Am I overreacting? Can't decide

[Overreacting]

I was asked into a meeting a few weeks ago with the manager a couple of layers above me, and his PA. He tends to talk before he listens but is generally okay.

He had the wrong end of the stick about a project I was working on and I did my default thing of listening while he talked himself out a bit. That was probably a mistake but he does monologue and doesn't like interruption.

So we got about 15 minutes in. I'd had a couple of minutes to explain my position. At that stage he said, he didn't understand why I hadn't accepted his position without dispute, he was too busy for discussion, but possibly the fact that I didn't just accept that and move on was down to cultural differences. (Paraphrasing as best I can but the key phrase there for me is cultural differences).

I wound the meeting down after that but I am still a month later flummoxed by that comment. He's a middle-aged white man. I'm a middle-aged white woman. We are in the UK. He's British. I'm Irish.

He has a fairly top down management style and it's by no means all peace and harmony here. So the disagreement, though annoying, isn't unusual. Meeting was absolutely polite and calm.

I need to go into other meetings with him, with the people I manage, and I just don't know how to address or get past this. I have no idea what degree of (dissent? comment? request for clarification?) might trigger this kind of comment again and I don't want it happening in front of people I manage. He's quite a loose cannon so it could.

I'm not thirsting for blood or anything. I had an informal chat with HR who are helpful but recommend not going back to him on this (and I think must think I'm overreacting). Am I? And what if anything would anyone else do about this? Nobody I can tell in real life and I am feeling very alone with it so maybe getting out of proportion. Or underreacting! Would be glad of people's thoughts.

So was the “talk” about your poor performance?

What exactly did HR say?

I really couldn’t read much in to it

Do you work in different teams? Departments? Offices?

No, not at all

It comes down to, wait and see how future meetings went. That was advice. I hadn't asked for action.

No we don't.

I don't know what to read into it either. Take your point there. But thats what's bothering me. Thanks for the reply.

I would just carry on as you are. If he takes you down in front of colleagues for no reason he will look like an idiot / you can take it back up with HR.

I wouldn’t alter your behaviour because of a minor difference of opinion with a slightly more senior manager.

It slightly sounds to be like he was embarrassed when he realised he’d picked up the wrong end of the stick and was waffling word salad to cover his tracks. Could that be the case?

So the meeting was called to discuss your differing position to him on something?

How long have you each been at the company?

how long has he been your colleague?

Thanks @theduchessofspork . I'm not sure he ever did realise he had got the wrong end of the stick because he's not good at listening, and after that comment I tried to wind the meeting down gently.

Thought I would follow up by email etc but haven't felt able to do so without reigniting the whole problem of disagreeing with him.

A good few years in both cases but I wouldn't see much of him.

And how is he regarded?

still baffled by this meeting!

and in previous Interactions - how have you engaged

I wouldn't say discuss. I was surprised when the meeting was called because these aren't the usual line management structures, and he had the wrong end of the stick about the project concerned. Hadn't got that from me. We'd never talked about it. So far as I'm concerned our positions are much closer than he thinks.

I would happily move on from it, but I still have to deal with the project. Also with public meetings with him.

Is he project lead?

Well he's in a senior position and does his job well.

He's seen as tactless, definitely.

People know he struggles to listen.

My own line manager finds him very difficult to deal with which is why he hasn't been involved

I suppose part of this for me is, do I need to find a way to get him to listen to me. Is he particularly bothered by my personality/ ethnicity? I was treading very carefully. I find it hard to believe he would make a randomly anti-Irish statement like that on front of others, if you'd even call it that. I mean I've been here for years, and people don't.

We've got on fine as far as I know.

Thanks for your questions - they're helpful. I think what I am wondering really is whether I want to work somewhere where I can't just clear this up with a which conversation. Or if there is a personality issue that's going to get in the way of things.

No. I could go above his head. But that would go very much against our work practices.

He sounds like a bit of a nob who used loose language to try and explain away the difference in your position from his, without having to accept your position or apologise after having spent 15 minutes monologuing on a mistaken premise (ie it was ego salvage). Forget it and move on as you'll come off worse if you make it a thing. I hate managers like this this though!

Have you spoken to your manager about it? Wondering what their take is - as in they should be able to support you / be a buffer here.

When he said 'cultural differences' did he really mean 'sex differences'?

Did he object to you as a woman questioning him as a man?

If he hadn't made the comment about cultural differences, would it have been a better meeting?

They're scared of him, I would say.

Or at least, extremely stressed and anxious around him, and say he doesn't listen to them anyway.

Baffled by why this meeting was called between you and him, so I will bow out

It sounds to me as if he might be frustrated by the lack of communication on the project up to him - thus making the cultural issue a difference between him being blunt/tactless but talkative and others who do not talk/behave in the same way. If everyone treats him as you do, regardless of how that way of working originated, I’d be frustrated too.

It's really hard to say, isn't it? I'm tempted to say yes, he doesn't like (slightly) younger women disagreeing with him. We get a lot of men dominating conversations and decisions. But that's unfortunately not unusual, is it?

I would say so, because I didn't know what response to make on that point. If any! And if the point was no response needed, that really wasn't much help to a meeting.

And actually, being told that you are not behaving as expected due to cultural differences does undermine your confidence, in the immediate interaction and in reflecting on it afterwards. So it did make the meeting less productive, yes.