
COACH’S CORNER
CWC Board Member and Executive Coach, Renu Vitale, fields your burning career questions. Renu is a member of the CBS Sanford C. Bernstein and Co. Center for Leadership & Ethics coaching program, and has been helping clients develop winning strategies and make better decisions for over 20 years. To submit your career question for consideration, email Renu at [email protected]. Please include Coach's Corner in the subject line.
Question: I have a boss who keeps taking over my meetings. He ultimately agrees and even acknowledges that we are both saying the same thing, but he feels the need to say it his way. How can I address this?
From,
Frustrated and Diminished
Response: Dear Frustrated and Diminished,
This is a common and, indeed, a frustrating problem. It’s helpful to start with what you think is driving his motivation. Is he unclear on who is running the meeting and believes he is helping and/or doing his job? Is he possibly feeling insecure and needs to demonstrate his value? Or is it possible that he feels you aren’t being clear? In any case, articulating your perceived ‘why’ will help you shift away from a negative emotional response and instead focus you on gaining clarity. Ultimately, you need to help him recognize that he is doing his job well by enabling you as a credible leader, which will allow you to effectively drive the team and business objectives forward.
I’d recommend leading a conversation with him with this common goal. As an example, you could start with, “I’d like to talk about how we run our meetings and want to ensure we are doing so in a way that best supports our team and objectives. I’m noticing that we sometimes end up speaking over one another on the same topics, for example when speaking to x last Monday. It really helps me and our team if I could be seen as the entrusted point person, since this enables me to have credible authority when advancing work with our team and partners.”
Your actual ‘ask’ should be informed by your perceived root cause. If you believe it’s poor planning or his insecurity, you could propose something like, “To help us, I’m happy to assign agenda items among us the day before for your review and would welcome any input you have. How does this sound to you?” If you believe it is possibly linked to your performance, then I’d suggest something like, “Is there something you feel I’m not saying or that I could be clearer about? I want to help us put our best foot forward as a team.”
This should help reduce your frustration and create a mutually beneficial path to be seen as the accountable owner.
SHOUTOUTS
- Jaycee Pribulsky ’01, was promoted this year to Chief Sustainability Officer at Nike
- Gretchen Meyer ‘11, President & Founder, Gretchen Meyer Financial, was selected to join LPL’s Ambassador Council. Only 60 individuals out of about 22,000 advisors are a part of this group and only 30 openings per year are available.
- Onika Williams ’18, is now the head of Meta Elevate, which is focused on accelerating economic success for SMB entities of color.