Hello Everyone,
I left the Corporate world last year to start my own business, which has done OK, but not enough to pay all of my bills. So, I am now applying for corporate jobs again. This is causing me a lot of anxiety because I loathed working in an office.
I have been spending time thinking about how I can change my approach in order to make the next job a bit more pleasant. I realized the other day that I have a pattern of poor communication with my bosses.
Over the 7.5 years I worked in an office, I had 5 bosses. One that I really liked and working for him was the best year of the 7.5 years. He liked my work, my personality and he gave me feedback that I had the potential to make several advancements in my career. All of the others I didn't like at all and they didn't like me, either.
Looking back, I can see that I avoided meeting with those 4 other bosses. I would initially schedule meetings to go over my work and progress, but I always left the meetings feeling empty, nervous and misunderstood. So, after a few meetings like that, I would stop putting time on their calendars to inform them of my work/progress. All of them left me alone, so I guess they weren't too worried that I could do the job. In reviews, when they did have criticism of my work, I would ask for feedback.
But, I also remembered that twice there were instances in which bosses thought that I had tried to get out of doing work or had said something bad about the work group. Both were based on circumstantial evidence and conversations and other people. I didn't even know that the situations were going on until a few weeks later.
When confronted, I just sat there and didn't explain or defend myself in either situation. In my mind, because it was all new news and I hadn't done either thing, I was just in shock. But, to them, this must not have been a good way to respond. What is wrong with me? Do I have issues with conflict? Being assertive? Am I just a really bad communicator?
I think I am an emotional person and I connected on an emotional level with the one boss that I liked. It was easy for me to walk into his office, even without a meeting on his calendar, and keep him up-to-date on what was going on. I enjoyed talking to him.
My question to everyone is: how can I over come this flaw that I have about regularly communicating with bosses that I do not have an emotional connection to?