A short talk from the Bridges Bulletin on how to dealing with demanding people at work.
TRANSCRIPT
Hello everyone and welcome to the Bridges Bulletin. I’m your host, Dyann Bridges.
Let’s get started.
Today we’re going to be discussing how to deal with a demanding person at work.
There are things that you can do and should do to protect yourself and stay strong in a work situation.
So let’s take a scenario and you’ve got a manager or a business owner, somebody who is demanding a lot of you.
Where does that end?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and they’re making excessive demands of you, that’s where there’s a problem.
So first of all, for you, you need to define where are the demands becoming excessive.
If you’re getting paid a lot and you’re very skilled and the company has hired you to do a lot, then they will expect a lot.
When it starts to step over a boundary and you feel like you can’t meet those demands, that’s where there’s a problem.
So first, it’s really important before you address this, you need to figure out for yourself exactly where it’s becoming too much.
Perhaps you just need some help?
Maybe you need an assistant?
And if you go to them and ask them that, and tell them exactly why, you can go to them and say, this is what I found, and I can’t meet the demands because of this reason, and an assistant would really help.
So that’s scenario number one.
Next.
Are they being demanding in a way that is unreasonable?
Maybe ask yourself if you are doing everything that you can?
Are they asking you to do things that you’re unable to do?
Be very clear in your own mind why you’re not meeting those demands.
And then you can say that explicitly.
You can also feel like you can actually articulate that.
This is very important because a lot of people feel like they need to defend themselves because the demand does feel unfair, but yet they can’t articulate specifically why.
The demand is unreasonable.
So if you’re already clear in your own mind, and when push comes to shove you can actually say that, you will have an advantage. you will place yourself in a position of power because of that.
Just because you’re clear in your own mind, this is very important.
And then thirdly ——>
Sometimes managers or bosses demand a lot from their entire staff, or sometimes it’s just a few people.
Sometimes it is personal.
And if that’s the case, it may take a little longer for you to be able to get clear in your own mind what’s happening so that you can combat this.
If it does seem to be personal, you have to have a very good reason to push back.
Like in the first two examples, those are external reasons that are identifiable.
If it’s personal, now we’re getting into an area where it’s subjective, and so you’re probably going to have to collect external information and proof that this is happening, and more than likely over a longer period of time.
You’ve got to demonstrate that certain demands are being made of you and not others.
So let’s assume that you’ve done that.
Now you have to figure out why.
If you want to confront this head-on, you’ve got to understand the motivation as to why someone is doing this.
It’s either that, or you need to leave the situation.
Because if it is personal, If someone is placing extra demands on you on purpose to make it difficult for you to do your job, there must be a reason for that.
And if you can find the motivation, you can find a way to change that motivation, or eliminate it, or even turn it around.
Because sometimes some people need a dose of their own medicine.
The bottom line here when dealing with a demanding person is that the last the you want to do is get hooked in emotionally.
A lot of times we feel like we’re powerless, especially if the person who is demanding things of us is in a position that is above us in the sense that they could force us out of our jobs.
However, for you to hang on to your power, no matter who you are, don’t take a victim stance.
Avoid the victim stance.
You are still powerful, very powerful.
You can’t control what they do, but if you come at it with a very logical reason for why you’re pushing back on their demands, they start to look a little foolish.
And people in a position where they’re abusing some power that they have don’t like that.
Otherwise, they’d come at you straight up.
So when dealing with a demanding person in the workplace, staying very logical and pointing to proof of why the demands are unmeetable, unreachable, and unreasonable is one of your best defenses.
Someone who is being completely unfair and demanding can be thought of as petty tyrant in your life.
And it seems like petty tyrants are everywhere.
And as annoying as they are, and sometimes even outright dangerous, they can force us to become much smarter, much cleverer, and much more in charge of ourselves.
As we must stay in our own power and emotionally calm and centered to deal with them properly.
So, I hope that’s given you some food for thought.
Thanks for listening, and I wish you a very sensual day.
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