Learn how to address challenging manager relationships and push back against oppression and gaslighting in the workplace. Explore effective communication strategies, setting personal boundaries, and finding joy outside of toxic environments.
Effective communication tools can help address conflict and frustrations with managers, leading to more productive conversations.
Navigating toxic work environments requires reframing situations, finding support, assessing risks, and prioritizing self-care.
Deep dives
Navigating Manager Relationships in the Workplace
Conflict and frustration with managers can lead to communication breakdowns. Understanding one's conflict style and addressing underlying fears can lead to more productive conversations. By having difficult conversations with managers, teams can find better ways to collaborate, addressing needs and concerns.
Dealing with Micromanagement and Assertiveness in a Creative Lead Role
A creative lead faces challenges with a marketing lead who displays micromanagement and asserts creative expertise. By identifying unmet needs like equality, autonomy, or significance, the creative lead can effectively communicate their concerns. Using frameworks like biceps for assessing core needs and the Shore model for dialogue can help navigate conflicts with bosses.
Handling Misogyny and Gaslighting in Corporate Environments
Navigating oppression in corporate settings can be challenging, especially when facing misogyny and gaslighting. Addressing personal beliefs and conditioning can help in reframing situations and finding alternatives. Finding support within the organization, assessing risks, and prioritizing self-care are essential in dealing with toxic work environments.
Our letter writers today are really going through it—public undermining, misogyny, gaslighting, intense micromanagement. So how can you speak up or push back when your manager is making you miserable? And what if it feels pointless to even try? Sara and Jen jump in with tools for holding difficult, but healthy, conversations with your manager—and also how to avoid letting bad managers suck up all the space in your life.