Is your Boss Always Right?
I once became an active Representative of a Hong Kong-based multi-national. Let me confess the work nature was awful, yet I was dived into the firm to work with complete motivation and confidence. But right now, If I look back and ask myself ‘Why did I join’, I don’t have an answer.
Strangely, a decision that cost me time, energy, and acceptance of handling hectic responsibilities for a firm are this huge, I don’t have an answer for that today. Maybe I was unemployed and in need of money, and the firm gave me good reasons to work concerning those needs.
There were online meetings every day and every single while, I remember sitting in front of my laptop, attending/hosting meetings for 10 hours straight, back-to-back meetings with no breaks.
One day, I got a provoking thought during a meeting, a newbie just joined and introduced himself, he was working as a mechanical engineer at Apple Inc.
That is strange, our firm wasn’t even close to Apple’s quarter of revenue, still how?
Till today, Apple ranks as one of the best organizations to work in. With positive organizational culture, employee engagement, ethical leadership, and spirituality in the firm it is certainly the best.
Over a period when I started to lead a team and began interviewing people, I was handed over a document and was given proper training on How to interview/handle objections and set expectations for candidates. And then only I got my answer for how did that Apple employee quit the firm of his dreams and joined our firm.
The firm didn’t use to interview people, we were trained to convince them that this will be the best decision they make for their life. Highly intriguing expectations settings were put into place to influence every person that appeared in the first meeting. We used to sell emotions, and give triggering reasons to people to leave everything in the place and strive to work with us, and trust me, I witnessed people striving to get a chance to work with us even if we maintained a strict posture.
This is a psychic agenda of the world that is used by individuals and organizations of any sort,
‘if you want someone to do something, give them a non-negligible reason to do so, and they will do it without a thought’ -M.A Janjua
In general, this phenomenon is followed by the world in almost every organization, and by every organization, I also mean your home.
The Workplace Thank you!
Your workplace is none other than an organization with mechanical heads walking around/sitting on desks completing hectic tasks. Before joining you didn’t have an ideal skill set to complete those tasks, but you accepted terms for training.
Then you kept on learning to understand the organizational behavior, time punctuality, coping with seniors, etc. All this effort for what reason? It might be salary or another personal reward you get to work.
But your brain is just a machine working on a wide variety of principles, if it acquires a reason to work, it also adapts the reason to quit as well, just like that Apple employee did without thinking. And your bosses are aware of it.
It works with your brain’s desire to seek situational rewards, it doesn’t take much time for it to split the pages. If it is being rewarded for letting you work at this place, change in things could lead to a shift in the loop and convince your brain to claim that now the reward will be granted after quitting this place.
You might’ve become unworthy of your organization, the difference in the air you feel might be correct. Just like us, bosses are also human beings who mostly don’t have enough confidence to give rejection to an employee.
That is why the simplest technique of making someone quit is to design their decision and not tell them directly. To design your decisions, your bosses have a variety of approaches. We shall look into them, but first, we need to discuss ‘why would a boss try to make someone quit’, or why your boss could want you to quit.
Why would Your Boss Try to Make You Quit the Place?
Before we blame your stoned boss for trying to make you quit and gossip around the hall assuming several reasons for it, you should go through a self-analysis minute.
This will help you to understand if you truly deserve it or not. It is not meant to blame you for anything, but it will help you become self-aware of your potential and vulnerabilities.
Moreover, there is a reality that if you react to something without analyzing every aspect, there is a higher chance your reaction will result in false claims and accusations. To make it simpler we would go through a set of points and I would like you to connect the dots in yourself for what is mentioned below;
Signs Your Boss is Doing the Right Thing!
Well, I hope not!
- Your Jug is full- You’ve promised yourself that you know everything and better than anyone. You haven’t checked out a room to absorb the fact that your seniors have a right to train you and teach you new lessons.
If your jug is full, that means your ego acts dominant in regular activities at the workplace.
- Disrupting Organizational culture- Not being able to cope with some of the colleagues is fine, not everyone connects. However, if you tend to keep unspoken grudges and further intent to make routes to harm colleagues in any way, it means you have something to be blamed upon.
It might be because you have experienced injustice or some sort of indecent behavior at the workplace, which is understandable. But there is always a chance to become a bigger person and handle situations practically.
- Unadaptable to change- Organizations tend to make a shift and change their operations quite often. It includes everything, from culture to the production unit.
At each point, the firm is going through a change whether unobservable. But if you find yourself not being able to cope with it, that means you are being resistant where you don’t need to.
- Under-performing- Tasks, punctuality, co-working, etc. Everything is on your table, one by one or all of them. If you are finding excuses to escape responsibilities quite often, your performance will lack expected results and thus it makes you unproductive and liable to that firm.
Is it Just an Over Blown Baloon?
I mean it could be a false alarm. You might not be a bad employee but your boss may be testing you. Committed organizations tend to examine employees through different routes. These routes are sometimes unobservable or if not, they are un-understandable to us.
And not being able to recognize this point of view is reasonable, if you could think like a boss you would've become one by now. But it is becoming a mess at the moment, before this, you didn't realize your boss might be testing you and I've put a direct self-analysis course on you earlier, so let us recognize some patterns to comprehend the situation.
Boss’s Amazing Techniques to Test Your Human Potential
It is important for you to go through these points, otherwise, you will continue to deliver unqualified results thinking you’re the problem.
1- You’ve Got One Holiday to Betray us- Sometimes the test isn’t intended to be observed on your working days, it is to observe what you decide on that one holiday -M.A Janjua
If your boss is extending your working hours/days. They might be testing you for a better post or to understand your potential if you are new to the firm. The flow of working hours keeps you busy without much thought for another route, however, when that one holiday comes, you get plenty of air to decide whether to change the place or to stick with it. In this way, your behavior is examined by your boss and it reflects your future in the firm.
2- The ‘Duhh’ Manager- You try to talk pleasantly with your boss but a dry hidden ‘Duhh’ is what you always get. Yes, sometimes it is the toxicity of the workplace, sometimes it is a personal grudge or so, but sometimes your boss is trying to examine something.
A person reveals so much about himself/herself by choosing who to share with, and how to share the experience. It is common for managers to portray a strict posture in front of newbies, however, when newbies step up and respond to this they will either communicate with HR or gossip with colleagues.
And it is enough for you to disclose your way of ethical reaction and response to various organizational situations as well as enough for the managers to test your cognitive skills.
3- Have Lunch with the Worst Group- Sometimes bosses encourage you to be friends with a specific group. And they would introduce that group to be the most pleasant, or instead, they wouldn't give any introduction at all.
This happens in committed organizations, where bosses observe some essential qualities in an employee and intend to enhance their performance in exchange for a reward in the future.
So to examine whether the employee is truly deserving, they would test their emotional intelligence.
Introducing you to a toxic group, I mean simply the worst group of people is a way to determine your emotional capacity, emotional intelligence, personality, and cognitive skills of an employee.
The managers would relax and wait for a glimpse of your response against that group in a few days or weeks. You will either represent yourself as a professional and emotionally strong employee, or you’ll start gossiping like a sissy and disrupt the organizational culture.
Wind up
I am sure if I missed a point, these points will still lead you to recognize those which are missing. But if you can’t recognize these or unmentioned points as connected to you, then I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is you are a good employee, bad news is your boss might be trying to make you quit anyway.
