Is Your Boss an Insecure Overachiever? A Woman Lawyer's Guide to Managing Up

Summary

Cecilia Poullain explores the dynamics of insecure overachievers in professional settings, especially law firms, and offers practical strategies for managing relationships with such individuals. This episode provides insights for women lawyers aiming for partnership and leadership.

You can download the free guide on How to Make Partner in a Law Firm on  www.ceciliapoullain.com/free-guide

Key Topics

• Insecure overachievers in law firms
• Signs of insecure leadership
• Managing relationships with insecure bosses
• Strategies for women lawyers to succeed
• Understanding the culture of insecurity in professional organisations

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

When Professor Emson suggested that the firm was acting like a drug dealer, deliberately seeking out vulnerable people and getting them hooked on the high status identity the firm represented, the head of HR responded that there was a symbiotic relationship between the firm and the professionals. The insecure overachievers needed to demonstrate success. The firm helped them to fulfill that need, and everyone got extremely rich as a result, at least for the few who survived. I'm a former finance lawyer, and I now work with women lawyers on helping them to partnership and ensuring that they thrive when they get there. In this podcast, you'll get clarity on whether you really want to be a partner in a law firm, you'll conquer your imposter syndrome, and you'll learn systems for how to reliably bring in clients. Okay, let's jump in. My name is Cecilia Poulain. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast, where we talk about what it really takes to succeed as a woman lawyer in a law firm. Last week I was running a workshop for one of the major French companies. The people in the company weren't lawyers, but they were bringing many of the same problems to the table. One of the participants said that he wanted to learn how to celebrate mistakes in his team. It was a really interesting way of saying it. And then he went on to say that his team was telling him that when he gave feedback it was ninety-nine percent right, but that the way he said it was absolutely brutal. I then said to him, How hard are you on yourself? And he confirmed that he was expecting an enormous amount of himself. I knew exactly how he was feeling. My whole life people have been telling me I'm too hard on myself, and they've also been telling me that I'm intolerant and judgmental of others. Now that discussion reminded me of a story that Professor Laura Empson tells in her book, which is called Leading Professionals. In an interview with Professor Empson, the head of HR in a professional services firm, told her that the firm deliberately hired insecure overachievers. And they checked whether people were insecure overachievers by asking them what their weaknesses were. And so they would say things like, I'm too much of a perfectionist, or I drive myself too hard. And then once they'd hired those insecure overachievers, the firm deliberately maximized the competition between them to amplify those insecurities so that everyone would work even harder. Now I'm wondering, does that sound familiar in your firm? And when Professor Empson suggested that the firm was acting like a drug dealer, deliberately seeking out vulnerable people and getting them hooked on the high status identity the firm represented, the head of HR said, Well, there's a symbiotic relationship between the firm and the professionals. The insecure overachievers need to demonstrate success. The firm helps them to fulfil that need, and everyone gets extremely rich as a result, at least for the few who survive. Now there is so much I could say about that story, but I'm telling it just to make two points for the purposes of this episode. The first point is that many, if not all, professional organizations, which include law firms, are chock a block full of insecure overachievers. And that's certainly been my experience and my observation. And the second point is, and this is where I'm going with this episode, that there's a pretty good chance that you yourself are working for an insecure overachiever. And there's a pretty good chance that they're making your life a misery. Now, in this episode, I'd like to look at how you can tell you're working for an insecure overachiever, and then how to manage that relationship if you are. And then in a later episode, I'd like to address how to manage others and yourself if you suspect that you might be an insecure overachiever. Okay, so how do you know if you're working for an insecure overachiever? Working for an insecure overachiever can be an absolute nightmare. And here are a few indications that you can that can help you tell whether your boss fits into that category. Are they someone who cares too much about what other people think about them? Do they find it hard to make decisions? Do they change their mind all the time? And are they influenced by people above them? Do they brag about their achievements and put other people down? Do they give harsh feedback and bad performance reviews? And maybe they're doing that because it buoys up their sense of self when they put other people down. And for insecure overachievers, everything needs to go through them. They try to control everything, they need every decision to have their approval, they want all communication with other departments or with senior partners to go through them. In other words, they are classic micromanagers. Now, of course, we all have times when we doubt ourselves. That is completely normal. We all live in communities and we depend on those communities to survive. And those insecurities are helping us to monitor how we're going in relation to those communities. And those insecurities motivate us to grow and change. But insecure overachievers are taking this to another level altogether. And guess what they're the most worried about? What they're the most worried about is being considered incompetent as a leader. Now wow, what a vicious circle is that when our feelings of incompetence as a leader are driving the behaviors that make us a worse leader. Now I'd just like to take a moment to talk about people who aren't stereotypically seen as leaders, and that includes women. When people like that become managers or partners, they may be feeling even more anxious because they're receiving messages that they're not up to the job. And in many firms, women are feeling inadequate as leaders, whether they're senior associates or partners or off council. When the real issue is that the culture is telling them, either implicitly or explicitly, either that they don't belong or that they don't deserve to be a manager. Before I talk about how to manage your boss if they're an insecure overachiever, could I ask you to take a quick moment to leave a rating and a review once you've finished listening? Now I'm guessing you know people who have an insecure overachiever as a boss, and if you leave a rating and a review, it can really, really help other women lawyers find this episode and find some solutions. You might even want to write something as simple as you don't have to do this alone. I was struck in the workshop I ran last week that in every single situation they had issues either with their boss or with the head of another department. And every single one of those people just happened to be a woman. Now maybe that's a complete coincidence, and maybe those particular women happened to be incompetent or difficult. But I also wondered if there was a dynamic between the participants who unconsciously didn't accept that those women could be in positions of responsibility, so they were challenging more than they might with a man, and that was making the women feel defensive and impacting their leadership style. I don't know, and I suspect every situation is different. But before you start claiming that your boss is an insecure overachiever, it's worth checking in on your own biases. Amy Gallow wrote a book called Getting Along, and in the book she says this Many people, especially women, have been socially conditioned to downplay their successes or positive attributes. It's possible that your manager has been encouraged to avoid bravado and defer to others. So it may be that if your boss is a woman, she's constantly being challenged, interrupted and put down. And that's what so many of my clients tell me, and maybe that's what's making her defensive. But if you're clear that your boss isn't an insecure overachiever and that there isn't anything else going on, I'd like to share three ideas with you to think about before you do anything at all. Firstly, get clear on exactly what the consequences of their behavior are. Maybe it's just really, really annoying and really there's not much impact. Or maybe it's having a really big impact. And if it is having an impact, what is that impact specifically? You need to get clear on this because it's much easier to resolve a problem when you know exactly what that problem is. Second, and this goes back to what I was saying a moment ago, are you somehow triggering the behavior? Is there some power dynamic going on between you and your boss that's making them defensive? Do you accept that they're legitimate in their role? Or are you frequently challenging them? And are you yourself an insecure overachiever who is putting them down in order to deal with your own insecurities? Now I, for one, know I can plead guilty to that, and I send my apologies to all of those who I did that to. And thirdly, what does your boss actually want? Now, a client told me about one of the partners in her firm recently. And this partner, as as the younger lawyers were getting up towards partnership, he was starting to be deliberately cruel to them. And he was doing that because he thought it would toughen them up. What he didn't realize is that it was doing the exact opposite and absolutely destroying their confidence. So his motives were good. It's just that his methods were appalling. So before you do anything, think about what your boss's motives might actually be. Could it be that their heart is in the right place? And it's just their behavior that falls short of the mark. Now let's look at what you can do about managing the relationship with your your insecure overachiever boss. I have a whole series of ideas, so bear with me, and I've I've numbered them so you can follow along. Number one, get some perspective. See if you can laugh about it. And even better, see if you can joke with them about it. Maybe they're making your life hell, but just try and keep some distance. You're not married to them and it won't be forever. Two once you've identified the most important impacts of their behavior, you might want to address it directly with them. So you could say something like When you ask me to go through you rather than speaking directly to the M ⁇ A department, I find that I don't have all the information I need, and I'm not able to look after the clients as well as I might. So I wondered if it would be okay with you if I could speak to them directly and then tell you what they said in our weekly one to ones. Would that be okay with you? So address the most difficult behaviors directly. Three, instead of retaliating, consider whether you're willing to appease the situation. For so many of us, we want to be right, and that drive to be right makes so many situations so much worse than they could be. So for example, you might even let your boss claim your work as their own. Now I met a lawyer recently, she had been working in the same firm for 15 years, and she had never, ever, ever sent out correspondence under her own name. Wow. And so for the clients, it was as though she didn't exist. And not surprisingly, when I met her, she was just about to change firms. Now that is a very extreme example, and in my view, that is completely unacceptable. But if it only happens a couple of times, maybe it's not worth making a big deal about it. Maybe it's worth letting it go. You could even say in front of other people that you're you emphasize that you're working as a team with your boss. See how you can help them achieve their goals.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Four, and this is a hard one. If your boss is an insecure overachiever, if you're able to give them some positive feedback, that will make an enormous difference to your relationship. That feedback must be true and it must be sincere, and it might take every ounce of your self-control to give it. But think about how much better your life would be if you managed to do it and your boss starts to believe that they can trust you. Five. Younger professionals often believe that older professionals are paid more, and that so they should somehow be perfect and not have any feelings. And as a result, they can actually be extremely cruel to their seniors. Even partners need appreciation. We all do. That doesn't mean being a sycophant, it just means being grateful for what they do for us and telling them when they're doing something well. And that can be absolute balm for their soul, especially if they're an insecure overachiever, and especially if it's coming from you and the relationship has been difficult. Six see if you can become a trusted advisor to your boss, or maybe you can develop some skills that mean that they can rely on you. Can you help give them the stability they need? Can you support them instead of tearing them down? seven. If they're micromanaging you, help them feel as though they're in charge. Make sure that they know what you're doing so that they feel a greater sense of control. Maybe schedule regular check-ins. Or maybe you can do what I did for years with my boss, so on Monday mornings I'd send her a list of what I expected to do during the week and what I thought I wouldn't have time for. And I didn't know that she was actually looking at it until I forgot to send it one week, and she asked me where it was. Eight, you might want to have a conversation with them about just how much management you need, when you need them to get involved, and when you feel you can handle it on your own. And you might want to listen to their experience about whether you really can handle it on your own. Certain firms are brilliant at baking this into the system. And so I spoke to someone, a partner in a French firm recently called Medici. And what they do in that firm is before a lawyer goes to court for the first time, they have to practice their pleadings in front of the partner. And that not only helps the younger lawyers, but it also helps those who are managing them to know how much management the younger lawyer needs. And nine, finally, try not to take it personally. It's not your responsibility to relieve their anxiety. That's up to them and it's up to their therapist. So nine ideas about how to manage upwards if you have an insecure achiever as a boss. Now if there is someone in your life and maybe it's your boss, maybe it's a client, maybe it's a co-worker, and you think that they might be an insecure achiever, especially if they're driving you crazy, could I invite you to jot down a few answers to three questions before you do anything at all? One, what specifically is the impact of their behavior? Is it just annoying or is it affecting your work or your reputation? And if so, how? Get really specific. two, is there any way you might be triggering their behavior? Often it's the dynamic between two people that's the problem rather than the behavior of either person. And three, what do they actually want?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Could their intentions be good even if their methods aren't?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

You might be surprised by what comes up. Thank you so much for joining me on the Pathway to Partnership Podcast. As always, I really, really appreciate it. I hope that this episode has given you some guidance about how to handle any insecure achievers in your firm, whether they're your boss or otherwise. And if you've found this useful, please, please share it with a colleague so that together we can help more women make it to partnership and thrive when they get there. As I said before, if you leave a review, it can really help to get the podcast in front of other women lawyers who might be suffering from an insecure overachiever boss. Until next time, remember you don't have to do this alone, and you get to define success as a woman lawyer on your own terms. Thanks so much for listening.