I was promoted as a Marketing Manager last year and now, I was included in this core team our VP has created, to help him take the company to the direction he envisioned for all of a us.
While I consider it as an immense honor, it of course comes with a price. And that is making enemies and dealing with very difficult people. I try to work quietly as much as possible in my little corner, doing my graphics and campaign, but when I was thrown to be the champion of our customer service, I’ve really messed up my daily tasks.
My day to day is consumed by fixing problems and steering people to do what is expected of ‘our’ team. There are different people so you also get to deal with different personalities and boy, some people are just really something else.
If they think they can undermine your leadership, they would really push their limits until they get what they want. And of course, you can’t allow it coz it just breeds bad culture. The core team is really trying to change a lot of things and with a stricter timeline because of the expectations from us, we expect a lot of pushbacks.
And I’ve had conversations with others where I could be very ‘bossy’ or authoritative because if I don’t, they’ll just fall back to their old habits. And because I deal with older people than I, it becomes an even harder situation to navigate.
So if, and when, I do get under people’s skin, I have to remind myself that I don’t go to work to make friends. They can hate me all they want but at the end of the day, I work for the boss and I am just implementing stuff he wanted done. I don’t want my employment at the chopping board (they just laid off 3 people!) so ultimately, I’m just protecting me and my career coz welp, if you’re not on board this ship, you’ll just be left behind. I have a family I need to support so people can hate me all they want but I. Don’t. Care.
Open Book with Missing Pages 