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By Dr Renate Volpe

A colleague of mine recently entertained me with the story of how she had stood up for herself in the workplace. She is, to tell the truth, a woman of great substance. A person, who knows her worth, has a high level of intelligence and is quite eccentric to boot. In essence her work place had been restructured; and she had been told to report to a person she had no respect for. Upon hearing this she marched into the CEO’s office told him she would not report to this person and suggested an alternative solution. Fortunately for her, her suggestion was positively received and she then took it upon herself to tell, both the person she would not be reporting to what she had done, as well as her new boss.

The reality is that not many of us have the gall, the courage of our convictions or the personality to get away with this. What stayed with me however was the fact that my friend has simply said the word “No” in the workplace.

It made me think about what type of “No’s” could be said in the context of work: The list is probably endless.

The point is that we have choices which we too often do not realize or choose to implement. The fact that we have choices does not mean that it makes life easier; in fact it could make life harder. The reality however is that we almost always have choices.

At work and in life we can choose to live our lives in one of four modes:
Mastery mode:
Controlling what we can and taking action where possible.
Letting go mode:
Not trying to control and not take action where no influence or control is possible.
Victim mode:
Neither taking control nor action where both are possible.
Spinning wheels mode:
Trying to control and taking action where influence and control is out of our sphere.

Our lives are lived more optimally when we spend our time in the Mastery and Letting go modes. We become frustrated and helpless and even ill when we live in the Victim and Spinning wheels modes.

A simple example of a victim shifting to mastery mode follows:
A person I am coaching tells me during a session how awful her boss is to her. When I ask whether she has ever tried to discuss this with her senior the reply is that she has not done so. In other words the person has declared themselves a victim of the situation without attempting to control it, or take some action to improve it. Inevitably when looked at with a fresh eye it is quite possible to ask the boss for a meeting and establish a more workable relationship. It is simply called managing upwards.

It seems to me that too often we presume that our boss should know better and lead the way for us. To my mind this is the view of a child. The reality is simply that your boss has a position with more power than yours; it does not imply that they are a superior person to you. So take control, take action decide what you want and need and lead the way. Remember to be politically astute and allow your boss to think it’s all his or her idea and allow them to take the credit. (this is fine, if you do it knowingly, and if it improves the working relationship.)

An example of spinning wheels to letting go:
You are very aware of gender discrimination in your company. The company is run by macho men who play hard according to their own set of invisible rules. You know that if you make the gender agenda overt you will be “taken out” at every turn so to speak. Instead of punting for the development of women leadership in your company you simply create developmental opportunities for the ladies in your company in alternative ways through coaching and public and business school programs. You have decided not to spin your wheels and cause yourself a heart attack, and have let go of an ideal, but created an acceptable alternative which you find acceptable.

It bears thinking about that we have the right to be assertive and say “No!” when we feel hurt, manipulated and taken advantage of.