POWER GAMES

It was a quiet afternoon. Almost the entire team was out. It was three months into my new job, and I was holding the fort.

Then the phone rang. The CEO’s office was requesting some analysis in an hour and wanted me to present the data!

While the query was routine, the database was managed by a man who had issues with female authority gures. Other women in the office had warned me about him.

I requested a report from him and explained the urgency. It should have only taken 10 minutes. Yet, after 45 minutes and an e-mail reminder, I received nothing.

Finally, I walked up to him and asked him to “please hurry it up as the meeting starts in 15 minutes”. That was when all hell broke loose.

He yelled at the top of his voice: “I will give it to you when it is done. You are not the boss, so stop behaving like one. I don’t care if it is urgent.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone stopped to stare at me.

My stomach was in a knot, my mouth was dry, but I knew I could not let it go. With every ounce of courage I could muster, I told him: “Mr Johnson, no one has and no one will ever talk to me like that – certainly not you.”

I left and regained my composure in the restroom. On my return, the room was still silent. But the report was on my desk.

“Feelings are much like waves – you can’t stop them from coming, but you can choose which ones to surf.”

Even though women occupy positions of power in the corporate world, many stereotypes and unwritten norms remain about how much authority and voice we should have.

Some challenges to our authority are direct. Others are more passiveaggressive, like delays in reports, showing attitude, withholding data, or even gossiping and forming an “alliance” against you. Here is what I took away from the incident in my office.

Generally speaking, women with strong self-esteem navigate challenges to their authority better. They are less likely to blame themselves for it, or engage in an extensive post-mortem to see what they could’ve done differently. Someone’s criticism of you may reect more on them than on you.

So grow your condence, know your strengths and let go of the expectation that everyone must like you. As speaker and author Byron Katie once said, “It’s not your job to like me – it’s mine”.

The higher you get in an organisation, the more criticism and challenges to your authority you will face. Develop an appetite for it.