Today I had to say a difficult thing to someone. This person (I will call her Claire) was overstepping her boundary. Claire is an assistant and she was about to send a message to someone. It wasn't the person that was the problem, it was the message. The message needed to come from their boss. When Claire sent me the message she was going to send to the employees, I told her not to send it because she was overstepping.
Claire got quite put out. She acted like I took her favorite toy and ripped it's head off. She wouldn't speak to me the rest of the day. She stomped around and kept the door of her office closed. She had a dour look on her face. Her body language said leave me alone.
I brought Claire in to talk about it but she wanted nothing to do with talking. I told her that the appropriate way to communicate this message (which was a big policy decision) was I write the message and send it to the boss with directions for him send it to his staff. Then once he has communicated it, she can then speak to the person she wanted to speak to. That is how decisions are communicated. Our job is to empower the boss. It is not the job of the assistant to communicate big decisions to staff members.
This needs to have a bigger discussion once she calms down and has some time to think about it.
Until tomorrow...
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