every time I want to talk to my boss about something work related I ask for a private conversation, because this is the way it should be, at least I see it that way.
I work with several forklifts and mistakenly though 2 were broken because I couldn’t start them. Because we all need the forklifts and my boss was on holiday I started looking for a mechanic within the organization, always informing the substitute boss as well.
Regular boss comes back from his holiday, asks me to come to the office, asks me point blank in front of everyone else to hear what I was thinking to do that. 2 secretaries and 3 coworkers heard the whole story.
I presented my side of the story and after a short discussion my boss a mechanic and me went to check the forklifts were the mechanic started them, so I was wrong all along.
I apologized to them both and repeated I wanted to save time, because boss was on holidays and I wanted to have all forklifts in working condition, because we all use them extensively.
If I was the boss in this situation I’d have conducted the conversation behind closed doors, not in front of the whole office. It feels like mobbing and makes it difficult to trust this person.
Is this a red flag or am I overreacting?
Your boss was on holiday that implies that the boss was out of the office for at least a day.
I am confused by your situation. You couldn’t start two of the forklifts, so you went to get help with that. It seems you couldn’t so what else did you do for the rest of the day?
As far as your boss asking you “to explain yourself” in front of others. Whether or not that is appropriate is situational.
I often have techs explain to a team of people how they resolved an outage or how they are going to set things up. That way I can get everyone up to speed on the effort or maybe other team members will identify things the lead had not thought of.
If someone was late for work, that would be a conversation I would have in private.
I manage a team and came to say this same thing. If the topic is a lesson the whole team can benefit from, I bring the whole team in. The more obstacles that can be resolved without my involvement the better. Sometimes that means bringing the whole team in on a mistake, too. I do my best to ensure it’s framed as simply as that though. A mistake to learn from. As well as ensuring the employee is in a good headspace to share that moment. It’s not a punishment. Mistakes happen.
This may not be the case in your situation, but something to consider.
Shitty boss. Another boss might have been like “yeah you made a mistake and spent time looking for a mechanic, but thanks for showing inititative and trying to problem solve”
This is a shitty leader.
Praise in public. Correct in private.
Not that I even agree correction was warranted.
Yes, 100%. That’s more than a red flag. A red flag is a warning sign of a problem. That’s just a problem.
I mean, isn’t the point of a red flag to point at extant problems? In most situations I can think of, red means present danger. Yellow/orange or less bloody colors are usually the warning ones.
Sure in colloquial terms, a “red flag” doesn’t have to be a literal danger, but it still generally means “a thing to genuinely be concerned about is here”.
red flag imo. especially when it comes to fork trucks and safety implications it shouldn’t be a big deal to call a mechanic to check and ensure they are in proper working order.
The goal is to have a good working environment to live good lives and do good work.
The fact that your boss pulled in other coworkers could be interpreted as a red flag, as something fundamentally wrong with your boss. However, without more information, I think this situation could be workable. In other words, there are things you can do.
Again, the goal is to have a good working environment to live good lives and do good work.
I think a good working environment is one where errors can be talked about openly and without fear. I do not think the solution is “praise publicly criticize privately”. I think the solution is for your team (including your boss) to create psychologically safe environment. How? By emphasizing the goal, the purpose of your work. By admitting to mistakes or lack of knowledge to accept fallibility. This is especially helpful if your boss does it. By appreciating when someone openly shares concerns or mistakes. By creating rituals or habits of inclusion, such as well run meetings or effective information-gathering methods.
Do all of those recommendations sound hard to implement and naive? I think for many teams they are. But the reality is that psychologically safe teams exist, and they perform better than teams that don’t have it.
If it’s hard to implement it, why am I bringing it up? Because I think it’s important know exactly what went wrong with your meeting with your boss. It’s better to have an accurate map that shows a steep canyon than a fake map that shows a nonexistent bridge.
So what do you do?
Here are a couple of suggestions:
- learn about psychological safety. Amy Edmonson is the authority on the subject.
- learn to have Crucial Conversations. It’ll help you now and it’ll help you forever.
If you vibe with what I’m saying, let me know and I can give you more suggestions. At the same time, it’s totally understandable if you don’t think my path is viable.
I would have addressed you boss in front of those people, why he thought it’s okay to leave while not keeping people up to date on handling heavy machinery.
That might feel great for about four seconds. I imagine a boss that would get a kick out of scolding you in front of everyone would jump at the chance to fire you in front of everyone.
