Roberta Matuson* lists some of the signs that a crucial and possibly career-damaging conversation is looming with your boss.
I recently wrote an article to help those who have been putting off having a difficult work conversation.
Now I want to talk about four signs that a tough conversation may be coming your way, with the hope that you won’t be caught off guard.
People say all the time: “I would never have imagined…” or “I never saw this coming”.
Yet, in hindsight, the signs were all there. They just didn’t want to see them.
Here are four warning signs that will alert you that a tough conversation may be coming your way.
You’ve gone from right-hand man to no man’s land.
You used to be your boss’s right-hand person — the first one she turned to for help.
She’d say things like: “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” or “why can’t everyone on the team have your work ethic.”
Now, you’re invisible: Your offers to help go in one ear and out the other.
Nowadays, you wonder if she’d even notice if you stopped coming in for work.
A similar occurrence happened to a client of mine.
“In the past, one of the biggest signs I missed that a tough conversation was coming, was not noticing how irritated my boss was after I contradicted her in a meeting,” the client said.
“After that meeting, everything seemed to be normal except she hardly asked for my opinion anymore regarding strategic decisions, amongst other things.
“A few months later, she asked me if we could talk; left me waiting in her office for over 10 minutes, and told me I was fired because I was too argumentative. I was absolutely blown away.”
Twitter-sized conversations with your manager are the new norm.
In the past, conversations with your boss often carried on for hours.
The two of you would go back and forth with one another, brainstorming the next great idea.
Now, you’re lucky to get an email response back that is more than 280 characters when asking a question.
Your boss avoids you at all costs.
This one may seem like a no brainer, yet most people haven’t a clue that they are actually the reason the boss is avoiding them.
Instead, they convince themselves that their manager is overwhelmed and doesn’t have time to exchange pleasantries.
Or that their boss is not one of those touchy-feely kinds of leaders you read about in articles on great leadership.
Before you dismiss your boss’s behaviour as being their problem and not yours, consider the following.
Can you pinpoint a specific moment in time when your boss went from being friendly to being standoffish?
Perhaps you failed to deliver your best work on a high-profile project. Or a family matter prevented you from keeping a commitment you made to your boss.
Did you receive a rating on your latest performance review that was lower than expected with little explanation as to why this was so?
You chose not to probe further, for fear your boss might say something you were not ready to hear.
Have you been complaining a lot more lately rather than be more helpful to your manager?
You didn’t mean for this to happen. However, it appears you’ve made a common error of mistaking your boss for a friend.
You can do no right.
Your work is being sent back to you with loads of corrections and with little explanation.
You do what most employees do. You accept the revisions and avoid asking how you might have gone off track.
This pattern continues until the boss reaches a point where they no longer trust you to do the work you’ve been assigned.
You quickly conclude that your boss is nit-picky. You’re frustrated, but most likely not as frustrated as your boss.
Your boss asks to schedule a meeting with you. You put the date on your calendar, with little thought as to why you’ve been summoned to the boss’s office.
Rather than sticking your head in the sand (right beside your boss), it’s always best to take steps to fix things before the situation gets to the point where your relationship is beyond repair.
Think about a time when you were completely caught off guard when someone at work said, “can we talk?”
What were some signs you may have missed that would have tipped you off that a tough conversation was coming your way?
Jot down what these signs were so that you’re not caught off guard again.
*Roberta Matuson is president of Matuson Consulting which helps Fortune 500 companies and high growth businesses create exceptional workplaces leading to extraordinary results. She can be contacted at [email protected].
This article first appeared at matusonconsulting.com.
