Latest / Prayer Before Work / Your New Boss’s Wife Reports to You. Now What? - Prayer Before Work
Transcript
- C0673: You just found out a person who reports to you is married to the person you now report to. My name is Sean, and welcome back to Prayer Before Work. Now, this one sounds like a sitcom setup until you're the one living in it. you get a new manager, and then you learn that one of your directs re direct reports is his wife. Now, suddenly every conversation feels a little different. I mean, how do you correct her when she makes a mistake? How do you hold her to the same standard as everyone else? And the thought that keeps you up at night is this one. Every slip you make, every rough meeting, every bad day might be going home with her and landing on the dinner table in front of your boss. Now that's a lot of exposure. And you didn't sign up for any of it. But Proverbs 29, 25 says, the fear of man lays a snare. But whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. A snare is a trap, and fear of what people will say about you is one of the easiest traps to walk into at work. It doesn't make you more careful, it makes you stuck. I mean you start second guessing every call. You go easy on her when you shouldn't, or you overcorrect and come down too hard. But either way, you're leading for an audience of one and And he's sitting at somebody else's dinner table. The second half of the verse though is where the freedom is. Whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. It doesn't mean that you'll never make a mistake. You will. Everyone does. But if you're leading the way you would lead with your boss sitting in the corner, honestly and fairly, then her reporting back to him loses most of its power over you. So practically treat her the way you would treat anyone else on the team. Don't go harder on her to prove you're not intimidated, and don't go softer to stay on her good side. Same expectations, same feedback, same respect. And keep notes on how you handle things for everyone on the team so your decisions can stand on their own. And it's probably worth having an honest and professional conversation about the whole arrangement itself. You know, maybe with your new manager himself or maybe HR or or someone else in the management chain. I mean, something like, I want to make sure this works for everybody. How should we handle performance conversations so nobody gets put in an awkward position? And that's not a act like an accusation. It's just asking for clarity before there's a problem. Because you c you can't control what gets said at their house, right? I mean you can't control you can only control how you lead at work. So let's pray about that. Lord, this situation feels a little unfair and and we feel exposed in it. But free us from the fear of what gets said about us and give us integrity that doesn't change depending on who's watching. And help us treat everyone on our team fairly without fear. And without favoritism. And where we need to speak up about how this is set up, g give us wisdom and good timing. And when we make mistakes, which we will, help us own them honestly instead of hiding them. And most importantly, help us trust you more than we fear anyone else. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Go make today count.