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Hello Office Politics Team!<\/p>\n
My question is about stepping on the toes of co-workers and the higher-ups. I have been very successful in my position of a division director for four years. Recently, it seems that decisions I have made or questions I have asked are viewed as “stepping on others toes.” <\/em>My supervisor vacillates between telling me all decisions must go through him to just make the decision. How should I handle this situation?<\/p>\n Thank you!<\/p>\n Walking-on-eggshells<\/p>\n OFFICE-POLITICS REPLY BY ERIKA ANDERSEN<\/strong> Dear Walking-on-eggshells,<\/p>\n Let\u2019s talk about \u201cstepping on toes.\u201d<\/em> People use that phrase a lot \u2013 and rarely explain what they mean. Generally, when people say that someone \u201csteps on others\u2019 toes\u201d, they mean that person seems over-focused on what they need and prefer, or what will help them to succeed \u2013 rather than what\u2019s best for others or for the team. In other words \u2013 that you act in ways that focus on the benefit to you, rather than the benefit to others.<\/p>\n As you know from what your boss has said to you, this is not seen as a good thing! So then, how do you become someone who avoids other people\u2019s toes? I find that the most useful approach is simply to be conscious of and consider others\u2019 rights, needs and constraints before acting. People who are conscious of others\u2019 rights don\u2019t habitually do things that undermine, inconvenience, or intrude upon them. For instance, a salesperson who respected a fellow salesperson\u2019s rights wouldn\u2019t call on her clients without getting her permission. A boss who respected his assistant\u2019s rights wouldn\u2019t commit her time and effort on a major project for another person without checking with her first. An employee wouldn\u2019t miss a deadline in order to change the format of an important report without checking with his team members.<\/p>\n Looking at these examples, you might want to reflect on those situations where your boss has said that you\u2019re \u201cstepping on other people\u2019s toes,\u201d<\/em> and see whether you might have overstepped the boundaries of someone else\u2019s rights. It might be hard to be objective about this: we usually have reasons that seem legitimate to us when we do something that interferes with or ignores someone else\u2019s efforts, responsibilities, or authority. But just think about it for awhile \u2013 and decide, in retrospect, if you could have behaved in a way that was more respectful of that person\u2019s rights. And the next time you\u2019re in a situation where there\u2019s a potential conflict between your goals, needs or point of view and someone else\u2019s \u2013 take a moment to think about how to find a solution that works for both of you.<\/p>\n Thanks for writing to Office-Politics.<\/p>\n Warmly,<\/p>\n Erika Andersen, Author<\/p>\n Erika Andersen<\/a> is the author of Growing Great Employees<\/a>, newly released in paperback, which is a Kirkus Reviews recommended business book for 2007. Erika Andersen and her colleagues at Proteus International, the company she founded in 1990, offer practical approaches for individuals and organizations to clarify and move toward their hoped-for-future. Much of Erika\u2019s recent work has focused on vision and strategy, executive coaching, and culture change. She has served as consultant and advisor to the CEOs and senior executives of corporations like MTV Networks, Molson Coors Brewing, Rainbow Media Holdings, Union Square Hospitality Group, and Comcast Corporation. Erika is an inaugural author of the Penguin Speakers Bureau, and she has been quoted in the New York Times, Industry Week, Investors\u2019 Business daily, and Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello Office Politics Team! My question is about stepping on the toes of co-workers and the higher-ups. I have been very successful in my position of a division director for four years. Recently, it seems that decisions I have made or questions I have asked are viewed as “stepping on others toes.” My supervisor vacillates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[665,143],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climbing-the-ladder","category-office-politics","tag-office-politics","tag-stepping-on-toes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.officepolitics.com\/advice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"erika](\"\/images\/andersen.jpg\")
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