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Being the leader of the interaction is about initiative
Hello everyone,
if you remember I had the issue that when I was going to secretaries and waiting for their attention, they would say: "tell me", tasking me and making them the de facto leader of the interaction.
So what I learned is that if you want to be the leader of the interaction, you have to initiate the interaction.
That means for instance, calling them by their name and then ask for what you want: "Susan, could you do this and this" without letting them the time to interject with a "tell me". If they say: "I'm busy this and this" you can task them again: "tell me when you're free".
So the leader of the interaction is initiating things, that works also with changing topics, etc.
Another example:
Today the secretary told me:
Her: "John this is the time for giving out your extra hours of the months (overtime)".
Me: "It's printed" (following, trying to prove myself)
Her: "You're almost good" (judge role)
Me: "You see" (trying to regain some power, still buying into her frame)
Context: many people forget to give out their time sheets, and I'm not one of them and she knows it. So I'm already a "good pupil" among my peers.
However, I fell into her frame of her being the judge as she's responsible to collect our time sheets.
Better interaction
Her: "John this is the time for giving out your extra hours of the months (overtime)".
Me: "It's not the end of the month yet"
Her: "Yeah but people forget all the time"
Me: "Don't worry!"
Brilliant, John.
I think the core of your "better interaction" example of slight "countering" and "tasking" is that "My time is valuable, I don't want to spend it running my ass around checking/doing the thing you mentioned". Recently I realized so much of it is that you have to always hold your ground - is this important to me? And not be afraid to let it go if it isn't. If the other person insists, let them do it.
Yeah, definitely, Emily.
And about being the leader of the interaction. It's also a mindset: "I'm in charge, I'm the one calling the shots" as you also noticed.
That's why you can then deal with the "Perfect" by answering "Perfect" or deal with the "Tell me" by saying "Listen". You're not afraid to communicate: "No you're not on top, I'm on top".
