How do you deal with an overly confrontational boss ?

Its really hard when a manger has a disagreement with you, but you can easily get out of any disagreement by re-framing the issues the boss presents:

Generally your manager or boss will accuse you of something without knowing all the facts, which leads to a general accusation “everyone feels you are not pulling your weight” when feeling accused, we will often defend ourselves which makes us look guilty “but, I work really hard” after a few exchanges, with you the employee feeling more and more defensive this accusation has turned into a full blown argument

When accused by your manger and they use a “general” statement, don’t get defensive, get specific and get the details, this way the manger has to give you evidence “who exactly said I’m not pulling my weight?” “well, erm..Tom and Dave” “Ok so, two people said I’m not pulling my weight..” this is a big difference then the original – everyone “and which task did I not pull my weight on?” “erm, I’m not sure really…” now the manger is backed in a corner, while you have remain professional and calm.

How to get out of Accusation

In some cases your manger or boss may say a damaging statement to put you down, in many cases this may be more specific then the “general” example above which means you need a different approach, a different frame.

By re-framing (as we say in NLP) you can put a different and more positive approach on any accusation. My friend recently said to me she felt down after putting on some extra weight after eating too much cake at her child’s birthday party, which I replied with “so, what your saying is the extra cake you ate is a sign that you had fun and were enjoying yourself at your child’s party?”

This technique can be easily used with your boss, when given a damaging statement in an appraisal, meeting, promotional job interview or just in the office or on the shop floor. It doesn’t matter what you are accused off, it’s how you respond and reframe the question that is important

Let’s look at these recent real life examples from my career coaching clients and the responses they used

• Promotional Interview “you’re not very creative” Interviewee Response “so, what you’re saying if I show you a creative suggestion you will be interested?”

• Negative Manager “why do you never understand what I mean?” Employee “so, what you mean is, if I summaries what you have asked me to do after each instruction, you will know that I understand you”

• Negative colleague “why are you always late?” you “are you asking what has happened in my private life, to make me late for the past few days?”

By turning the question around and getting specific means your manager has to agree or answer your question; with the first question (creative) the interviewer can only agree with you or look stupid. The second question (negative manager) here you have changed the question, its no longer about you not understanding it is about you confirming your understanding and the third example, the negative colleague (lateness) the rude colleague will first feel embarrassed but the conversation has moved from you being late to the reason why, which you can reply with “I cant talk about it now, but I might discuss it with you later” this final line, stops the colleague asking any more probing questions.

It may be your boss is under a lot of pressure from her boss to meet targets or results and the error you made has put her under pressure. Also she might have found the email you sent her inappropriate in some way, if only because it challenged her. I'm not saying you are wrong and she is right...just trying to see it from her point of view as that will help you manage her.

I think the fact she saw you quickly after your email and that sounded like a reasonable amicable conversation would suggest that maybe the issue is about general performance and productivity, not about you as such. So I would suggest you have another meeting with her and ask for specific feedback about how you are doing - what you need to do more of and what you need to do less of. Write down what is agreed and ask for a review meeting a couple of weeks after that. Make the reason for your meetings around you wanting to do your very best - she's not going to disagree with that intention. Keep a note of any other 'comments' she makes (positive and negative) at any other time and the context of those. Hope ot works out.

i feel for you, it sounds like a very poor working environment.

much as you want to stay the situation sounds irrepairable, maybe you could ask for a transfer to another part of the workplace, but you might need to start looking for another job if you dont have support, in the meantime i would keep your head down, work hard and avoid confrontation