024: How to Disagree Professionally with Your Supervisor

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How do you communicate disagreement with your supervisor? There may be a decision looming and you don't agree with the direction that will be taken. How do you approach presenting a different idea? It's all about your approach, how well you and your supervisor get along, and your professional reputation and enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLain. And this is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. I'm coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, and that's Music City on semi lockdown. Now, how many of you have visited Nashville that hope that those of you who have never visited Nashville can come visit once we have overcome all the challenges of COVID-19. And I want you to come and enjoy the iconic bars and establishments along Broadway. And also you get to go and visit the establishments in Midtown and also the artist area in East Nashville. So if you haven't had a chance to come to Nashville Music City, and sure you schedule a visit, once we have come out of this chaos, known as COVID-19, I hope you all are having a great day and a great week. And this is episode number 24. And today I will discuss how to disagree professionally with your supervisor. And I'm going to take you through a couple of steps number one, and something that I always talk about and that's having the proper mindset for disagreement. Number two will be our approach. And our method. Number three is that we should always be prepared by offering options solutions backed up by data. And number four, what happens when our disagreement is dismissed. I want to share a quote with you from john Maxwell. And he said, we choose what attitudes we have right now. And it's a continuing choice. I have a free guide for you. It's called the leadership growth blueprint for finance and accounting managers. In the guide, I talked about three leadership areas communication, team growth, and empowerment. Plus a few recommendations around challenges with the systems you are probably using to complete your work. The link to the guide is in the episode description. Or you can go to Stephen McLain calm, please use it to help you with a few leadership wins today. Thank you.

Now disagreeing with your boss, your supervisor is a great topic. And it's definitely a skill that we need to master. It's something that we need to learn how to do in a professional manner. And how we become that trusted business adviser, across the organization, across the departments, with department leads with senior leaders, with the executive team with our peers, and with anyone that we come in contact with the organization continue to build your reputation as that solid trusted business advisor. Now I always didn't disagree with my bosses properly, I made mistakes, I made mistakes when it came to disagreeing with a decision that was coming or a course of action we were considering or whatever else that was coming, whether it was a personnel decision, or a policy decision, or a new line of business, or in any kind of decision that was going to affect my team or the organization as a whole. So I think it's important topic for professionals to understand. And also to undertake in a better way in a more professional manner. I definitely can get passionate about my work. And sometimes I approach disagreement with my supervisor in a not great manner. Sometimes it was negative, some wasn't always positive. And then I have to ask myself, did this help my cause for change? And no, of course not because I was dismissed because of the approach that I took. Now disagreeing is really an issue about your capacity for influence in the organization. When you have built your credibility, your influence increases throughout the company. And this is really about your professional reputation. And if you achieve results, and if you have a great reputation for being someone who can offer solutions, and being a problem solver and really being a leader in your organization. And this is really what this podcast and this message and forum is really all about. I want you all out there to become leaders in your organization. I want you to take a very active approach in how you problem solve and how you work issues and how you help build the business. I want you to become leaders and not just managers of the tasks that come at you every day and disagreeing with your supervisor is definitely a critical skill that leaders need to master You need to add it to your kitbag. And you need to continually grow your ability to influence your supervisor and influence any leaders above you in a manner that helps the organization overall strategically and helps the organization be a very healthy one for the future. Now, when we disagree with a coming decision, or course of action, or anything that the company is doing, we definitely are obligated to state a counterpoint or a counter issue or to look at the decision in another way. If it has not come up before in the discussions leading up to the decision, you can still be supportive of the vision in your supervisors priorities. Just because you disagree doesn't mean that you don't support the priorities and the vision. This doesn't change because you disagree. It really comes down to our professional approach and our credibility, do we have a solid reputation in our work results, a solid worker at reputation gives us professional credibility and the authority to speak against the norm to speak against the status quo, to speak against a decision that we believe may not be the best for our organization. Now, do we speak with authority when we disagree? Or will we be dismissed due to our attitude or our reputation, I have also dismiss people who are always complaining or are contrarian to every decision that I ever made. But I take notice when someone I trust speaks up about something I'm about to decide on, I start to listen and wonder what I have missed. I always expected my team members to speak up about decisions I always have, it will always come back with whom I trust most, when the advice comes in, has the person been right in the past about the decision about what we ended up deciding about? Do they have credibility? What is their personal motivation for disagreeing? Is it personal is it Are they disagreeing because it's really something that's best interest of the organization, wherever I was at or what job I was doing, I learned which people on my team could be a trusted business partner going forward, and who I could ask for advice on decisions. Now, here are the four steps that I want to take you through when disagreeing with your supervisor. And number one, the first step is always going to be having the proper mindset for disagreement. Again, it is our duty to advise our supervisor and anybody else we come in contact with on all issues. And it's our duty to disagree with decisions that we believe are not in the best interest of the organization, when we feel a topic is important to the organization as a whole, we need to bring it up. And it's really not supposed to be for selfish reasons, or our own self interest or something that's going to give us benefit. In the long run, we need to talk about the overall health of the organization in our profession, we have to speak up because it's critical to get the financials, right. It's the law. And people are depending on us, people we don't even know who are making decisions about their finances, whether they're going to invest in a publicly traded company, or anybody else that has some kind of a stake in the company that we work with, including vendors or customers or their businesses, the team members that are throughout the organization, we have a duty and obligation to speak up, especially when it comes to the financials, I'm also assuming that you have been included in the decision making process because this is where you should really voice your opinion, as the decision is being developed in the course of action is being developed and the assumptions and the facts are all being talked about around the table, we have to continually understand that our role in finance and accounting is always to be that trusted business advisor. And we need to speak up when it's necessary. Number two, disagreeing is always about the approach or method and our attitude. How do we approach disagreement, and it really comes down to is about our relationships, in our professional reputation, because I believe that you will be dismissed immediately if you always disagree with everything, and you're unprofessional. And also if you act like Chicken Little and are always worried about the ceiling falling in on us, the sky falling in on us and also if you have zero tolerance for risk, and if you have a questionable record of achievement, but you will be listened to if you have a strong relationship of being that trusted advisor and that you get results and that you are continually supportive of the vision and the priorities of your supervisor. Also, you'll be listened to if you really believe in the organization and you believe in the mission of the organization and that also you are regarded and looked upon as a leader of change and a leader of getting things done that need to get done. So again, it's about our approach, our method, our attitude, how do we talk with our supervisor, respectful growth oriented relationships will give us credibility and it will give us the opportunity to disagree when it really matters. Number three, when we disagree, we have to bring data, we have to bring analysis. And we also have to bring options, we don't just disagree, we also come in with a well researched position. And we definitely support our position with data and analysis that backs up our disagreement. And we always bring options. Whenever we bring a problem, we also bring some additional options that our supervisor and senior leaders can look at and review and can consider as to the alternative to what they have already discussed, or maybe on the cusp of deciding upon, and we need to be continually open to criticism and coaching about our position, we also need to not be wearing our feelings on our sleeve. So we don't get bothered by the criticism that comes back at the options we are now recommending. And step number four is that if our opinion and our options and our recommendations are dismissed, and then not acted upon, then we need to get onboard fully to support the final decision. Now, I'm not talking about any legal decision, you need to take the appropriate action. I also believe that undermining a decision is unethical and unprofessional. And if you can't live with the decision, then you should probably move on. If you can't support it, leaders need to take on undermining in the organization because it's completely unacceptable. Once a decision is made, we get on board and we give the organization and our supervisor and the senior leaders our full support in the fulfillment of that decision, as it supports the vision and the strategy because our team will get confused around loyalty if we don't get fully on board to support undermining is a serious issue within organizations, those who don't get their way in altering the decision, the unprofessional ones oftentimes will go around and try to undermine the senior leaders. And then that destroys organizations

that destroys teams and destroys loyalty. And if you really can't handle the final decision, then you really the right thing to do is to move on from the company and go somewhere else. Now I want to share a scenario that sometimes we have to deal with, because in finance and accounting, you know, we're dealing with numbers, and we're dealing with senior leaders and the executive team all the time. And sometimes we come under pressure for the work that we do. And we have to also enter senior leaders who are looking for numbers that just are not there. And so we are tasked with chasing positive projections or projection that really doesn't come out when we start looking at the numbers that really brief well, are also who are trying to find a positive story from the profit and loss statement that may be just ugly, and just not as a good statement. We're probably dealing with that a lot this year with a lot of organizations trying to spin a positive message out of something that just isn't there. And we have to continually be that trusted person to deliver the truth based on our numbers and not just trying to manufacture something that really isn't there. Now I've been there. Sometimes those we brief do not want to hear what the actual numbers are saying, and we can't let that get us down, we have to do our jobs. And we have to continually be accurate in our field, we will be professional. And we have to brief reality because our goal is to become the again that trusted partner to help achieve the strategy in the long run. And if we are altering numbers, then we are not doing the organization, any service. And if we want to change a projection, then we may have to change the model. Now if we want to change a projection, that really means we either have to change the assumptions that are built into it and the factors that are to base our projection on or we have to change our methodology, we don't just change a number, we'll have to build out how our model affects the new strategy. Going forward. Our approach to adversity will always define us our approach to disagreement will define how well we can become that person of credibility and that advisor for the organization as a whole. So I'm continually encouraging you and recommending that when you are faced with giving your opinion on a disagreement on the decision that you come at it from an professional manner. So for an easy one. Today, I want you to think about how you can better prepare to offer alternative options when a major decision is coming and definitely when it's necessary. Are you acting as that trusted advisor? Are you offering data analysis and viable options? And do you have that solid professional relationship with the right stakeholders continually be ready for when major decisions have been considered when I talk about decisions these are could be decisions on strategy, new lines of business, new equipment that needs to be purchased policy and hiring decisions and they could be decisions on growing the team on moving to a new facility opening up new markets, all sorts of decisions and definitely when it comes to these decisions being a finance and accounting professional in your organization. You will be counted upon to deliver accurate numbers and also very accurate, reliable advice. This episode is sponsored by my new online course offering through finance leader Academy. It's called Advanced your finance and accounting career, developing a promotion strategy that will set you apart. Are you having difficulty getting recognition from your leadership? Despite all the hard work you pour into your job in your organization, this course helps you analyze what you bring to the organization. How you can set yourself apart from your peers through high visibility work and developing your leadership skills. Plus, how you can devise a strategy to move ahead. You can go to Stephen McLain calm. For more details. today. In this episode, I discussed how we can disagree professionally with your supervisor and I talked about the following steps number one having the proper mindset for disagreement. Number two, our approach and method number three being prepared by offering additional options. And number four, what happens when a disagreement is dismissed. Next episode, I'm going to be talking about how we can build our influence in the organization. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership. I hope you enjoyed the show. You can get this episode wherever you find podcasts. Until next time, you can check out more resources at Stephen mclain.com and sign up for my updates so you don't miss an episode of the show. And now, go lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you

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024: How to Disagree Professionally with Your Supervisor

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