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Features Column 14 Mum is not always the word: Dealing with issues with your supervisor

Dear Cathy,
I'm a case worker at a social service agency, and even after four years, I still love our mission, working with my clients, and my colleagues. Well, not all my colleagues... Six months ago, my long-term supervisor (who was a dream to work with) left and was replaced by someone who's a nightmare to work with. Her idea of feedback is criticism, criticism, and more criticism. I don't have a problem with a little constructive criticism, but sometimes I feel like she's demeaning me and I'm worried that it could start to affect my work. Frankly, it's gotten to the point that I feel like storming into the Deputy Director's office to demand another supervisor. I know that's not a good idea, but what is?
At wit's end in San Francisco!

It may not be of any comfort, but I can't tell you how common your dilemma is. Some version of it has come up in just about every supervision workshop I've ever taught and in almost every organization where I've consulted and coached. Because these situations are complex and multifaceted, you'll have to bear with me on the length of my response!

We humans are a complicated bunch, and why two people sometimes clash more outrageously than Tiny Tim's three piece leisure suits is anybody's guess. Usually, it's some combination of differing values, perceptions, and communication styles. In the end, the most important thing to focus on is what you can do to fine-tune your own communication and appropriately address the issue so that it doesn't fester and affect your work. It's not always easy to raise issues with supervisors, even if yours is a veritable Mary Poppins! The fact is, supervisors inherently hold more organizational power than you and their perceptions of you can affect your future both in and outside the organization. Still, failing to address issues allows them to grow a life of their own and almost always ends up creating more problems down the line.

It sounds like you think your supervisor is the problem, and while she may have temperamental tendencies or even be really difficult, I strongly encourage you to shift your paradigm. As much as most of us would like to believe that the other person is wrong, the truth is that both people contribute to relationship dynamics. Now, I'm not inferring that you're the problem either—just that you can contribute to alleviating it. You can't control someone else's perceptions any more than you can control their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. Trying to do so is usually a big waste of time and energy—the only person you can ever be the "boss" of is yourself. Understanding this isn't easy, but it's well worth the effort! I've seen amazing changes occur when people re-focus their energy into changing things on their side of the relationship "court." Now, I can't tell from your note what efforts you may have already made to shift your own communication with said nightmare supervisor, but I very strongly recommend starting there before throwing your hands up or throwing a fit.

It's almost impossible to make any shift when you're feeling mucho mad so I advise first getting a handle on your feelings and calming down. You know better than anyone what things help you to do that, but here are a few suggestions: take some deep breaths, get a drink of water, or go for a short walk. You might want to write down everything you wish you could say to your supervisor so that you don't bottle your feelings up; emotions usually amplify over time if they aren't released and I don't want you to risk actually storming into your Deputy Director's office. Strong emotions are great teachers and carry important messages, but it's crucial to learn how to decipher what they're saying without being hijacked by them.

You might also want to make a quick call to a good friend or mentor, but avoid contacting someone connected to your organization—you want the freedom to really share while not putting your confidant in a difficult position. However, if you work in a medium- or large-sized organization, there may be an HR department or someone else on staff who has been designated to help resolve conflicts; if available, it's entirely appropriate to call upon such staff members throughout the process, although your best option is to deal with problem directly (as I'll detail below). Whomever you contact, bear in mind that although it can be very helpful to express some of your feelings, you should be careful not to focus solely on how angry and frustrated you are. Rather, take a moment to plan how you can begin to resolve the tension and have a productive work day in spite of what happened.

Additionally, taking some time to gain perspective can be really calming. It actually sounds like you already have a nice slice of the perspective pie—you acknowledge that you love the organization, most of your colleagues, and your clients—that's more "loves" than most folks even dream of in the workplace. But I'm not sure if you've been reminding yourself about your bounty often enough. Try jotting down what's working for you and keeping a list somewhere so you "bump" into it a few times a day. I don't mean to minimize your angst—it sounds pretty tough right now, but if you focus your attention on the problem with your supervisor, instead of on what proactive steps you can take to improve matters, things aren't likely to get better.

Nancy Drew fans: you're in luck. When trying to work through workplace tensions, it's helpful to become a kind of ace detective. Once you're calm, I recommend getting to the bottom of what you feel and do during your most annoying interactions with your supervisor. Without being clear on your patterns with her, it's hard to make changes. Some people can unpack their interactions just by reflecting on them, but most of us need to see things spelled out to really catch the culprit(s). Here's a process that I've found particularly useful in helping me to depersonalize charged situations and gain some objectivity:

First, write down what outcome you recall seeking when you began the interaction and what outcome you actually achieved. For example, you may simply have wanted to have your supervisor sign off on your case notes, but ended up with her wanting you to re-write them!
Then, get a piece of ruled paper and, skipping every other line, write down only what you and your supervisor said to each other in the interaction. Try to be as matter-of-fact as possible; your job here is literally to report from the scene of the "crime," not to analyze your statements or those of your supervisor. For example, instead of saying, "She got a really judgmental tone and told me to re-write my case notes," you would simply write: Supervisor: "You need to re-write your case notes for April because they're totally inadequate."
Once you've written everything that was said, write a brief description of what you were doing before and after the tense situation. For example, were you having a session with a particularly challenging client or had you just gotten into work after being in a huge traffic jam? This will help you see what "environmental" factors contributed to your reaction and help you manage them in the future.
Next, go back through the transcript and put a star by everything your supervisor said and did that upset or angered you.
Then, use the blank lines to write in the emotions that you were feeling during the interactions that you starred. Make notes of any themes in those things that your supervisor said or did—or didn't say or do—that set you off. Perhaps she kept checking her email while you talked, which made you feel unheard and frustrated.
Then, take a few minutes to see if there are any patterns in your responses. Finally, reflect on what you may have been able to say or do differently that could have yielded the outcome you initially sought.

This activity might seem a little silly at first, but it's important to dig through your responses so that you can train yourself to take a fresh look at what happened, identify what you're saying and doing that's contributing to the tension, and brainstorm what shifts you can make to better reach the outcomes you desire.

Though empathy is a major ingredient of good communication, it's also really hard to have when you're in a heated situation—but that's exactly when you need it most! Many people think being empathic means saying that they agree with someone when they don't, or accepting bad or inappropriate treatment. But that's not what it means at all. Empathy is about putting effort into seeing how another person sees the world and acknowledging that each of us assigns different values and meaning to what we say and do. No matter how seemingly similar two people's backgrounds, it's important to remember that relationships always involve major cross cultural communication. So many different factors have gone into shaping each of our beliefs and perceptions, there's always the potential for major miscommunication—that's no one's fault but rather a function of the subtleties of being human.

Try looking at putting yourself into someone else's shoes as akin to traveling to a different country; you don't want to judge the local customs, but rather understand how they fit into the overall culture. It's not easy to be a conscious "traveler," but the rewards can be great. Indeed, sometimes building your empathy can dramatically improve difficult situations without you even saying anything—it's as if the other person somehow senses that you're trying to connect with them and that, in and of itself, shifts the adversarial dynamic, which in turn creates an opening for a different way of interacting.

A concrete way to begin building the empathy muscle is to go back through your fact-finding materials. After every comment your supervisor made that drove you bonkers, write down one way that you can see their point, or at least, connect to an underlying feeling that may have been driving their point. For example, taking the statement, "You need to rewrite your case notes for April because they're totally inadequate," you might say, "The truth is those case notes were not quite up to my usual quality," or "They absolutely were high quality so she might have been having a really rough day or was running low on patience—I've felt that way before, too."

Okay, once you're calm, you've got a sense of how you played a role in the situation, and you've stoked your empathy fire, it's time to really dive in and problem-solve. Here are some key steps:

First, you need to be crystal-clear about the outcome you hope to achieve by addressing the tension. In your case, that might mean being able to have interactions with your supervisor that don't leave you questioning your value to the organization or affect the quality of your work. Most often this means having a conversation in which you let your supervisor know that something isn't going smoothly for you when you interact and that you want to do whatever you can to help improve things. Don't forget the cross cultural communication factor —she may or may not be aware that there's a problem at all or may perceive it very differently from you. And bear in mind that most relationships don't improve overnight, and usually take several conversations to get on the right track.

Next, it's REALLY important to decide specifically what you're NOT going to say, because in the heat of the moment, we often say things that we otherwise never would. By clarifying what's off-limits, you're building the muscles to keep your conversation on track. For example, you don't want to tell your supervisor that she is judgmental or has an attitude, and you definitely don't want to use an angry or condescending tone of voice or make reactive facial expressions. These things will just increase the tension between you and her and make things more difficult for you.

Then, you need to decide what's at the heart of what you plan to say. Open with a general statement along these lines: "The way that you and I are communicating isn't helping me do my best work and I really want to do great work." Next, give her some specifics about the problem without getting into every last thing you're upset about. You might want to use that old chestnut: when you say or do x, I feel y and as a result z happens. You might say something like:

For example, in last week's supervision when you told me numerous times that my case notes were inadequate and that you disagreed with how I'm handling my client's response to her custody battle, it made me feel that in your eyes I'm not doing anything correctly. Because I didn't receive suggestions on how to improve things, I also left confused and without the direction that I need to make positive changes. It would be really helpful to me if we could not just talk about what you think is wrong with my work, but also what's positive. If there's something specific you would like me to adjust, I'd love for you to share your ideas. I can't guarantee I will agree with every idea you have because I have my own style, but I'd love to strategize with you ways I can fine-tune my work. I'm really open to coaching, because I feel that we're working together to help me do my best work.

Instead of waiting for her reaction, I advise guiding her response by saying something like, "I'm wondering what ideas you have to move towards that kind of a positive relationship?" This way, you're actively steering her toward problem-solving with you—not about how she can be less of a jerk, but how she can give you the kind of support you need. You're both on the same side of the court trying to make changes to the space that exists between you, not to each other's personalities!

If your supervisor has a history of using loaded, judgmental language in her feedback, such as using adjectives like "crappy" or "horrible" to describe your work, you need to let her know directly that descriptors like that don't help you do better work, but rather de-motivate you. That is, you need to set a clear, but respectful boundary. It's particularly helpful to be clear on what feedback you plan to give her on her use of charged language because it's quite easy to let your hurt feelings negatively shape the tone and content of what you say. Do whatever you can not to use the same kind of ineffective communication with her as she's used with you.