Trying to maintain a sense of integrity and emotional intelligence

The past few weeks have been one of survival and reflection.

There have been office games that I have been trying to avoid, but they have caught me anyway. The games are a product of working for a borderline. I have found myself asking myself many questions this weekend.

First, let me talk about the dynamic at work. I feel marginalized from management . . . period. I would really like another job now.

The assistant vice president has isolated herself into exec-u-land and I have only seen her through the glass door of the main conference room. I still have had no desire to talk to her due to her abuse and now my boss has now stepped back into borderline mode.

My boss told me on Friday at a meeting called under what are at best false-pretenses not to build my team at her expense. The meeting was supposed to be called “rounding.” The first question was a rounding question . . . the rest of the 50 minutes consisted of my boss's emotional immaturity.

For those who work at hospital organizations currently paying money to the Studer Group, “Rounding” is a management technique of communication where a manager asks subordinates what is going right, and ask what the subordinate would like? It is supposed to be a positive meeting where the boss is listening to the subordinate trying to make the workplace more pleasant.

After the first question, my boss talked about how she did not feel part of the team in one of my departments for the rest of the session. She talked about the one subordinate who has not been doing his work. She talked about the other subordinate who had been enabling the lax one. She told me that she did not want to build my team at her expense.

She repeated the part about “her expense.” From what I understood, she did not want me forming such a tight bond that I would get sucked into the team and turn against her. Can you say paranoid?

She wanted to know my opinion, and every time I gave it, she responded with criticism or some statement that she was hurt by it. This was not rounding.

She used what she called an “AA” term, “signing off on each other's sh*t.” I looked that up on Google. I found nothing. Her intent seemed to be calling that enabling. I asked an old soul at my church about his impression of it. He told me that it meant “not to take someone else's inventory.” Again, this was not rounding.

I called and left a message for my old boss, since she is big into AA and Alanon—surely she would know about the term. She has not returned my phone call, and her husband curtly dismissed me on the phone today when I called a second time. I wanted her to tell me her understanding of the phrase. I think that she is just too connected to my assistant-vice-president and my boss—but then I can only guess.

I think that I would have been better off just going to a local AA meeting and asking someone if they had heard the phrase and what it was supposed to mean?

Okay, well, so I have the boss trying to play expert here and she is greatly failing. I think now at this juncture, what the phrase means does not matter any more. This is now survival in a tyrannical situation.

Working for a borderline.

I have been reading some business management communication books lately and as I read them, I think that the authors are missing some things. From reading many of the case vignettes in those books, I have decided that many of the problem coworkers and tyrannical bosses are borderline personalities. I have stated elsewhere that I think that the occurrence rate for borderline personality disorder is much higher than research states.

The point is that many of the tyrannical bosses (males or females) are borderline personalities, especially in mental health agencies and hospitals.

Borderlines are not about order and process and principle. The borderline boss is problem-focused and controlling. They micromanage and their subordinates do not feel successful in their work as the boss only talks about the possible crises and what was wrong versus whether anything was right. Borderline bosses are never satisfied with things.

The borderline bosses are focused about themselves and their insecurities. The borderline will focus about things outside of their control. They are guarded, critical, moody, and emotionally tyrannical in their dealings with their subordinate. They will rage and say abusive things. They are on constant edge.

They do not say hi to people in the hallway unless they have an agenda,which is another form of emotional abuse. They will look angry, and subordinates who do not know the distance run and hide.

Well, that is what I am dealing with now. One more thing, my boss said in the meeting of false pretense that I have been caught in the middle of things. She was right about that. I have pretty much been able to stay in the middle successfully because I have done drama management, and it has worked so far, but I question how much more it will work?

Drama Management

Borderlines stir up drama. They cannot help themselves.

In drama, there are usually three people and at least two of them are angry. Someone is the victim. Someone is the perpetrator. Lastly, someone is the rescuer. The roles are interchangeable amongst the three. The perpetrator can all of a sudden become the victim if the rescuer goes to far. The victim can become the perpetrator. The rescuer becomes the perpetrator when the rescuer goes to far. The communication is usually indirect, highly charged and someone is hurt.

I have looked at the different events in light of that. I think drama management has at least nine principles

1. Choose very carefully what you repeat—you actually risk furthering the drama by saying something.
2. Be direct in communication when you have to talk.
3. Determine what the problem really is and work to resolve it if there really is a tangible problem.
4. Let stuff die if it really is not a tangible problem.
5. Be mature and adult in your words and tone of voice.
6. Educate people about drama management where appropriate.
7. Repeatedly tell yourself that you have power in the situation by what you do or not do.
8. Integrity in all matters.
9. Things are perfect neither are things total disasters.
   

My boss has repeatedly attempted to stir drama. My boss would make statements that someone said something inflammatory or cheap about me. I decided not to say anything. I let much stuff die. When it has come to dealing with my boss and the problem subordinate underneath me, I have sought to talk in a calm and mature tone. I have tried to impact the people around me with integrity and principle—I have repeated my philosophy of work to my subordinates and I have tried to walk it like I talk it. To the few that I judged appropriate, I explained my philosophy of drama management. It has worked for the most part and I have verbalized it as such.

What I think that has changed is that my boss is going to make drama happen regardless and I am not going to have a challenge as to how to manage it. As far as I can tell, she has tried to pit me against the other two subordinates. If I am not against them, I am against her. If she cannot pit me against anyone, she will transfer my problem-subordinate to another department and will create drama in the target department.

Integrity

I have decided the literature about borderline personalities has missed that they do not have integrity. They (in a Freudian sense) they lack the inner ego strength to have integrity. They do not have integrity within themselves and lack insight into their own contribution to their own problems. It is all about them, and if integrity does not work for them in the moment, they will distort, lie, back-stab, rage, cause a scene, withdraw, and abuse to control their fragile little realm.

My boss did not demonstrate integrity on Friday. In fact, she has demonstrated very little integrity for the two years she has been in the job. She especially did not call her meeting with me in the name of integrity. She had an agenda that was about her and her control. Was there a modicum of valid business concern in her meeting? Yes, but she was not straight forward and it is difficult to tell where the real matter lies.

I am not going to discuss what my plans are exactly tomorrow, but I have a plan where I am going to focus on maintaining integrity and principle. I am still at this time unsure whether or not is the right thing and whether I am going to follow that course of action because it is difficult.

Integrity in this day and time is difficult. When you are trying to survive and pay the bills, the temptation is there to do what seems to be needed. Sometimes that “need” is not moral or legal. But there is a generalized excuse in group-think that “everyone is doing it.”

Each of us is in charge of our own life. Sure we look to role models and mentors to guide us. But there are at least 10 tests we can ask whether something is going to help us maintain integrity. Any of them may cause pause to reconsider a planned course of action.

1. Is this going to get me fired?
2. Is it against corporate policy?
3. Is this illegal in the laws of the state or nation?
4. Does this violate any religious or moral code?
5. Is this good professional practice?
6. Is this of good principle that I can do again without getting burned?
7. Is this something I can look back on and say it seemed to be the right action at the time?
8. Is there going to be a consequence if I do not do it?
9. Am I crossing an interpersonal boundary and trying to do something that someone else really needs to be doing?
10. Does this actually feel right?

These are not perfect, but they are questions that we can ask to test whether I am maintaining integrity in matters. I am admit that I am feeling tenuous right now as nothing is perfect.

Insecurity

When the economy starts to go south, or when the politicians really sling mud at each other, people feel dissatisfied and insecure. Satisfaction and security seem to be very much related.
My situation lately has been a study in insecurity.

While the economy appears to be stabilizing and the price of oil appears to be going down, the sense of security (at least in me) is improving. Maybe the war going on right now between Russia and Georgia is a little unnerving. But the Olympics and Michael Phelps' achievements remind me that there is more to the world than bad things. Nevertheless, I have been thinking a lot about inner security and insecurity.

Inner security and insecurity are both powerful motivators. They make people do things without thinking based on their level of inner security or insecurity. I also think that many people are not conscious about inner security versus inner insecurity.

Inner security is an important asset that hopefully is a component of maturity. It seems to be another way to look at self-esteem and self-concept.

Inner security is a sense of peace and calmness about what is. Inner security is matter of trust and faith. It does not necessarily mean happiness, but I think people who are secure on the inside tend to find more happy and satisfied moments.

Inner security is a matter of faith in your abilities and your knowledge, and your perceptions.
I think that someone with inner security also trusts their thoughts and senses. The thoughts and senses of anyone are not 100 percent accurate, but I think that the thoughts and senses of a person with inner security are far more accurate than inaccurate.

I have decided that the person with a lack of inner security obsesses on the future and goes “What if? what if? What if?” They look back on the past and say "if only . . . if only . . . if only." They might think "are they? are they? are they?" when it comes to what other people are doing. They try to read other people's minds and interpret everything in terms of themselves and their own insecurities.

Insecure people spend the present looking forwards and backwards and miss what is in front of them because they are so miserable in their obsessive imaginations.

The insecure person confuses imagination with analysis. Analysis can only go as far as the facts and logic. Imagination in this case is only a guess.

Insecurity creates a parallel myopia or tunnel vision. Imagination going too far makes the microscopic look massive. Oh it still is microscopic, but it takes some faith to pull your face away from the microscope and see the big picture as it is clearly a risk.

There was one occasion where there was a young woman, who was clearly a borderline in my group when I was doing group therapy. I had a bottle of water and I put some of that powdered flavoring in my bottle and it clumped. She got all upset because my powder clumped. Why? It was my water and my bottle. It was not her bottle of water and she was not going to drink it—but she was all bent out of shape. I learned something about insecurity.

Another thing I would do from time to time when I did group therapy every day was to put a box of tissue in the middle of the group on its end on the floor. I would then ask who was anxious about it? It became my codependent and borderline detector. They would begin to report anxiety, and irritability, and a strong urge to pick it up off of the floor. They had no inner security to be at peace with things.

Inner security provides a sense trust in your limits. Inner security allows you to be at peace when you have reached your limits as to what you know or what you can do. Insecure people worry and get irritated beyond what they actually know or what they can control.

I think back to the story of the emperor's new clothes. The emperor and the whole town tended to be insecure. They went along with the lies of the advisors because they did not trust their senses. It took the child calling the spade the spade—but mama . . . the emperor has no clothes on.

I have two people that I supervise who are extremely insecure. One is a narcissist and one is a borderline personality. Both in their own ways are control freaks. However, I have determined that their their own ways, they have bonded together in insecurity (I think that the “Frank Burns” and “Hot Lips Houlihan” characters from M*A*S*H* are examples of the borderline and the narcissist.) It is my estimate that the two I am dealing with are so insecure right now, they are latching onto whatever they can. They themselves are otherwise scared. The narcissist acts withdrawn and shy when he is not in control of the situation and the borderline constantly seeks to care-take and smother.

Normally, a narcissist thinks that the world revolves around them. A narcissist can be very challenging of strangers and very inappropriate. A narcissist can act in thoughtless and careless ways. A narcissist can also act grandiose. A narcissist tends to terrorize or hide depending where you are at or how you are feeling at the time. Narcissists also act autocratic and tyrannical. However, the narcissist is very insecure. The narcissist is short-circuited to look only within themselves.

The borderline personality is a person who is also insecure. They feel like they inwardly are abandoned all the time. Their response to the feeling of abandonment is to control everything that they can. There is no sense of peace as to when enough is enough! It is all or nothing with them, and they really cannot tell when they have all? But it sure feels like nothing all of the time.

One more . . . the dependent personality also has similarity to the borderline in terms of abandonment. They are so needy that they can control through their neediness. Borderlines and dependent personalities are very similar in their abandonment. They are always insecure and always anxious about everything. They have no sense of balance and limits.

As a person coming into my own in my 20's and 30's I began to trust my sense and knowledge. I admit that my mother was obsessed with the concept of the “blind spot.” My mother has always been an anxious person. As I figure out where I came from and from what I came from, I realize that my family did not teach inner security.

My mother did not get it from her family given all their alcoholism and emotional neglect. It taught many of the stereotypes of “family business is private business” and “don't air your dirty laundry in public.” Insecurity puts people in hiding and on guard 24-7, and when you do come out, you have to look perfect.

My mom did the best she could in retrospect, but I have had to learn inner security by myself. I wanted what other people had. By some luck or maybe bad luck, I have figured some of it out.

While life is complex and understanding it is always a learning experience, security says that, your experience is largely no different from everyone else's under the sun. So, you have problems—everyone has problems. Insecurity is a lack of faith that makes people not trust and go into their corners. Insecurity is always about protecting yourself even when there are no real threats because insecurity says you can never tell the difference between real and not real threats.

Inner security says—your eyes are as good anyone else's. Trust yourself. Use your brain and your reasoning. To gain inner security I think means to work on looking out at the world. I have had to create a sense of inner security for myself. Yes me . . . I wanted insight . . . I wanted to be happy . . . I wanted to be able to mix it up for myself in this world.

As one of my colleagues has said . . . there are no freebies. I cannot get you over what it will take. It will take you doing it.

I can tell you the beliefs that help foster inner security, but you have to choose. It is the power that you have over your life.

Here are some starting questions to challenge yourself to begin to develop inner security.

The vast majority of people in the world are living out there mixing it up in the world. Why can't you?

Other people do just fine in the world. You can be like them.

Other people have faults. Just like you.

There are very few things in this world that cannot be fixed.

You like all people have the ability to slow down, look at options and resolve situations.

The majority of situations in this world have more than one possible solution.

The vast majority of mistakes people make are small and can be resolved or worked through.

You are going to dwell on the few bad things in this world and continue to feel insecure or you are going to look the larger picture that has both good and bad.

The great news is that life goes on and the vast majority of the people forget what mistakes you have made because they have their own lives to get on with.

The few people who keep reminding you of your mistakes are family members, in-laws or other people who are insecure and are slaves to their insecurity. These people have few friends and have no other life. They keep their world small because they are insecure. They will burn bridges to places out of their world because in their tunnel vision, they cannot see anything else.

Closing comments.

In this time in history—as in all times—there will always be something to be worried about.

Some periods in history will be more stressful. People make it through these situations and periods. Whether it is recession or war, some sense of shock and insecurity is normal.
How you manage it is up to you.

Hopefully, my note to myself and whoever else cares gives you are start to feel less bad today and better tomorrow.