Are you facing a similar situation where your wife, a Director at a company, has been yelled at by the VP over team-related issues? It can be a challenging and stressful situation to navigate, but rest assured, you are not alone. In this article, we will delve into the dynamics of such a scenario and provide some insights on how to handle it effectively.
##Understanding the Situation
Your wife, as a Director of a company, plays a crucial role in interacting with the largest clients and ensuring smooth operations within the team. However, when conflicts arise with the VP over team-related matters, it can lead to a tense and uncomfortable environment. Here are some key points to consider:
– VP’s Expectations: The VP may have certain expectations or pressure to meet targets, which could lead to conflicts with your wife regarding the allocation of resources or decision-making processes.
– Communication Breakdown: Misunderstandings or lack of clear communication can also contribute to conflicts between your wife and the VP, especially when it comes to setting realistic goals and expectations.
– Stress and Burnout: Your wife’s dedication to her work, putting in long hours and pushing for better outcomes, may have led to stress and burnout, triggering a negative reaction from the VP.
##Handling the Conflict
In such situations, it is essential to address the conflict professionally and constructively to find a resolution that benefits all parties involved. Here are some steps to consider:
1. Open Communication: Encourage your wife to have an open and honest conversation with the VP to discuss the issues at hand and seek a mutual understanding of each other’s perspectives.
2. Conflict Resolution: Work together with HR or a mediator to facilitate a conflict resolution process that allows both parties to express their concerns and find common ground.
3. Setting Boundaries: Help your wife establish clear boundaries in terms of workload, expectations, and communication to prevent further conflicts and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
4. Seeking Support: Encourage your wife to seek support from colleagues, mentors, or external resources to deal with the stress and emotional impact of the conflict.
##Moving Forward
It is crucial for your wife to assess her options and make informed decisions about her future career path in light of the conflict with the VP. Here are some considerations to keep in mind:
– Career Priorities: Evaluate your wife’s career goals, values, and priorities to determine the best course of action, whether it involves staying in the current position or exploring new opportunities.
– Self-Care: Advocate for self-care and well-being by prioritizing mental and physical health, setting boundaries, and seeking professional support if needed.
– Professional Development: Encourage your wife to continue building her skills, network, and expertise in her field to enhance her career prospects and navigate future challenges effectively.
##Final Thoughts
In conclusion, conflicts between your wife, a Director, and the VP over team-related issues can be challenging to navigate, but with effective communication, conflict resolution, and self-care strategies, it is possible to address the situation and move forward positively. Remember that your wife’s well-being and professional growth are paramount, and supporting her through this challenging time can make a significant difference in her career journey. Stay positive, stay supportive, and keep moving forward. You’ve got this! 👩💼💪
By addressing these key points and guiding your wife through this challenging situation with empathy and support, you can help her navigate the conflict with the VP and make informed decisions about her future career path. Remember that communication, conflict resolution, and self-care are essential components of handling such conflicts effectively. With the right approach and support, your wife can overcome this challenge and emerge stronger and more resilient in her role as a Director.
I’ve always had the rule that if anyone screams at me, I quit that day. I work in an industry known to have a lot of abusive hotheads (films and television), but thankfully have never been yelled at.
She should use her experience to move to another company.
If you have 8yrs of experience and are a Director, you don’t lose your cool and overreact to a single incident. For now she can go take a walk around the block or sit in the sun this afternoon to de-stress from it. Then she should get 1:1 time with the VP sometime soon and talk it through, both what happened on the teams call and the more important underlying issue. Some will be sharing her POV, some will be listening to and hearing the VP’s POV, then they can figure out a path forward together.
I’d have dropped off the call. I assume we’re all adults here and shouldn’t have to resort to yelling. Call me when you’re ready to communicate like an adult. And I would have specifically interrupted to say this before dropping out.
I am a managing consultant who has worked in high pressure, client facing roles since graduating college. I have quit jobs because I felt like my managers were dismissive, unappreciative of my work, and even a bit petty. I have had clients say they would rather slit their own throat than use my team’s work product in front of my boss. My wife is also a consultant in a similar situation. Neither of us has ever been yelled at or even seen someone get yelled at in our entire careers. I am not saying we haven’t seen some petty and even some frankly unbelievable toxic behavior, but that’s just too far. I would absolutely never, under any circumstances, raise my voice to any of my subordinates. If I did, I would apologize and self-report the incident up the chain because such behavior is fundamentally at odds with what it means to be a professional and the only possible way I ever regain that subordinate’s respect would be to affirm that I understand that with my actions. The job is sometimes unpleasant enough as it is without anyone acting so childishly.
My advice would be to start looking for a new job. If I were your wife, I would go through all the stupid, bullshit motions to try to put up boundaries, patch things up or adjudicate this issue — especially given how senior she is. That said, my heart would not be in it if I were her. Just do what you have to do to get through the day, but get out quick. That’s my advice. I waited too long to do this in a prior role that had burnt me out.
If my current managing director yelled at me, I’d be looking for another job the same day.
Start looking for new job. I am going to be honest it’s little bit hard to find job depending on your specialized field. HR can’t really do anything fire VP or director. I think normally the c suits makes that decision than HR start the process. You can start documenting for your own protection. God sakes get project management to avoid this problem.
As someone in a similar position as her, I did something similar. However, if she’s pulling 70hr weeks consistently, I would say that’s on her. Setting internal expectations is something she has to improve upon (most likely). With that being said, no boss should act like that in any scenario, let alone in front of others. Personally I would bring it up with someone who has more leverage than him, and if it’s more bullshit, then I would walk and let them clean up the mess.
Scale down to forty hours and start looking for another role, IMO
Time for a sit down with she and her boss with separation from the issue at hand, and emotion. Call out the behavior. Then address the issue again. If this is the first time it’s happened after working together for a long time, she should have enough grace to understand that people have bad days and do things they regret.
The issue itself is real – if her compensation is inadequate for the BS, time to move on after finding another gig. Unfortunately, senior management (VP / Director) have to deal with this sort of thing, as over promising, under delivering, and living again to fight another day is literally part of the game, unfortunately.
My normal disclaimer: most of the advice in this sub is terrible, and offered by people are are not managers or executives and really have no idea what they’re talking about. So, be careful not to lock in on confirmation bias and low-effort nonsense.
I mean situations like this are not really quitting worthy. She has 8+ years to consider. She should weight the balances of her whole time there and what her career goals are in her next positions, at director level she is going to have a harder time just jumping and finding something since there are fewer openings and more applicants than anything else. Also at director level any advice someone gives on this post or any other post is not really going to help for much more than consideration on how to go forward so don’t take any prescriptive guidance from strangers.
My wife is a director at a tech company in marketing and struggles with the high pressure all the time and it can usually be combatted with a break down of expectations, asks, assumptions, etc. with the parties involved. I don’t know your wife’s industry or where she sits within the structure of sales and support but sales is always going to take priority and you just have to accept that most places. Headcount is also tough just because of the market trend of do more with less mentalities. Leadership is trying to push things to their utmost breaking point but that doesn’t mean you have to cave if you have the data and evidence to support it. Something like only do your 40 hours and if some balls drop they drop basically.
As someone in a similar position as her, I did something similar. However, if she’s pulling 70hr weeks consistently, I would say that’s on her. Setting internal expectations is something she has to improve upon (most likely). With that being said, no boss should act like that in any scenario, let alone in front of others. Personally I would bring it up with someone who has more leverage than him, and if it’s more bullshit, then I would walk and let them clean up the mess.
People don’t quit companies, they quit managers. Go above his head and say if he can’t keep his composure you’ll be leaving. Also ask for an apology.
If someone higher up literally yells at me in public I will turn and walk away. If I’m on video call I start recording wait for them to vent for a bit and then I excuse myself after saying that this behavior is inappropriate and makes me feel uncomfortable/threatened or whatever.
Pack your stuff. I can understand why some people want to work through this but I am at a point where I’m not going to be bullied even if I am fired over it.
Don’t quit until you have an offer from another job.
Can she report to HR? Depends on company culture. I worked at a company where anyone on the call will report this and the VP will be out in a week
Someone with a title of Director does not ‘quiet quit’. Presumably they reach that level of responsibility because they are able to navigate these sorts of difficult problems.
Yeah it sucks and a VP shouldn’t be yelling at people but I bet the owner or CEO is screaming at them and creating the culture. I’m in such environment and HR told me to act as what I hoped the culture would be like instead of how the higher ups acted after I nearly quit from a heated incident. They also gave me a ton of comp to stay after that. Like a life changing a lot. Now it slides off a little easier. Am a Director as well.
Stop fixing shit for your wife.
Yeah quiet quit. Then leave and let them know why. Find a job first it’s rough out there. I don’t let anyone speak to me like that and she should not either.
I had it out with the owner of another company we work with a while back. Surprised at no fall out. I didn’t answer phone at four am for them and would not come out on a weekend (when I don’t work). He got mad at me and demanded I do as I am told. I told him I do not work for his company and he cannot demand I do anything and hung up.
Years ago my boss screamed completely out of line at me for doing my job. I yelled back because I won’t be disrespected. All over ink for a printer we were out of. He didn’t want to hurt his commission by buying ink, so we had to walk across entire building. I then got screamed at for embarrassing him by getting seen by his boss walking across building to print important papers. His boss wanted to know why I was walking across building to get stuff from printer, he told me to order ink and I was told I am not allowed. I left one day when place was in nuclear meltdown over similar situations and everything was at standstill while that manager was in divorce court. So he got his ass handed to him in court and by his bosses because they were bleeding money.
That’s abuse.
I’d have a planning/prioritization meeting. Ask for his “direction” with the full picture. Use a gantt chart or whatever is appropriate – the workload exceeding the deadline needs to be on the nose. Either he’s choosing what doesn’t get done or finding solutions.
If he’s unwilling to cooperate then bring both the yelling and failed attempt at resolution to his boss, along with potential solutions (to not simply lay the problem at their feet…) What matters is that she tried to be the adult in the situation.
Either way, she should start lining up alternatives. Even if things blow over it never hurts to see what’s out there.
Escalate beyond her direct manager. Ask for a one on one and clearly lay out these issues. I think it’s important to give people the benefit of the doubt because her boss could be applying pressure downwards.
Also, your wife should approach this as a “We’d like to be able to fulfill these customer needs but we also need the resources to do so and making unreasonable promises to clients hurts our whole organization.”
Focus on a solution and move forward from there. If her bosses boss is also holding the same line as her boss then she should just find other work.
Sorry that this happened. Out of genuine curiosity, how aligned are her goals with her manager and the higher ups?
If they don’t care that she is being set up for failure by over promising what she can deliver, then there are a few options:
1. Do the bare minimum while looking for a new job.
2. Do the bare minimum and set it up so that she is not the scapegoat. CYA. Cover your ass with recorded notes.
If she can’t deliver successfully and often enough, then the higher ups will have decisions they will need to make.
Either they stop the over promising or they find a new scapegoat.
>He fucking started screaming during a teams meeting
She needs to retort and escalate this to HR and the VP’s boss.
Depending on how they react, she can decide to quit or stay.
Hi. C level exec here (your wife’s boss’s boss’ boss). I bring this up for a good reason. I’ve been where she is, where her boss is, and where the boss’s boss has been and its not a simple answer. It depends on something only your wife knows. Specifically, what is the overall culture at her work?
There are a few ways to deal with this, and although this isn’t an exhaustive list the main 4 are: 1) a skip level, 2) an HR complaint, 3) transfer elsewhere in the company, or 4) find a new job externally.
* If you have a positive culture, any of the first 3 are appropriate. By example, if someone comes to me with a skip level concern I take it seriously, look into it, and act on it. The culture starts with me. Similarly, HR at a good company wants the best work environment. In the case of a personality mismatch but a good company, a job with a new boss might be a positive change. Switching organizations is not a negative remember, and can be good for your overall career.
* If you have a mixed culture, generally only the second option will get you anywhere, and then only if they need to end the liability of your boss more than any perceived liability of yours. The 3rd is an option too, but a crap shoot. You might end up with another negative boss. The 4th is always available.
* If you have a negative culture overall, only the 4th is an answer. if that is her decision, then send out resumes and call your network. Find a new role and then resign.
Some people just quit upfront, but I strongly suggest to everyone that you find a new job first. Remember that if the decision is fully made and you are at a job temporarily (and have that mindset) the stress is already lowered. It is not quite “quiet quitting”, but it is close.
Best of luck!
There are people above the VP. Once they have been notified and nothing changes quickly? quite quit.