Reply to Women - how do you deal with a female supervisor who is jealous of/intimidated by you?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, in your next 1:1 conversation with your boss, I would bring it up.  Say that you would appreciate more of her support for your ideas publicly, because it comes across as you are being corrected in public when she challenges your idea in a group.  Mention that you would rather have criticism in private either before or after public meetings.

Tell her you are trying to work on your "executive presence" and ask for her advice on how you both can make you more successful in meetings.

I'm not saying she's not jealous of you, but maybe she's frustrated with you suggesting ideas that don't make sense, or hasn't thought about how what's she's doing is perceived.

I'm not saying she's not difficult, but at least try to tactfully address the problem with her head-on and from a professional enrichment perspective.[/quote]

NP here.  I think that this is bad advice.  If you take a tone that you would prefer criticism in private, then I think that it could come across as aggressive or put her on the defensive.  Or, worse, she could use it against you and suggest that you can't take criticism in your next performance evaluation.

A better approach might be to preempt the public criticism by running things by her via email *before* meetings or *before* bringing them up in group settings.  Get her reaction in email and then when it comes time for the meeting and you raise a point, say "As So and So and I discussed..." with So and So being the supervisor who criticizes.

It's also possible that OP is reading the situation wrong.  Maybe the supervisor feels like OP is constantly challenging her by bringing up stuff at meetings or in public before or without discussing it with the supervisor.  It all depends on context, but if I were a supervisor and I felt like someone under me *never* came to me with ideas/suggestions or critical information and instead waited to meetings to bring it up, I'd get the sense that that employee was trying to undermine me in some way or was gunning for my job.

There's an appropriate way to bring up ideas/suggestions.  If you have a supervisor, these things should be run by the supervisor.  It shouldn't always be the case that the first time the supervisor ever hears about this stuff is in a group meeting.  Even if OP only did this a few times, it would be enough for the supervisor to label OP as a problem and then view everything OP says through that lens.[/quote]

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