How to deal with a work bully

[lpylou]

Maybe bully is a strong word but bullying tendencies are being shown.

There is a woman two levels above me who has taken a conversation we had and twisted what I asked. I know this as she IM'd me the next day asking if I had more thoughts on the question I asked and wrote it in the chat. That was not the question I asked at all.

I sent her a reply correcting her and in my reply gave more context. She then took what I said in context, out of context and said 'I don't know why you would have conversation with stakeholders about that element', again I hadn't said I had I gave context as to why I was asking the question.

She then said I need to 'learn to be a Director' when I am week 1 into my promotion (no congrats or anything of course), she said that because she is getting confused and twisting what I am saying.

I decided enough was enough. She asked me 'why' so many times and each time I tried to bring clarity to her questions she would take my answers and twist them.

After ignoring her rude comments, she then wished me a happy international woman's day and sent me a post about how women should stick up for themselves.

Do I just ignore her from here or will that make it worse? I feel like i will almost definitely say something to my manager, as she said she already brought up the idea of 'ask me anything' with his whole team on her part of our department off the back of my question. That made me laugh in itself... ask her anything?? You can't ask her ANYTHING.

Considering I manage 15 people I don't want them to walk into a non safe space.

That aside I might tell my manager she misconstrues what I say, asks 'why' enough times that she has enough to twist my responses, then tells me I need to learn to be a director. She needs to learn to be a VP. A senior woman putting another new leader down? My request to my manager is I don't need to speak to her so would rather not.

Does that sound unreasonable?

Is she saying/advising in a cack handed way that you shouldn’t be asking questions now you are a director?

Ignoring her or having that conversation with your manager are both pretty immature ways of handling a one-off difficult interaction with someone much more senior than you.

Maybe your communication with her wasn’t as clear as you thought it was hence why she asked lots of follow up questions and your message didn’t land in the way you wanted it to? Or perhaps she had context which you don’t have which changed how she understood what you were trying to tell her but her communication wasn’t great so you didn’t pick that up from her?

Either way, holding a grudge against her and refusing to engage with her professionally will be career suicide given how much more senior she is to you.

What I have done in such circumstances earlier in my career is to have a coffee with the more senior person, clear the air over the original conflict and start to build a relationship for future interactions which will stand me in good stead. Now I am the most senior woman in my organisation, I would be happy to have a similar meeting with anyone more junior if they requested it and would respect them for doing so.

In a WFH situation or where you work from different locations, a “virtual coffee” can also work - this has to be positioned in that way and be camera on though.

Try to avoid emails at all costs as often misunderstood etc etc. Keep emails concise, factual and polite.

"Ask me anything" often applies to if your face fits

We need to remain civil with everyone at work. However telling you you need to be a director but not telling you how? Is that right? Or is she playing devils advocate?

There is no real reason for us to speak, I asked for a 'guidance' conversation, it for mentorship and I was specifically asking for her advice on how best to step into a new role.

It was just at the end I said it would be good to get more visibility into some numbers that my team and me report on that are owned by her team. I cannot see how this became so confusing and was misinterpreted so much. I did say that it was likely confusion caused. G me but when she took context and twisted that too, and threw in the comment about 'you need to learn to be a Director' without any actionable feedback.

Correcting typos.

There is no real reason for us to speak, I asked for a 'guidance' conversation, for mentorship and I was specifically asking for her advice on how best to step into a new role.

It was just at the end I said it would be good to get more visibility into some numbers that my team and me report on that are owned by her team.

I cannot see how this became so confusing and was misinterpreted so much. I did say that it was likely confusion caused by me as I wanted to be accountable, but when she took context and twisted that too, and threw in the comment about 'you need to learn to be a Director' without any actionable feedback I started to feel incredibly uneasy.

In reality our worlds are little to do with one another.

I think you should have moved the conversation from IM to email and followed up with a f2f.

At your level communication is everything. It's also harder to be a snot f2f as well and a good indicator that you're not going to be a walkover

Aah the old 'you are a X now you should know' trick.

So your team reports numbers into hers. And you just wanted clarity on what it is she wants?

She probably doesn't even know but cant say that.

At least when she asks again you can point to you asking for clarity and her not giving it to you. Report what YOU think your team is achieving, if she wants more then she needs to clarify that.

I've taken over reporting into high level reports before and they generally don't know what it is they want so it is upon you to read their minds.

congratulations on your recent promotion

Her behaviour sounds really off, but you need to be really careful here this doesn’t escalate into being seen as YOU being the problem. You are newly promoted. This women so two steps above you. TBH your suggestions of how you should handle this do sound like you have a lot to learn how to operate at this level. Learning to deal with difficult stakeholders you don’t get along with is part of your job now.

On no account should you

• say she needs to “learn to be a VP”
• say you don’t want to speak with her about work
• complain about her saying you need to “learn to be a Director” (because it sounds like you do)

It is reasonable to let your manager know that what you asked was misunderstood . It’s good that you have the exchange in writing as you can prove it if needed. A better tack on that conversation is to ask for his advice on how to handle communication with this woman - if she IS being unreasonable you won’t be the first person she has done it to. and it shows you understand that dealing with this kind of thing is something you need to learn in your new role.

I’d also suggest seeking a mentor in your workplace who isn’t your manager. A woman who is more senior or experienced than you at this level who can give you advice on these kind of situations.

I also agree with other poster that a polite air clearing with her might be sensible. But ONLY if you feel able to talk
about it in a calm and non-confrontational way. For example you might say something like “I felt you misunderstood my question and some of things I was saying. How might I communicate more clearly in future?”

Good luck

Sorry cross posted with your clarifications OP

Just seen this WAS in context of you approaching a more senior woman for coaching and mentorship! Good for you for taking that step

I think you may be over reacting but it’s hard to tell. For example when she said “I only have 3 mins I need to meet a board member” you should have ended the call. That’s a super stressful meeting for her. I’m not surprised she wasn’t really taking in what you were saying! From her perspective you nearly made her late for a really important meeting.

Her following up with you by IM was good, and shows she maybe wanted to be supportive. It sounds like her coaching skills aren’t great, and she gets the wrong end of the stick easily, but not everyone in leadership is good at that sadly.

It was just at the end I said it would be good to get more visibility into some numbers that my team and me report on that are owned by her team.

What did she think you were asking?

I don’t think there’s bullying or bullying tendencies. And if you report on information coming from her suggesting that you don’t ever have to speak to her again, isn’t going to do you any favours. Especially as a director.

Any VP would want to know why someone wants more visibility over their data. I fact anyone of any level would.

There could be a cross cultural issue here. US corporate culture, the way of speaking, tone, how people interact is all very different. I work with SVPs in London and New York. How I interact with each is different. Personality differences make a difference but so do cultural.

communication is as much thinking about the person you are speaking to, their culture, the way they interact, their personal styles as much as it is about your own.

I have no idea if it’s her or if you communicated badly. But I think jumping straight to bullying tendencies suggests you haven’t even thought about whether you might learn from the interaction. You are a week into the job. It’s going to be a massive learning curve.

It’s also worth adding that a misstep one week into a promotion (if there has been a misstep here) is not usually career defining and some of the best long term working relationships are forged through frosty beginnings.

For all of these reasons I would strongly advise you not to double down and get entrenched in your position here.

Also completely agree with @Alwaystransforming - working for a US company in a senior role for 3 years was eye opening for me. The way in which senior US execs spoke to each other and more junior members of staff would not have been tolerated in a U.K. company 😂

I would have benefited writing this yesterday after 2 days of this situation whirling around in my mind.

I do have remunerative thoughts and this woman is quite well known for being a tricky character. Escalating on more junior members of the team and publicly asking people why, over and over, maybe ti help them but seemingly some feel she tries ti trip people up.

You've all made me feel so much better. I was calm throughout our exchange but last night couldn't sleep feeling annoyed about it.

Nothing to worry about, it's a marathon not a sprint and I will take it with a pinch of salt and take all of the learnings to grow from.