Challenging the Boss

Dear HBR:

Harvard Business Review

Careers, Business/management, Work, Advice, Harvard, Help, Mentor, Workplace, Business, Management, Challenges, Entrepreneurship, Hbr, Office, Business/careers, Business/entrepreneurship

4.6 • 782 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you fear speaking frankly with your supervisor? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Liz Kislik, a management consultant and executive coach. They talk through what to do when your boss micromanages your output, you want to set boundaries for better work-life balance, or your new supervisor is eagerly volunteering your team for too many projects.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dear HBR from Harvard Business Review.
0:03.9	I'm Dan McGinn.
0:04.9	And I'm Alison Beard.
0:12.3	Work can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.
0:15.3	We don't need to let the conflicts get us down.
0:17.8	That's where Dear HBR comes in.
0:19.9	We take your questions, look at the research,
0:22.5	talk to the experts, and help you move forward. Today we're answering questions about
0:34.8	confronting the boss with Liz Kislik. She's a management consultant and executive coach.
0:39.5	Liz, thanks for coming in the show.
0:40.9	Dan, I'm glad to be here.
0:42.3	Now, in theory, we have open and trusting relationships with our bosses.
0:46.9	Why do we find these conversations where we challenge them so difficult?
0:52.4	It's hard to speak up to authority. We depend on authority. We rely on authority
1:01.2	to take care of us, to give us direction. And the idea of challenging that, well, some of that goes
1:07.6	back, I think, to the parental relationship. We feel small and we're afraid of speaking up.
1:13.6	And that's really about courage, right?
1:15.6	And a kind of practicality, because in a way, you know, Allison, it comes from not understanding what the boss's job is.
1:26.6	Just like in any other situation, there's a certain
1:29.6	amount of information that's necessary to them to make the right decisions, to choose whether
1:35.8	they're going to intervene or not, or how they're going to help you or whatever it is.
1:39.5	And if you don't give them that information, they can't function properly.
	...

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