Why Employees Resist Their Bosses

Resistance means you don’t feel safe.

Quotes:
“The reason people resist is because they don’t feel safe."

“Courtesy is the first sign of safety. Respect is the outcome of courteous behaviour.”

“When working with colleagues or bosses work to create a matrix of safety for the head, the body, the heart, the spirit and the culture.”

Episode Highlights:
Part A – Your nervous system and its relationship to feeling safe

Your amygdala is responsible for perception of threat, even if that threat is not real. When there is a perception of threat, the body reacts via the amygdala in an instant freeze, fight, flight response. The remedy to threat is to create a safe work environment.

Part B – How to create safety for yourself 

1. Start with an incident that is bothering you: 
2. “When I think about X situation…I feel (what emotion?) (angry, frustrated etc.)”
3. Measure the intensity of the emotion from 1-10.
4. Slow down your breathing and become conscious of where you feel this emotion in your body.
5. Move to release the energy.

Part C – Intentionally creating a climate of safety
Creating a workplace matrix is similar to the matrix in the womb that surrounds and nourishes a baby. You can help create this matrix of safety by:

Helping the head feel safe – give it an explanation and facilitate regular communication of listening, speaking and coming to a shared understanding

Helping the body feel safe – is it pleasant to work in this place, is it ergonomically viable? Would you want to work there? If you wouldn’t why would you allow others to work in that condition?

Helping the heart feel safe – listening, acknowledging, validating how other people feel. Acknowledge difference of opinion without vilification of the other person.

Treat others with courtesy and civility which creates respect as the outcome.

Helping the spirit feel safe – If people are trustworthy and show courage to address problems, doing what they say they will do, the spirit feels safe.

Helping people feel safe culturally – be sincerely interested in others, and ask people about their expectations about how things should be done at work.

Part D – Incidents and solutions
Look for the principles involved in an incident to get to a solution. What principle would help elevate thought and behaviour? 

Incident: An employee is resisting working with a boss. 

1. Maybe they don’t have experience or training. 
2. Maybe they feel incompetent to do the task and don’t feel safe saying so. 
3. Maybe they feel they don’t matter. No one wants to be invisible, it is a denial of our humanity. 
4. Maybe they don’t know how to interact with a person in authority. Or they had bad experiences with a boss when they spoke up in the past. 
5. Experience with too many changes with ‘flavour of the month’ decisions, so employees have become cynical. 
6. People are unhappy with their job. They act badly or their performance drops. 
7. There is a personality disorder or an addiction issue

Takeaways:

1. People resist because they don’t feel safe
2. We all have a nervous system which perceives threat via they amygdala 
3. You can calm this reaction by naming an emotion, measuring the intensity, slowing breathing, moving
4. Build a matrix of workplace safety that helps the mind, heart, body, spirit and culture to feel safe
5. If you still have resistance consider training, acknowledgement, how to interact with a boss, job unhappiness, personality/addiction issues.