I’ve Been Told I’m Too Direct as an Administrator

Reader’s Question

I am the Office Administrator for a Treatment Foster Care agency, thus working mostly with social workers. Recently we did evaluations, and my supervisor said a couple of my co-workers said I was too direct at times. The rest of my evaluation was glowing! What in the world are they talking about? I am a black and white, tell the truth, get to the point kind of person. That is what is required in my position of running an office. If they leave a mess they need to clean it up. Am I obligated to pussy foot around their “feelings” simply because they can’t be responsible adults and do their part as a member of an office staff?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

This sounds like a difference between a “business” administrative/management style and the workplace setting and employees. Your management style is totally appropriate for your position as an Office Administrator — a “business” administrator in that agency. However, your agency and staff probably operate on a therapeutic-interaction style rather than a business model. As social workers and case managers, they are more comfortable with a casual, let’s-talk-about-it interaction rather than a direct approach.

You are not obligated, in my therapeutic opinion, to dance around their feelings when it comes to basic agency policies and the need to be responsible adults and co-workers. You are doing what you have been hired and assigned to do — that’s business! As the glowing evaluation reflects, you are performing your job very well. You will have a few employees who will dislike your approach but in truth, if they were responsible adults and cleaned up their mess, nothing would need to be said — that’s business as well. These folks just need to grow up and accept responsibility for their own behavior…and mess.

It could be worse. You might suddenly find yourself with a Psychologist as a supervisor who would come to you and say “Let’s explore the feelings you have about co-workers who don’t clean up their mess in the break room.”