The Problem with Domineering People

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I sometimes wish working with people can be much easier; without having to deal with dynamics. I do not know what God is trying to teach me but this season, I seem to be meeting people again and again who I feel are controlling and domineering.

Things are Way'OK
Anyway, just a little update... things between me and my website chairman seems to be OK. I sent him an email and he responded. Things seem to be OK because he mentioned he is not much bothered by the incident and went on to give me some positive affirmations. I do hope he is being genuine. Maybe I had been too sensitive.

DIY!
Anyway, I ran into some problems at work again today. Recently, I had been tasked by someone to write an article for an event for a magazine. However, after frantically working to get the article together yesterday and sending it back to her for comments, it came back with amendments in about 60% of the article. This really made me very very upset... I mean, if you have an idea how the article should be then why don't you work on it? Felt like a waste of my time... doesn't help that I am a person who takes great pride in my work and so naturally I am not happy my work has been changed so drastically. And the article was re-edited that it reads more like a report than an article now... anyway, since she is in charge of the project and decided that the article should take shape as such, I also made a decision and removed my name from the bottom of the article... The article is no longer my piece of work and I refuse to sign off the article... In a way, I must also thank this colleague... seriously... because I know that I can be domineering at times and I can also be capable of something like that... so being on the receiving end reminds me that I should be cautious not to do this to others...

A Lesson on Being Domineering
This reminds me of the time I did my student attachment and had a misunderstanding with a fellow student. We were both working on a proposal and both of us did some research... when we tried to put the two components together, we had trouble working with the header and footer and so, me and my silly mouth proposed to put the section into Annex... little did I realise that the part that was supposed to go into annex is actually my fellow student's section. She just kept quiet and the next morning, she went to complain to my supervisor that I steal her ideas... While I had recognised that I was in the wrong but I still feel that this could have been handled better and she could have spoken to me rather than going to the supervisor, which may have affected my attachment grades. To make things worse, she made an allegations that I stole her ideas...

Thank God my supervisor seems to be quite discerning and there was subsequently a crisis that happened in the office which ironically saved me... someone from the office was threatening suicide and was holding a pair of scissors trying to hurt someone else... I didn't know what gave me the courage but I had to go and pin the colleague to the wall with another colleague. We pinned him for close to what must have been an hour and tried to talk to him. The psychologists came but could not get access to him because he was agitated and we could not let go of him... in the end, something told me to do deep breathing exercise to calm him down and we eventually got him settled down... I remember coming out of the whole episode at first not realising what has happened but when I was debriefed by my supervisor... I trembled badly... But anyway, that saved me I guess and I managed to get an "A" for my attachment.

OK back to the topic at hand... although I still know I was at fault for making that silly suggestion to put my fellow student's section into the annex, I still cannot forgive her for approaching the supervisor and even making an allegations that I stole her idea... but one thing is for sure, after this recent incident... I come out with a recognition how frustrating it can be being the victim of a "domineering" person and how I can sometimes be guilty of being domineering . But I still cannot forgive her for the false allegations made at me.

I will be extra mindful the next time I am on the verge of being domineering... so in a way I thank my colleague for showing me this. When I saw her later in the day, she seems to be quite nice to me, especially after I told her that I am going to remove my name from the article because I did not write the article (she did). But alas, something else happened that made me quite upset yet again. I came to the meeting and was told by another person that the domineering colleague of mine have decided that I will do the minutes... why didn't she tell me? I wasn't even asked if I can do it but was assigned to do it! And worst, I was told by a third party I need to do it and not by her! Anyway, because she was treating me quite well during that meeting that somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to be very angry with her. But one thing is for sure, I will think twice the next time I am being asked by her to do something.

The 3Hs of Leadership

"Figures leader 2" by lusi

Was also talking to another fellow colleague of mine in office and we were talking about leadership. He shared that he learnt from his boss that a leader need to remember 3 Hs: Humanity, Humility and Humour... a good reminder that leaders need to be humane and care for their subordinates, exercise humility and not be proud and also injects humour in his management. Good tip!