Why do people lecture me at work?

I totally agree with PPs that the people who are challenging / questioning you should not be doing it and are doing it to bolster their own insecurities, or because they're men who need to mansplain, or just because they need to feel superior in their role.............

But what's important is not how secure THEY feel in their knowledge or in their role,
it's how secure YOU feel in your knowledge and in your role

It's a learning curve - but, honestly, once you believe in yourself and feel secure within yourself that you DO know what you're doing, then the rest follows ........ and you'll be able to counter any negative comments without even thinking about it.

I know it's easy to say but not necessarily to do!

Women wrestle with dilemmas that many men in their 20s /30s/40s just don't give any consideration to because they're career-driven (rightly or wrongly, that's how it seems to be)

Whereas we women want to maintain good working relationships because we know it's important.

Try and believe in yourself - you know your job!

And one word / short answers are the way forward 😊 whilst smiling and holding your ground

You need to find some righteous indignation and inner rage, and channel it in his direction.

How effing dare he try to belittle you and put you down? Who does he think he is?

That’s a lovely thought but my point is in real life, rather than in TV shows, you don’t get rewarded for that and the person you really hurt by not adapting your style of communication in a way that makes it more palatable for others (mostly men) is yourself. I’m actually already unusually senior in a very high powered industry where very few women succeed and I would love to be able to tell people that the route to success is just to be true to themselves but that doesn’t reflect real
life - and personally I’d rather lose the battle (ie accept that I do have to behave differently than my male colleagues because I will be held to different standards) to win the war (ie continuing to progress and hopefully even make it easier for the next generation of women coming behind me to succeed).

I am experiencing a similar thing after changing job. In my case, it’s a result of company culture and a very inexperienced line manager. I am receiving a LOT of feedback, tips, suggestions, calls to catch up on everything under the sun, etc.

On a good day, I’ll either take it on board positively or quietly ignore, but the sheer volume and frequency has taken its toll - I completely get your comment about being worn out. I’ve tried to raise it, and I get told every time that I’m doing a good job in a senior role, but the fact remains that I do not feel treated in a way that matches up with that, but more like a junior just starting out. In fact, I had far less interaction with my manager when I was a junior starting out!

I hope to find something new as my professional self respect has taken a battering.

Why is this guy going through your work as though he is checking it and expecting you to justify everything? Is it his job to check what you do? Because if not, he's got a ruddy cheek.

He's constantly asking questions to try and catch you out or wrong-foot you, and he is doing it deliberately to assert his dominance over you, and make you feel inferior.

In my experience, some men do this and expect you to explain your reasoning to them, not because they are checking up on you, but because they know all too well that you know more than they do, and they don't like it. So while they are making you uncomfortable by asking questions like this, they are benefitting twofold - not only do they assert their superiority over you, but they also get to learn something they didn't know before and they can immediately become the expert. Usually by repeating back at you what you just told them as though they are now explaining it to you. Dickheads.

Don't stand for it any more. You need to put your foot down. Next time he starts questioning you, quietly fold your arms, look him in the eye and say "Why?".

@Perimenoanti
these are wonderful. No doubt I'll use them asap 😉

Enjoy!! 😁😁😁 xx

I've found an effective approach when someone (who is less qualified / experienced) questions me is to treat is as a game almost and cultivate nice polite, concise one-word / minimum word answers

e.g. if someone says 'when x happens it doesn't mean y' and I said 'nobody said it does' - say instead 'exactly!'

Other responses I've found to be useful are

'precisely'

'I agree' (totally agree if you're feeling particularly annoyed)

'yes, indeed'

' yesssss, that's the conclusion I've reached'

' so glad you can see that '

If you can smile and nod whilst doing this, extra points 😊

for some reason people don't seem to take as much offence if you smile ......... 😁

Depends on the culture. I was blunt with people who were out of order contacting team members out of office hours and it was held against me. Were they wrong? Yes. But it’s an uphill
battle and sometimes you don’t need that.

Carry on being really blunt and directorial so that if they argue with you they'll look really stupid.

I'm sick of men mansplaining their shit / crap ideas and not listening

Amen to above. I am outraged you even need to waste time thinking how to manage these annoying people. You should just be allowed to do your job. You sound amazing, self aware and intelligent. That is enough!

@Aimtodobetter
I could not lose my integrity to this sort of simpering behaviour.
Don't sell yourself short by fitting the stereotype required by men. Be yourself and find a stock answer..
Channel your inner Carrie Matheson from Homeland or Elizabeth Zott from Lessons in Chemistry. My thoughts are they are threatened by you and want you to know they are knowledgeable.

I have this problem too. For me it’s a class issue. I often find if someone says the same words in an RP voice, it’s taken far more seriously. I have a working class accent and I work in a very MC sphere. Despite my years of expertise, it’s as if no one quite believes me or feels they can trust my word. They physically relax more around people who have a nice accent even if they talk bollocks and don’t know anything. It’s actually draining and demoralising.

Honestly - not as well as I would like to but I keep improving. I overdo the niceness, make a lot of effort on building individual relationships / showing personal interest in people so I’m more “likeable”, tone down my vocabulary to sound less certain, be very very careful about which battles I pick, lots of smiling and being super friendly whilst telling the guys how great their ideas are. I wish I was better at it though as I do find it hard and frustrating. The only thing that makes it easier emotionally is that you can feel things are working more smoothly when you do enough of it and out of some of those connections I’ve developed real friendships. I also try and remind myself that as you become more senior a lot more of your role is about how you make other people feel and making them successful - rather than always being right yourself - which for someone like me who is quite IQ driven is hard.

Sounds incredibly frustrating.

I wonder why he asks you these questions? Is it out of his own interest to learn something or is he wanting confidence that you have everything in hand? He might be trying to express an interest in your work and whilst it is basic to you, it may not be basic knowledge to him.

I would politely respond with a few headline facts and use the words 'I am confident that .....' so that subconsciously that gives both you and him reassurance.

Another approach is if he trys to advise you on doing your job, you can politely say something like 'hmmm, that sounds interesting. I have a different approach XYZ which has proven results'.

A conversation is not always about who is right and who is wrong. It is much more fruitful to try and understand where someone is coming from first.

You’re right - they don’t. And this is definitely something that comes up more as you become more senior. But you can spend your energy being annoyed at the unfairness, or put that energy into trying to manage around it. Only one of those things unfortunately will change anything. Super unfair but as my dad always used to say “life is unfair” - one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given.