My First Hard Lesson on Professional Boundaries
Boundaries are hard. Boundaries are really hard when you work for your mom. Boundaries are extremely hard when you work for your mom on your first job out of college.
Cut to, I’m 22 years old. I’m assisting mom on a women’s leadership program at a major manufacturer. My job is to help demo the exercises. We’re standing in front of 30 high-profile women and their boss, who's paying us.
The exercise is: I’m to say an affirming statement about my leadership, and she’s to say it back, showing me a live demonstration of what I look like. A kind of live-human-amplifying mirror Then I’m to try again. My mom, acting as my amplifying mirror, on a public stage.
Okay:
Me: “I encourage greatness!” Giving it my all.
Her: “I? Encourage? Greatness?”” She mirrors back, with valley girl up-speak and a side hip.
I’m now to try again. Only less me… a twenty something with mom issues.
Instead:
Me: “That is so rude.”
Her: “I'm doing the exercise.”
We devolve from there. You can imagine. Buy the show, Netflix.
Next thing I remember, mom’s in the corner, close-talking with the client—never a good look. I’m helicoptering the room to make sure they’re not doing what we did. Of course they aren’t. This morning, I’d been a typical nearly-still-teen daughter, drinking her Starbucks, viciously irritated by my mother’s micro-expressions. Hours later, I’m expected to perform enthusiasm on stage while being critiqued for speaking the way my entire generation and all whom shall cometh speak. Literally.
After about 20 minutes, mom’s back “on.” The client A lines to me. Oprah, my chosen God, where are you in these moments? Next, I’m in a conference room at a too big table with awful lights while this poor women, our client, who’s paying us, tells me how she both understands how hard it must be to work with one’s mother—"I would NEVER hire my daughter,” her eyes darkening at the suggestion—and how important it is for me to develop “professional boundaries”
Having never heard the phrase, this conversation feels like a violation.
“How does it feel working for your mother?” the client, who's paying us, asks. “Great, I love it, it’s an honor.” She's not getting the close-talking kinda convo mom was down for, and so our sidebar meeting adjourns. I return to the training room, dreading the 90-minute mom-daughter car ride back. All Jersey girls know turnpike PTSD.
Looking back, this was my first hard lesson in boundaries. That day, I felt everyone violated mine—the client, my mom. The harsh truth is that boundaries start with us. Not knowing how to have them at all, of course everyone in the live-mirror exercise of my life was crossing them.
Life is messy, and cardboard-cutting-out crystal-clear boundaries doesn't account for it. And, by asking ourselves “how things feel” and answering honestly, we get closer to knowing what boundaries even mean.
Developing professional boundaries has been an ongoing, complicated journey. But I’m here for it. And it’s helped me be there for clients. I’ve got tips after all these years.
Leadership coaching is the most powerful tool I know to accelerate your development. To work with me or another stellar Next Level Leadership coach, visit www.the-next-level.com or shoot us a line at TNL@the-next-level.com