My horrible INFJ boss
- Thread starter Peace
- Start date
Bad idea to tell a bunch of INFJs that someone you dislike is INFJ.
See? Some of them have already revised your history (or understanding) of her not being an INFJ for their own reasons.
;-)
See? Some of them have already revised your history (or understanding) of her not being an INFJ for their own reasons.
;-)
- Mar 17, 2010
- 4,872
- 1,225
- 766
- MBTI
- ????
- Enneagram
- 9w1
To answer the OPs questions -- as to WHY someone would act this way:
Not professional and doesn't matter what kind of MBTI type, this is not okay managerial behavior or practice and you have every right to be annoyed about it. I would guess the "why" is that she just wasn't a good manager and maybe had received little or no training on how to deal with conflict. Also conflict is not an INFJs natural strength. So, that+lack of training = craptasticness. I personally prefer directness, but that doesn't mean I am naturally good at it. I would talk to her and her boss about this, this kind of thing is a real problem.
Well, again, she should not have asked you to make assumptions and then gotten mad when you made "wrong" ones. Bad manager. Lots of types do this, I'm afraid. Not just INFJs. Therefore, it is a good practice to cover your butt when you do have to make assumptions. (Get EVERYTHING in writing, send e-mails, copy her boss if necessary.)
This is another example of the importance of covering your butt at work and getting everything and I mean everything in writing. Copy her boss if necessary. I don't care what type you are working with, you should practically make this rule a part of your religion. Even if you are atheist. You need to get everything in writing so no one can do this to you, and I promise you, they will try.
I don't know the full context -- seems like there could be two sides to this story. Anything that seems like sloppy paperwork or leaving out crucial details does bother me as well. However... maybe she could be overdoing it. I don't know.
See above.
... well, yes. She probably was. Sorry, no good explanation here. :/
Not professional and doesn't matter what kind of MBTI type, this is not okay managerial behavior or practice and you have every right to be annoyed about it. I would guess the "why" is that she just wasn't a good manager and maybe had received little or no training on how to deal with conflict. Also conflict is not an INFJs natural strength. So, that+lack of training = craptasticness. I personally prefer directness, but that doesn't mean I am naturally good at it. I would talk to her and her boss about this, this kind of thing is a real problem.
Well, again, she should not have asked you to make assumptions and then gotten mad when you made "wrong" ones. Bad manager. Lots of types do this, I'm afraid. Not just INFJs. Therefore, it is a good practice to cover your butt when you do have to make assumptions. (Get EVERYTHING in writing, send e-mails, copy her boss if necessary.)
This is another example of the importance of covering your butt at work and getting everything and I mean everything in writing. Copy her boss if necessary. I don't care what type you are working with, you should practically make this rule a part of your religion. Even if you are atheist. You need to get everything in writing so no one can do this to you, and I promise you, they will try.
I don't know the full context -- seems like there could be two sides to this story. Anything that seems like sloppy paperwork or leaving out crucial details does bother me as well. However... maybe she could be overdoing it. I don't know.
See above.
Because How dare someone talk bad about an INFJ! That example is certainly no true INFJ! /sarcasm
I think [MENTION=4680]this is only temporary[/MENTION] is correct; INFJs are not perfect, and INFJs under severe stress can be vicious. Not that we mean to be, but it can happen. I don't think you'll be able to do anything about the facial expressions; you'll have to live with those. But the outbursts and miscommunication can be handled if you're willing to go the extra mile and CYA (cover your ass..ets). Email her or find her right before you're about to "improvise" something. She does want you to be self-sufficient, but she'll also want things done in a systematic way. It's very possible that she's not comfortable with her job, and she's overcompensating when her boss chews her out. How long has she been in her position?
Also, I'm sorry if I missed it, but how long have you been with your company? If either one of you are new-ish, there will be some difficult growing pains. Try to make the most of it for now, but be willing to talk to her if you feel distressed or frustrated. If she's an INFJ she'll listen even if she's frustrated with you, and she'll be willing to hear what you have to say. Just...try not to do the, "I'm right/you're wrong" approach. That's deadly to your career.
Also, I'm sorry if I missed it, but how long have you been with your company? If either one of you are new-ish, there will be some difficult growing pains. Try to make the most of it for now, but be willing to talk to her if you feel distressed or frustrated. If she's an INFJ she'll listen even if she's frustrated with you, and she'll be willing to hear what you have to say. Just...try not to do the, "I'm right/you're wrong" approach. That's deadly to your career.
1. Emotional expressions. yeah, that's the thing about INFJs. what's happening on the outside is not necessarily what's happening on the inside. you can never assume too little with INFJs. the only time i get into trouble with my INTP roommate is when he assumes too much about me. that pretty much goes for anyone, but sine you are INTP, i'm making the connection.
2. Passive aggressive behavior. we don't like conflict. since we have a knack for anticipating other's needs we sometimes fail at remembering that not everyone else does this well. since she was your supervisor and you know that she did this, why not do progress reports with her? INFJs like information too.
3. Intolerance of task oriented people. stop making wrong assumptions!
i am not task-oriented and will never be task-oriented. i can't tell you how to do task-oriented things if i don't understand the concept myself. why are you needing step by step instructions, anyway? figure it out.
4. Revisionist. our memory is directly tied to our feelings. we don't have a way around this unless you come up with actual proof that we are wrong. it's something most INFJs need to work on if they are going to be successful in the workplace. don't try to recall the past. evaluate the situation as it is and move forward from there. if you try to figure out how the problem occurred in the first place most of the time INFJs will get defensive because it looks like you are trying to assign blame. whether she remembers something correctly is totally irrelevant to the fact that there is a problem, and it needs to be fixed.
5. Excessive care to detail. it's what happens when you are a perfectionist. why is decent grammar tedious? she will always find a way to improve your work, her work, anyone's work. if it really was slowing you down then you could have told her and offered proof. compromise.
yay! i see all of those traits in myself. they can be annoying, but your workplace sanity was somewhat based on your willingness to work around those traits. you don't mention how you tried to mitigate the damage. in any relationship there needs to be efforts made on both sides. posting here and basically pointing out all of her flaws and very little of the team's makes this account extremely biased. what could you have done better?
2. Passive aggressive behavior. we don't like conflict. since we have a knack for anticipating other's needs we sometimes fail at remembering that not everyone else does this well. since she was your supervisor and you know that she did this, why not do progress reports with her? INFJs like information too.
3. Intolerance of task oriented people. stop making wrong assumptions!
i am not task-oriented and will never be task-oriented. i can't tell you how to do task-oriented things if i don't understand the concept myself. why are you needing step by step instructions, anyway? figure it out. 4. Revisionist. our memory is directly tied to our feelings. we don't have a way around this unless you come up with actual proof that we are wrong. it's something most INFJs need to work on if they are going to be successful in the workplace. don't try to recall the past. evaluate the situation as it is and move forward from there. if you try to figure out how the problem occurred in the first place most of the time INFJs will get defensive because it looks like you are trying to assign blame. whether she remembers something correctly is totally irrelevant to the fact that there is a problem, and it needs to be fixed.
5. Excessive care to detail. it's what happens when you are a perfectionist. why is decent grammar tedious? she will always find a way to improve your work, her work, anyone's work. if it really was slowing you down then you could have told her and offered proof. compromise.
yay! i see all of those traits in myself. they can be annoying, but your workplace sanity was somewhat based on your willingness to work around those traits. you don't mention how you tried to mitigate the damage. in any relationship there needs to be efforts made on both sides. posting here and basically pointing out all of her flaws and very little of the team's makes this account extremely biased. what could you have done better?
this is why i don't see "revising past events" so much an "evil" quality. of course you don't want this in a manager, but it's human nature to remember things in a better light especially if it gets you off the hook. memory is extremely fallible, and i don't care how many people remember something a certain way. there is always room for error. the fact that these employees are not documenting things makes me feel like there's some sketchy stuff coming from both ends.
constantly making wrong assumptions in my book = you suck at your job, just sayin'
Last edited:
So allow me to translate as a former INFJ "boss" type:
They are used to give people a subtle hint that something isn't quite right. The other options are a) butting in and not letting them complete a thought or b) offering a cold hearted critique that's likely to create hostility in some people at the end.
Would probably follow those emotional expressions if people weren't intuitive enough to pick up on and translate them. INFJ's are like... well... parrots. We give a whole lot of clues and hints as to how things are going and what we're thinking, but they aren't always vocalized. The resulting outburst is the accumulation of every prior failed attempted to get our points across subtly.
I have to keep myself in check when I deal with these people as well. Even though your profile says INTP, I'm wondering what percent of that Ni is really Si? Most of my trouble comes from those types and they are almost always task oriented individuals as well (especially if you combine the ST traits).
The knee-jerk reaction of what I see, and probably hers too, are people who are incapable of competent, independent thoughts. I like giving people a job and letting them do it; "Get from A to Z and don't tell me how you did it, just do it." kind of mentality. People sitting there needing things laid out in a structured, orderly plan, tend to drive me insane, especially at work... where results are almost always all that ever matters.
Think of it in terms of her boss (if she has one). He/she/they probably look to her to get a result. "Sell x widgets by the end of the month". She then needs to show her boss that she sold x widgets by the end of the month. Odds are, her bosses could care less about how she goes about selling them as long as she stays within company policy.
Now people in her department come along and need things explained to and laid out for them. That's a huge monkey wrench being thrown in to the gears. Instead of working like a well-oiled machine, she now has to stop what she's doing, lose that time and productivity to explain things to her staff. All the while, her boss wants the results from her regardless of her staff's "quirks".
The further down the line you get form the upper managers, the more pressure is being put on the mid-lower managers and the less tolerance you'll probably get from a boss if you need things laid out or explained for you. You can get away with being that type of person in the higher levels than you can at the lower levels; at that point you can write the policies and the SOP's as you go.
This isn't an INFJ trait. I've had a very ENFP boss who did that non-stop. It's a human trait, not really an MBTI one that can be locked down to one type only.
Welcome to the world of "J's". As a "P" it's going to be rough! We like things tidied up after they're used, forms that are evenly spaced, formatting that's easy to read, grammar that follows the rules and communications that form complete thoughts. I even annoy myself when I write a letter and I start two lines with the same exact word!
You need to realize that your boss is going to be like this while your boss needs to realize that not everyone is going to be like her. Neither of you are going to change overnight.
Also... don't be afraid to use that intuition to "read between the lines" and make some independent thoughts and judgements. I know I"d much rather get a project handed to me with some errors but minimal interruptions rather than being interrupted every day or every hour and still have errors (face it, we tend to be perfectionists a lot of times so we'll almost always find an error!).
And lastly... follow through and finish everything to completion. Dot your I's, cross your T's. If you need to, cut your goals in half or take twice the time you need so that you can thoroughly finish them. Say, if a project would take you 4 hours, try to extend it to 5 hours and use that extra hour to go over it with a fine toothed comb. I've seen it happen with a whole lot of "P" types that they bite off a whole lore more than they can chew and tend to get overwhelmed. The scariest parts are when they don't realize they're overwhelmed and they just act on instinct and habit as though it's a normal state to be like that. That's something that a lot of the "judging" personalities are probably going to pick up on rather quickly.
For her....
Actually tell her these things, outright. INFJ's will sit there in our endless NF loops, wondering, hoping, thinking, praying that things we hear, say and do will go over with others. Without direct, blunt feedback, it's easy for us to get lost.
So tell her things like (but not word for word, obviously) "You want it done right, or you want it done fast?" if she makes a big deal about a project or something along those lines. Just giver her something to make he realize reality doesn't always match the ideals in her head. But don't rub her face in it or make it personal... that's something you'll never recover from!
If you need to, also sit down with her and just express some of these things. You'll probably get a lot of facial expressions and looks, but probably won't get a very immediate reaction. We need thigns to sink in for a while and look at the different perspectives before we commit to a thought.
They are used to give people a subtle hint that something isn't quite right. The other options are a) butting in and not letting them complete a thought or b) offering a cold hearted critique that's likely to create hostility in some people at the end.
Would probably follow those emotional expressions if people weren't intuitive enough to pick up on and translate them. INFJ's are like... well... parrots. We give a whole lot of clues and hints as to how things are going and what we're thinking, but they aren't always vocalized. The resulting outburst is the accumulation of every prior failed attempted to get our points across subtly.
I have to keep myself in check when I deal with these people as well. Even though your profile says INTP, I'm wondering what percent of that Ni is really Si? Most of my trouble comes from those types and they are almost always task oriented individuals as well (especially if you combine the ST traits).
The knee-jerk reaction of what I see, and probably hers too, are people who are incapable of competent, independent thoughts. I like giving people a job and letting them do it; "Get from A to Z and don't tell me how you did it, just do it." kind of mentality. People sitting there needing things laid out in a structured, orderly plan, tend to drive me insane, especially at work... where results are almost always all that ever matters.
Think of it in terms of her boss (if she has one). He/she/they probably look to her to get a result. "Sell x widgets by the end of the month". She then needs to show her boss that she sold x widgets by the end of the month. Odds are, her bosses could care less about how she goes about selling them as long as she stays within company policy.
Now people in her department come along and need things explained to and laid out for them. That's a huge monkey wrench being thrown in to the gears. Instead of working like a well-oiled machine, she now has to stop what she's doing, lose that time and productivity to explain things to her staff. All the while, her boss wants the results from her regardless of her staff's "quirks".
The further down the line you get form the upper managers, the more pressure is being put on the mid-lower managers and the less tolerance you'll probably get from a boss if you need things laid out or explained for you. You can get away with being that type of person in the higher levels than you can at the lower levels; at that point you can write the policies and the SOP's as you go.
This isn't an INFJ trait. I've had a very ENFP boss who did that non-stop. It's a human trait, not really an MBTI one that can be locked down to one type only.
Welcome to the world of "J's". As a "P" it's going to be rough! We like things tidied up after they're used, forms that are evenly spaced, formatting that's easy to read, grammar that follows the rules and communications that form complete thoughts. I even annoy myself when I write a letter and I start two lines with the same exact word!
You need to realize that your boss is going to be like this while your boss needs to realize that not everyone is going to be like her. Neither of you are going to change overnight.
Also... don't be afraid to use that intuition to "read between the lines" and make some independent thoughts and judgements. I know I"d much rather get a project handed to me with some errors but minimal interruptions rather than being interrupted every day or every hour and still have errors (face it, we tend to be perfectionists a lot of times so we'll almost always find an error!).
And lastly... follow through and finish everything to completion. Dot your I's, cross your T's. If you need to, cut your goals in half or take twice the time you need so that you can thoroughly finish them. Say, if a project would take you 4 hours, try to extend it to 5 hours and use that extra hour to go over it with a fine toothed comb. I've seen it happen with a whole lot of "P" types that they bite off a whole lore more than they can chew and tend to get overwhelmed. The scariest parts are when they don't realize they're overwhelmed and they just act on instinct and habit as though it's a normal state to be like that. That's something that a lot of the "judging" personalities are probably going to pick up on rather quickly.
For her....
Actually tell her these things, outright. INFJ's will sit there in our endless NF loops, wondering, hoping, thinking, praying that things we hear, say and do will go over with others. Without direct, blunt feedback, it's easy for us to get lost.
So tell her things like (but not word for word, obviously) "You want it done right, or you want it done fast?" if she makes a big deal about a project or something along those lines. Just giver her something to make he realize reality doesn't always match the ideals in her head. But don't rub her face in it or make it personal... that's something you'll never recover from!
If you need to, also sit down with her and just express some of these things. You'll probably get a lot of facial expressions and looks, but probably won't get a very immediate reaction. We need thigns to sink in for a while and look at the different perspectives before we commit to a thought.
Last edited:
hahaha, point taken.
I think I may be jaded with the CYA thing. :suspicious:Should not be necessary, but still is.
Task orientation.
Man, can I relate to that from my own managerial experiences!
The hardest employees are those that even after being trained, and being with the company long enough to be familiar with how to do what we do, need to be guided at every step of the way or they are lost! They finish a task and can't see what else needs to be done to stay productive. You find them lost with a "What's next?" look on their faces.
It's like trying to keep a wind up tin soldier from falling off the edge of a table.
I have always trained employees with a task by showing them how I would do it. I then tell them that they may find another way works better for them, and as long as the task is done on time and in a quality manner I don't care how they get it done. Just take the initiative. A question or 2 in the beginning isn't a big deal, but after a certain amount of time....geez!
Grab a broom & sweep a floor in the very least!