasks that are far below
your skillset? You're trying to get at the actual behavior that bothers you.
Once you do identify that.
What I want you to do next is figure out if your reaction,
and your emotions towards it, are actually proportionate to their behavior.
Let's be honest.
Sometimes we do overreact to our bossy coworkers because they're triggering
an insecurity about us, or we're worried about something else that's going on.
And we're just really projecting. Or maybe we were just working with someone.
That we don't like. If you are working with someone that you don't like,
I do have another video. I want you to watch after this one. However, I digress.
There is one more internal review that we need to do. When we are dealing with
a bossy coworker, you need to do a check, take a pause and ask if your coworker
is being bossy, which has negative career consequences.
Or if they're being assertive,
which is a highly promotable leadership trait,
maybe you're jealous that they're really
assertive because you want to be more assertive.
Let me know if you want a video on that one.
Research has found that the incidents of bossy coworkers is actually about the
same between the different genders. However,
women are twice as likely to be labeled as bossy.
That is a big difference and a very problematic difference.
My career climbing friends.
If you're a bossy coworker identifies as female,
I really want you to stop and ask yourself if she was male,
would I make the same assessment? Because if you wouldn't,
you have some different work to do. Now you've taken a pause,
you've done your bias check and you've determined. Yes,
I am dealing with a bossy coworker and it's really all them.
Now it's time to deal with it, which brings us directly to
step three of how to deal with your bossy coworker,
which is to master the graceful decline. You know,
just because someone asks you to do something doesn't mean you actually
have to do it.
I know that this is something that you might be struggling with because
you want to get along with your coworkers.
You want to make your coworkers like you,
you want to be a good team player and say, no, isn't going to help with that.
Is it? Well when you know how to say no,
you can actually use it to set professional.
Boundaries that allow you to establish better working relationships with your
coworkers.
The trick is you need to know how to say no saying no to a bossy coworkers
request is actually surprisingly simple. So simple. In fact,
I'm going to give you a script, grab a notebook,
because you're going to want to write this down.
All you have to do when your bossy coworker tells you what to do is
respond with, "I can't help you.
I'm at capacity with," and then you insert some really important tasks
that you're working on or just something that urgently needs to be done.
That's actually your job. If your bossy colleague is trying to assign you tasks,
you can actually just suggest another person to take the task on.
"That sounds like something that would much better utilize Chad's skills. ".
And if you're part of a project team and there was actually something else that
you.
Wanted to work on, you can not just suggest someone else, but then you can claim
what you actually want to take ownership of. "That's a great idea, Tom,
but Chad would be much better suited to that task.
Let's loop him in and I'll take the lead on..."
And then reference what you actually wanted to take on.
If you have successfully declined to bossy coworkers requests before drop out,
I nailed it into the comments down below. And if you have any scripts,
suggestions for your fellow career climbers, feel free to include those as well.
The important thing that I really want you to take away from this step and from
this video is that saying to what work isn't just important when you're dealing
with a bossy coworker, it's actually a crucial career success skill.
And the key here is you need to know what to say no to and what to say yes to
you.
I do have a free training coming up that is going to cover exactly this.
If that is something that is interesting to you,
I'm going to drop the link to preregister down below.
That brings us now to step four in dealing with our bossy coworker,
which is to ignore it.
I'm not saying to totally ignore your bossy coworker and pretend that they don't
exist. That would be super rude, but instead,
ignore the fact that they're trying to be the boss
when you're a bossy coworker knows exactly what they're doing.
What they're actually trying to do is create an artificial power relationship,
which is why when you're working with a bossy coworker,
you can start to feel like you're less than unless you disregard
their power move and reassert yourself as an equal.
Let me know in the comments below, if you're following me on this,
what you're doing is not.
Ignoring the request.
What you're actually ignoring is their effort to de stabilize the
relationship of power in your working dynamic in plain English.
They're trying to make themselves better than you. On the other hand,
if this is just how your coworker is, they are just naturally a
bossy person in life.
Then ignoring it is actually just disregarding your perception of them,
or at least your judgment towards it, ignoring your coworkers' bossiness,
or pretending that they're not actually bossy,
Isn't necessarily going to solve the problem, though.
And really who wants to deal with a condescending coworker or bossy coworker for
the duration of their time at that job? No one.
So this step tends to be more situational.
And generally you're going to have to move into the next step in dealing with
your bossy coworker, which is to talk about first,
you're going to talk to your bossy coworker directly about it.
It is entirely possible that your bossy coworker does not know that they are
bossy.
And if they do know,
addressing it in a clear and concise way is going to set a
professional boundary with your bossy coworker.
But how do you do that without starting a fight with your bossy coworker,
you need to enter the conversation with the best
assumptions and the best intention possible.
Do not have the conversation to make. them stop bossing you around at work,
have the conversation to help them succeed. As I mentioned earlier,
bossiness does not help your career. You do need to be prepared
for this conversation.
And this is something that I've worked with a ton of my clients
on since I'm not working with you personally, at least not yet.
I wanted to give you my top tips to enter this conversation,
to make it a relationship builder,
instead of workingplace bully bait. Be confident A.F.
When you walk into that room or the conversation,
the biggest mistake that I see people make is that in some way or some capacity,
they've kind of bought into the dynamic and they feel less than their bossy
coworker. I'd love to hear from you on a scale of one to 10,
how confident do you feel having a conversation with your bossy coworker.
Next in the conversation you're now on of choice is going to be you when
you use I, it actually infers inferiority.
That's kind of the opposite of what you're trying to establish here.
What this looks like is instead of saying,
sometimes I feel like you're telling me what to do.
You would say you come across as though you're telling other people what to do.
The words we use matter and making this tiny tweak is going to have a really big
impact in the conversation.
Most importantly,
you want to make it non accusatory and abundantly clear that.
You were having this conversation to help them succeed. You can imagine how
defensive you would feel if your coworker told you that you were being bossy,
heck maybe someone has, and you know exactly how it feels when you're truly
coming from a caring and empathetic place. People can feel it.
And I know that you do truly care about the people that you work with.
Otherwise you probably wouldn't have stuck around this long in this video.
Don't be afraid to show it. If speaking to your
bossy coworker does not resolve it, or if it actually escalates the situation,
you might
need to get other people involved like your manager or HR do not take this
lightly though.
The only place that a tattletale is more disliked than on the playground is in
the workplace.
If your bossy coworker is occasionally bossy, and if it's not having any impact.
Especially adverse impact in your career,
you might just want to stay on the ignorant stuff. However,
if you've gone through all of these steps and you've determined that you really
do need to include someone because of the situation,
it's likely that you're not just dealing with a bossy coworker,
it's likely you're dealing with a toxic coworker or that they're actually
a workplace bully. If that's the case,
I have a different approach that I suggest that you take with them,
which I'm actually going to deep dive into in my next video.
If you haven't already,
click that subscription button and the notification bell to make
sure you don't miss it. Often I find a bossy coworker isn't just bossy.
Typically they're a difficult coworker in general.
If this does sound like you're bossy coworker,
I want you to go watch this video right now. But before you go,
don't forget to smash that like button.
If you did find this video helpful and share with a friend who can use these
tips to deal with their bossy coworker. As always,
thank you so much for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.