What to Do when you &^%* up

Someone I mentor send out an SOS email….”I really need to talk to you.” She had been increasingly frustrated with her boss, and had talked to someone about it. Unfortunately, that person was pretty senior, so the next step was to escalate to HR.  Now what?

So here’s the thing. First: get perspective. It’s not the end of the world but you’ll need to do a couple of things.

  1. Is your frustration with your manager something that deserves HR attention?  Here’s the test: is there a pattern, does it seem like you are singled out?  Does it go against your firm’s policies of harassment and discrimination? If you can document the incidents, with dates….then yes. If it’s vague: e.g. “he doesn’t appreciate me”, “I feel like I’m going nowhere and he doesn’t manage my career”….not so much.
  2. Retract and regroup: unless you have a case that deserves HR attention, you need to retract and regroup. Every good firm is going to take any complaint seriously. There’s nothing wrong with saying you had a bad day, are under a lot of stress.
  3. Try not to cry. It’s like Tom Hanks “There’s no crying in baseball!”. Crying never helps. If you’re too emotional to talk about it, don’t bring it up at work until you can talk about it calmly.
  4. Focus on what the issue really is: if you need a new role, focus on that. It’s really hard to change people. But you can change your situation. Focus on what you can control.

Sometimes, we look for too much validation from our managers. Some managers give it freely. Some managers don’t. It’s important that you can validate yourself without always needing external approval. Remind yourself of what you bring to the table and what you’ve accomplished.  Give feedback to your manager “You know, I know you don’t mean it, but when you say that, it makes me feel like I’m failing.”  Most managers don’t want their people to feel bad.  If your manager doesn’t respond or care, you know what you need to do.