How to tell a bossy peer to mind his business?

Ajay was seriously working on a project when his colleague Sandeep began reminding him about the deadline for it and even asked him to give a report on the status of the project. Ajay was surprised and even angry because he could not understand his colleague’s behaviour who was suddenly acting bossy with others in the team. The result was this behaviour was making everyone feel incompetent and controlled and was affecting the team relations.

Ajay’s is not an isolated case, there are people in the workplace who boss over their co-workers and feel it is necessary to tell them what to do and how. They effectively spoil the camaraderie in the workplace.

A boss can comment on your work and tell you what to do, but when a co-worker assumes the role of a boss and nitpicks on your work and orders you around, the situation is sticky.

Though you may be tempted to tell the person off or launch a counter attack, this will only spoil your relations with him and affect the work atmosphere and team productivity.

The wise thing would be to deal with your bossy co-worker in a professional and diplomatic way, so that the relationship is maintained and at the same time you can make him realise his mistake and also let your boss know about the colleague’s self-assumed importance.

Instead of answering back your colleague, you can make it difficult for him to play his role as self-appointed boss by enquiring if the boss asked him to give the instructions and if he says no then appreciate him for his managerial skills but at the same time remind him that your boss has to kept in the loop. Follow this up with a casual query or mail to your boss on whether the bossy co-worker was given supervisory responsibilities.

When the co-worker gets to know that his behaviour has been a subject of discussion with the boss, and then he will check himself. This will also give him enough hints that the team takes directions from the boss and are not willing to listen to him. This can effectively curtail his bossy behaviour.

However if your boss replies in the affirmative, you have no choice but to listen to your co-worker, but if it is a ‘no’ from your boss, then you can make a complaint to your boss.

This will also bring the co-worker’s behaviour to the notice of your boss who will probably take effective steps to stop it because of its negative effects on team relations.

In case your colleague has nothing to do with your work and each member in the team has his own independent set of roles and responsibilities, then you can tell him to mind his own work in front of other team members. This public display of your reaction can check his high-handedness with you and others in the team.

Some co-workers may have a genuine interest in the team and their behaviour may be motivated by the need to be helpful, proactive or supportive to other team members. They may not realise that this can alienate others. In such an instance, it is better that they are told the truth while appreciating the intent of their behaviour. A gentle reminder to the person that he is a peer and not your manager can end his bossy ways.

Perhaps the best way to deal with a bossy co-worker is to tell him that you are happy he has been promoted as the boss and you, your co-workers or even the boss does not seem to know about it. He is sure to get the message and will start minding his own business.

Economy - The ethical angle

Oil price hike, inflationary tendencies, terrorism, financial meltdown – there is nothing local these days. The global financial meltdown that started on Wall Street has become the topic of discussion on all streets now. The effect has been global but the wrath sure enough goes down to the local as well. Is it not human greed that drives each individual towards the stock market – knowing fully well that it is a mountain of smoke?

Basically, the moral fibre that runs across the theory relating to wealth creation should be righteous. The basic tenet of unfettered free-market globalisation, profit- maximisation or wealth-maximisation, as witnessed, is driving each individual to grab as much as possible from this world. Gearing up and accelerating the engine of economic growth cannot be unlimited when the resources available are limited in character. Unfortunately, the excitement lies in flying high in a reckless manner.

Dangerous portents

The fact that we are trying to outrun the natural recouping ability of our environmental resources is something that the advocates of globalisation refuse to bring to visibility yet. The financial crisis and the scale of its impact came to light — so fast and so vast — because it was quantitatively expressed day in and day out. But we tend to discount the natural resource crisis because it is not quantitatively expressed. Moreover, the people who are dependent upon such resources, be it land or water, are voiceless, and so it goes unexpressed. There is again ‘global brainstorming’ taking place about innovating a way to save capitalism and to call it creative capitalism, happy capitalism, innovative capitalism and so on. Perhaps, it might be possible to manage this financial slowdown or meltdown.

But the ones we are most likely to face in the near future are more dangerous because they are inadequately expressed and insufficiently heard — depleting fresh water resources, lost water bodies and rivers, missing farms and farmers, perishing culture in the communities, and shrinking human values and democratic ethics. Let us realise that these cannot be ‘innovated’. If this global meltdown has done some good to the poor, I would say, there are people who have started talking that ‘the survival of the fittest should take into account the survival of the weakest also’.

Resistive guarding

It is some leftover quality of the democratic character that saved India from the global crisis that several countries of the world including Pakistan are reeling under now. Had it not been slow due to the pulls of various Civil Society Organisations, and the Left, we would not have had the solace we have now. Therefore, it is high time we take up a stand with regard to globalisation.

What if a more prudent approach — to welcome globalisation and industrialisation ‘with certain non-negotiable ifs and buts’— could be adopted by us? That is, it will be allowed without resistance at the local level provided it will not harm the natural environment by over exploiting resources; it will not emit smoke; it will not let out effluents into fields or into water bodies; and it will allow local bodies to exercise some powers like levying corrective tax, if it shows any tendency to harm the land or other resources of the poor.