I recently had a great conversation with a 25-year experienced admin. Her name is Paula. She was wondering how to deal with a manager who seemed to be intimidated by her knowledge and go-getter attitude. She has worked with this person for about 3 years. This is important to keep in mind because as I told Paula, she needed to establish boundaries in the very beginning as the manager became aggressive in her attitude and delegating with Paula.

As I understand the situation, the new female manager started dumping many of her assignments and work on Paula even though she was not her direct supervisor. Paula being a good admin, just took care of the tasks but eventually felt she was being taken advantage of. When she tried to bring this situation to the attention of management, she heard comments like "You don't come here to make friends." Paula said their current way of interacting with each other is to interact and talk to each other as little as possible. Without going into more detail, I will tell you what I told Paula.

First, it's too late in the game to get this female manager to change. Paula needed to set her parameters at the very beginning--as soon as the manager did something that was unacceptable to her. It's called Establishing Boundaries! This is different than saying, "No!"

This is about asserting one's needs in a positive, professional and firm manner. It means that you will get more of what you want while respecting other people. One of my favorite saying is, "People will continue to treat you as you allow them to." So if you don't say something up front (and maybe even a few times after), then don't expect the other person to change.

We respect ourselves when we set boundaries. It says:
 

* I know who I am.
* I know what I am worthy of.
* I know how I expect to be treated by others.
* I respect myself enough to say something to you.
* I care enough about our relationship to bring this to the forefront.

This starts with confidence in knowing your rights. Then you have to use assertive communication, which I have written about in earlier Blogs.

Joan Burge