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#YourCareer : You May Be Quiet Quitting, But Could Your Boss Be Quietly Firing You? A MUst REAd for All!

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Quiet firing is a largely unreported trend that has been going on for years. You may have experienced this directly, but didn’t know that there was an actual thought process and concerted effort on the part of the manager to get rid of you.

If you ever wondered why you felt persecuted and targeted, here’s what happens with quiet firings.

The Manager Has Something Against You

Sometimes a manager just doesn’t like you. The workforce isn’t different from the outside world. You become friends with some people and avoid others. The people you enjoy may share common interests and are generally on the same wavelength as you. The people you exclude from your inner circle may have different opinions or personalities that don’t resonate with you.

Bosses are human—despite what most people think—and anoint certain workers as rock stars and lavish them with attention, career-enhancing assignments, promotions, boosts in salaries, bonuses and corporate titles.

Conversely, if the supervisor never takes a liking to you, the treatment ranges from disinterest to making your work life so unbearable that you quit of your own accord.

Making Your Work-Life Miserable

To shove you out the door, the team leader will give you the worst tasks. They’ll criticize everything you do. In your boss’ eyes, you can’t do anything right. In front of co-workers, they’ll yell at you for making a minor mistake and treat it as if it is a catastrophe. You won’t be invited to important meetings. There will be conflated reasons for why you didn’t deserve a raise, promotion, stock options or bonus.

The manager will openly talk poorly about you in front of others. The staff gets the message that you’re being targeted and will withdraw from interest in you, as they don’t want to invoke the anger and wrath of the boss.

Unrelenting criticism, public humiliations, nagging, fault finding, thwarting any chances of advancements and souring senior management on you will eventually wear you down. There is only so much abuse you can take.

After a while, you realize that things will never change. You start quietly quitting, getting in touch with recruiters and searching for a new job. You figure you’d rather leave of your own accord than continue being punished and ultimately fired.

Some companies prefer to make life uncomfortable for workers, so they depart of their own volition. With attrition, businesses won’t attract the headlines, touting the number of people laid off. They also may not have to pay severance packages.

 

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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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We here at FSC want to thank each of corporate partners in the opportunity in serving & moving each of their transitioning employee(s) rapidly toward employment !

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It’s Not Your Fault; It’s Just Business

After a blazing hot economy and job market in 2021, out-of-control inflation, recessionary worries, armed conflicts in Eastern Europe, supply chain disruptions, higher interest rates and other factors substantially cooled down the growth and enthusiasm. Businesses regularly announce job cuts, hiring freezes and job-offer rescissions on a daily basis.

The unpleasant reality is that managers are tasked with determining who will stay or be selected for a layoff when conditions deteriorate and the company needs to cut costs. It’s not an easy spot for the manager to be in. They’re told by senior management to evaluate their team and ascertain a ranking of the top performers down to the least productive members. The lower-ranked people are now in jeopardy of being part of the next round of layoffs. You may be a solid performer, but unfortunately someone has to go.

Why You Feel Micromanaged And Under Surveillance

In today’s litigious society, supervisors need to be careful before terminating an employee. The firing could cause the impacted person to claim that they were discriminated against and take legal action. An accompanying public relations nightmare and backlash will ensue, sullying the organization’s reputation.

To avoid this landmine, the manager needs to document why the person was chosen to be let go. They need to continually watch over your work product and offer constructive criticism when mistakes are made or a failure to meet the required goals.

Notes will be made to your file to create a paper trail of reasons as to why your performance was not up to standards. You’ll be called into meetings with senior-level executives to discuss your shortcomings and deficiencies. This sets up the paper trail leading up to the firing.

You’ll feel watchful eyes upon your every move. The manager will feel out your co-workers, clients and other collaborators to gain a sense of the quality of your work. Intrusive stealth surveillance software may be loaded onto your computer to see if you are actually working or surfing social media, online shopping or watching TikTok videos.

Sorry, It’s Time For You To Go

As the situation worsens at work, the company now possesses all the documentation to add you to the list of layoffs. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a bad employee or did something wrong.

Sadly, when companies are forced to cut costs, it’s the worker who gets the shaft. The C-suite needs to watch over the organization’s finances and reducing headcount is one of their go-to solutions. Try not to take it personally, as it’s only business.

Before Giving Up, Try Talking To The Boss

Although it may be a lost cause, you may want to have a conversation with your boss. Share with your manager that you feel that you’re being unfairly persecuted. Provide facts, data and any correspondence from co-workers and clients that show you are in fact a productive worker and good at your job.

Try to clear the air. Since you have nothing to lose at this point, be direct. Let the boss know that you are cognizant that there is a target on your back, believe the criticisms are unjustified and the rude comments made in front of colleagues are inappropriate and uncalled for.

Inquire if there is a way to reboot the relationship. It could start right now with an honest, nonconfrontational conversation in which both parties speak freely and actually listen to what the other person says.

Call for a fresh new start, which will include incorporating all of the feedback the boss has offered. Since it’s a two-way street, the manager must put aside their animosity and view you in a fresh new light untainted by past prejudices.

 

Forbes.com | August 25, 2022 | Jack Kelly 

#Leadership : 5 Things That Scare the Hell Out of Your Manager…You’re Expected to Produce Results and On Top of All That, Don’t Forget you Need to Make Sure your Employees are Happy, Productive, and Making Your Boss Happy.

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Being in charge can be scary. When you’re thrust into the position of manager, boss, CEO, etc., you’re suddenly not just punching the clock when you come into work — you’re expected to produce results and keep the whole operation from imploding. Leadership positions, though typically coveted for their prestige and higher pay, can be extremely stressful for those reasons. To put it simply, being the boss isn’t always the cakewalk you may have assumed it is.

Free- Women walking on Narrow Bridge

But there are some very specific fears that your manager or boss has related to their job. When you’re at the apex of an organization — or even a specific part of an organization — there are threats coming at you from all sides. You may have enemies among the ranks, sniping for your job. Something unexpected can happen, making you appear totally incompetent. Or, you might even sabotage yourself by believing you’re not good enough for the role.

 

On top of all that, don’t forget you need to make sure your employees are happy, productive, and making your boss happy.

But for the things that managers and those in leadership positions fear the most, we can look to a 2014 survey of 116 executives by Roger Jones, CEO of London-based consulting company Vantage Hill Partners. His findings, which he wrote about for the Harvard Business Review, revealed a handful of specific, key fears that many leaders had in common. Here are those five fears.

1. “Imposter syndrome”

If you’re not familiar with Imposter Syndrome, it refers to the feeling or idea that you’re not actually qualified for the job you have, or possess any kind of authority. You feel like an imposter — a fraud. And this is a big problem for many executives, according to Jones’s survey. In fact, it was the biggest and most prevalent fear among his respondents. “This fear diminishes their confidence and undermines relationships with other executives,” Jones wrote.

 

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2. Underachieving

When you’re in charge, you have more skin in the game. No longer can you show up to work, clock in, screw around for hours, and then feign effort to skate by. No, as a member of management and the leadership team, you’re now more invested in the organization, and that means seeing it grow and prosper. The biggest fear related to that? Coming up short, or underachieving. Many people who make it into management are overachievers to begin with, and to get a big promotion and then fail? It can be crushing.

3. Mutiny

Every workplace has its internal politics, and when you’re at the head of the table, many other people are going to be gunning for you. They might want to take your place, or simply see you fail. Perhaps it’s a jealousy issue, or some sort of personal vendetta. Either way, there’s going to be uneasiness among the ranks, and if it isn’t quickly snuffed out, you can end up with a mutiny on your hands. That is a real fear for many managers and bosses.

4. Looking stupid

Shame — or the avoidance of shame — is one of the primary factors that motivates our behavior. Nobody wants to look stupid or feel embarrassed, and we’ll do almost anything we can to avoid it. You probably lay awake at night, replaying some humiliating thing that happened to you as a child. Well, imagine something similar happening to you as the head of a workplace, or as the guy or gal in charge. You’ll never live it down.

Everyone’s afraid of looking stupid or incompetent.

5. Looking weak

Looking stupid in front of your employees is scary. But so is looking or feeling weak and powerless. Have you ever served under a boss or manager who wasn’t respected? You could walk all over them, and so could everyone else. That can be emasculating, deflating, and make you feel toothless — which makes it a very real, and very frightening fear for the people in charge.

Follow Sam on Facebook and Twitter @SliceOfGinger

CheatSheet.com | August 2, 2016 | Sam Becker

#Leadership : How To Deliver Bad News To Your Boss…It May Seem Like there’s No Good Way to Deliver Bad News To the Boss. But When you Deliver Bad News in a Way that Increases the Boss’s Feeling of Confidence in Your Competence

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Sometimes the boss might say, “What happened?” But there are plenty times when it doesn’t matter what went wrong.

Free- Pull Tab on Can

 

It may seem like there’s no good way to deliver bad news to the boss. But when you deliver bad news in a way that increases the boss’s feeling of confidence in your competence to handle the bad news and that gives the boss a sense of control, you can actually deepen your working relationship with the boss.

How do we do this?

Number one is offering a little bit of control. This is as easy as walking into the boss’s office and saying, “Is now a good time to talk?” Let the boss decide. It may not be the right moment; maybe the boss is in the midst of prepping for the big board meeting.

Step two is sharing that there’s some bad news. All you want to say is, “I have some bad news about the Johnson account.” Don’t downplay the situation by saying, “I have some news that you may not love.” Soft-pedaling bad news is likely to backfire and drive the boss to say, “What do you mean? This is the most horrible thing ever and you’re sitting there like this is not that bad. What are you, nuts?” Downplaying bad news undermines the boss’s confidence in your competence.

And downplaying a troublesome situation is going to be extremely bad if your boss is among the 25% of people who are Analytical Communicators. These folks like hard data, real numbers, and tend to be suspicious of people who aren’t in command of the facts and data, or try to sugarcoat, cover-up, etc. (You can take this free communication styles assessment to assess your particular style and then use that insight to diagnose your boss as well).

 

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Step three is to make sure the boss understands what the heck you’re talking about. So again, we say, “Boss, do you have a few minutes to talk? I’ve got some bad news about the Johnson account. Are you familiar with the work we’re doing on the Johnson account?”

Don’t take it for granted that the Johnson account is forefront in the boss’s mind. Sometimes the organization is too big and the boss doesn’t automatically know every single thing that’s going on. The boss may say, “Yes, I’m familiar with the Johnson account,” or the boss may say, “I don’t know the Johnson account; catch me up?” If it’s the latter, be prepared to give a concise response such as: “We’ve been working on the Johnson proposal for the past six months.” Provide only the necessary context for the bad news you’re about to share.

Approximately 19% of people are Functional Communicators. They like process, detail, timelines and well-thought-out plans. They like to communicate things in a step-by-step fashion so nothing gets missed. And if your boss is one of these folks, they will really appreciate having some background and context so that they feel totally up to speed. (You can dig deeper into these communication styles in my Forbes article “Which Of These 4 Communication Styles Are You?”)

The fourth step is to factually deliver the evidence. About 26% of people are Intuitive Communicators, and they want you to cut right to the chase. They don’t need every single piece of history or emotional musings; they really want to skip right to the end point. So you might say “After working with the Johnson account for a year and a half in what we thought was a very stable relationship, they’ve just called in three other firms to bid on the work that we’re doing with them.”

What you don’t want to say is, “I don’t want you to worry. I think this is going to be okay, but the Johnson account called in three other firms.” What the boss wants is a) the necessary information but also b) enough information to know that you grasp the seriousness of the situation. You don’t want to go in and say the sky is falling, “Oh my, gosh. This is the worst. It’s awful. We’re all going to die because they called in three other firms and just shoot me now!” That’s not fact-based communication. That’s histrionic. We don’t want that, but we also don’t want, “Don’t you worry. It’s going to be fine.” Neither of these approaches will increase the boss’s confidence in your abilities.

Now, once we’ve presented the evidence, we’re going to offer the boss a bit more control. We’re going to ask them, “That’s the situation. I have a few thoughts on some possible solutions. Is that something you would like to hear about right now?” The boss won’t always be looking for your solutions right away. You’ve had time to think this over, but the boss is just hearing about it now and may need some additional time to catch up. If the boss says “yes,” offer your solutions.

Notice that I say “solutions.” One of the single best things you can do is to bring the boss multiple solutions. This provides the boss with some options. The boss may want to wrestle with a couple of different ideas; and giving only one solution pretty much guarantees that they’re going to take your idea, discard it, and go look for their own ideas. This will make you feel irritated and it’s not serving the boss the best either.

Once we present some solutions and a resolution is decided upon, confirm the resolution with the boss. “So we’ve decided that we’re going to do ____ and you want me to handle X, Y and Z parts of this. You’re going to handle A, B and C parts of this. Is that correct?” Just like when you get an assignment, state back with crystal clear accuracy exactly what it is you’re going to be doing to eliminate any chance of misunderstanding. This also helps to build the boss’s confidence.

One final piece to this; you may have noticed that up to now we haven’t given the boss the root cause of what went wrong. There’s a reason for that. You can offer the root cause if you are asked for it. But oftentimes, when you bring bad news, the root cause doesn’t really matter; it doesn’t help solve the problem in the here and now.

Sometimes the boss might say, “What happened?” But there are plenty times when it doesn’t matter what went wrong. If your computer crashed ten minutes before an important presentation, all that matters in those precious moments is finding a way to make that presentation. You can deal with the computer later. There will likely be a time down the road when the boss will ask for the root cause, after the crisis has been averted.

Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestseller, author of Hiring For Attitude, and founder of Leadership IQ.

 

Forbes.com | May 1, 2016 | Mark Murphy

#Leadership : 15 Tricks for Making Better Decisions Faster…The Thing about Most Important Decisions is That you Usually Don’t Have much Time to Make them. Question: What is One Trick you Use to Make Faster, Better Decisions?

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“Measure the weight of a decision against your established set of core priorities for the company. Will the decision affect the top priority? Then allow yourself more time to deliberate and analyze various outcomes. If the decision pertains to one of your lower priorities or business goals, trust your instincts, get the opinion of one or two stakeholders, or delegate.” 

–ZACH ROBBINS, Leadnomics

Free- Bench on a Lonely Beach

1- Trust My Gut

“It’s become cliched because it works. Trust your instincts. Your brain is an incredibly powerful machine capable of amazing things, including making good decisions. The best decisions are often the ones you make the fastest, before you have a chance to second-guess yourself over and over.”

–BRITTANY HODAK, ZinePak

 

2- Recognize the Danger of Indecision

“The most successful entrepreneurs recognize that they do not have time to get all the facts for the dozens of decisions they make each day. Instead, they need to gather just enough information to make sound decisions so their company can move forward. Some of those decisions will be wrong, but it is better to learn from those mistakes and try again than to be immobilized by indecision.”

–DOUG BEND, Bend Law Group, PC

 

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3- Acknowledge What I’m Trying to Optimize For

“Making decisions can be difficult when you don’t exactly know what you’re trying to accomplish. A great mentor asked me once what I was trying to optimize for in my personal life when I asked for feedback on deciding whether I should move or not. I’ve since used this thought process of thinking through what I’m trying to optimize for in different scenarios to help bring the best option to light.”

–KELSEY MEYER, Influence & Co.

 

4- Focus on What’s Most Important

“As an entrepreneur you will often be faced with a variety of difficult decisions. These decisions are so difficult because they tend to head in very different directions. The reason that a mission statement is so important for a company is because it is vital for decision making. Keeping that in mind allows you to focus only on the decisions that keep you on course.”

–JAMES SIMPSON, GoldFire Studios

 

5- Establish Litmus Tests Early On

“The best way to quickly know if you’re making an on or off track decision is to know what your gut check tests are. For us, when it comes to rolling out new features, building on consumer asks, or generally redirecting resources, we look to our established product principles, brand values and culture characteristics. If what we are contemplating doesn’t measure up or fit in, we don’t do it.”

–SHARAM FOULADGAR-MERCER, AirPR

6- Use the Eisenhower Decision Matrix

“Once I learned of the Eisenhower decision matrix, I realized I had been putting off extremely important tasks and decisions simply because they weren’t urgent. Learning how Ike made decisions has made me more confident, and therefore faster, at making good decisions.”

–BRENNAN WHITE, Cortex

7- Survey the Audience

“Nothing is better than asking your audience or trusted advisors for their input. There are many resources for surveys; however, if you need a faster turnaround and don’t want to mess with it, create an email list that you can easily use from time to time. You’ll be amazed on how often they don’t agree with what you originally wanted to do, and usually for good reason.”

–ANTHONY JOHNSON, American Injury Attorney Group

8- Focus on Getting to 90 Percent

“Particularly in meetings, the last ten percent of a decision is what puts you far over the time limit. Once you hit ninety percent, you can often make the right decision and table the minutia for follow up.”

–SAM SAXTON, Salter Spiral Stair and Mylen Stairs

 

9- Ask, “Does This Really Matter?”

“I first ask myself if this decision really matters. Next I ask, “Does this really matter for me, for my business and further, does it matter right now?” Many times the answer is actually no. There are things that I feel strongly about but that don’t matter to whatever I’m trying to get done at the moment. I can save myself time struggling through a decision that doesn’t even need to be made.”

–ERICA DHAWAN, Cotential

 

10- Prioritize and Delegate

“Making better decisions comes down to prioritization and delegation. Prioritize the decisions you need to make by impact on your business and allocate your time accordingly. If you’re spending too much time on decisions that aren’t vital, delegate the less essential decisions and review recommendations quickly together to keep the team and business moving forward.”

–JESS LEVIN, Carats & Cake

 

11- Give Myself a Deadline for the Decision

“It’s good to set a deadline for a decision, such as at the end of the meeting, the day, or before the end of the quarter. This creates a sense of urgency, keeping things moving forward, but you’re also likely to avoid paralysis by analysis. In fact, it’s very easy to overthink things and make bad decisions because of it, as you might introduce doubts that conflict with your gut instincts.”

–ANDY KARUZA, brandbuddee

12- Chart the Decision on a Graph

“Put cost of the decision (time or money) on the x-axis, and put impact on your business of the decision on the y-axis. Chart the outcome. If its low cost/high impact, then it’s a no-brainer. If high impact/high cost, then plan the appropriate resources to make it happen. If its low impact, then chuck it away.  ”

NICK FRIEDMAN, College Hunks Hauling Junk

 

13- Toss a Coin

“Last year, the Freakonomics team conducted a research study challenging their fans to make a decision based on flipping a coin. Participants would have to act based on the randomized coin flip and take follow-up surveys. Similarly, when I have trouble making a decision, I also flip a coin and go with what the coin dictates. If I’m really not happy with the coin toss, then I go with the opposite.”

–FIRAS KITTANEH, AstraBeds

14- Always Do a Pre-Mortem Analysis

“As an entrepreneur you always deal with uncertainty, which can stop you from making big decisions quickly. When I make big decisions, I always do a pre-mortem analysis on if this initiative or decision goes the wrong way, why will it happen. This allows me to analyze both the upside and downside quickly. If the downside is not high, I make aggressive decisions quickly.”

–KELSEY RECHT, VenueBook

 

15- Reference Your Core Priorities

“Measure the weight of a decision against your established set of core priorities for the company. Will the decision affect the top priority? Then allow yourself more time to deliberate and analyze various outcomes. If the decision pertains to one of your lower priorities or business goals, trust your instincts, get the opinion of one or two stakeholders, or delegate.”

–ZACH ROBBINS, Leadnomics

 

Businessinsider.com | February 13, 2016 |  YEC, BusinessCollective