Dic(k)tator

I had a boss once who was the consummate micro-manager. I would be asked to carry out a project, and as the week would go by, I would get inquiries about the state of the project, if I’d done a, then b, then c. Did I remember to? Did I contact? Where was I on it?

I spent nearly as much time on the project as I did answering my boss’s incessant questions.

At one point during my employment, I had come to the end of my rope about this type of management style, and I let my boss know that I was having a hard time with our communication – that I felt my boss did not trust me to carry out a job that was assigned to me.

Although it was stated that of course I was trusted to do my job appropriately, the actions that continued to take place showed that wasn’t entirely true. And even though it wasn’t exactly personal, I felt disenchanted with the duties I was performing, feeling my power of ownership, and therefore, my professional confidence, was being undermined.

In a total book-reader/movie-watcher's understanding of such things, I would say that it's like defending a castle.

There is usually an external wall built around a castle and its grounds, in place to prevent ingress and marauders. The citizens trust that the wall will defend them.

However, what if there is a monarch who doesn’t trust those walls to hold. Despite the greatest masonry, the height of engineering and construction, the monarch still feels at risk.

And so, she sends out sentries to patrol the exterior of the castle wall. There are boundaries, but these are not trusted, and so she employs a defensive and offensive line.

The thinking goes: I do not trust that the boundaries I have put up will hold, and so I will go beyond them, in front of them to fend off any attacks. I don’t even know if there are any enemies out there, but there could be. And I don’t think the walls I’ve built will hold.

I am not willing to have the boundaries tested. I must make extra defense.

Let’s turn the analogy to personal boundaries. If we don’t trust that our boundaries, our internal mechanisms, will be faithful, will perform their job appropriately, or have been built to the utmost of our knowledge, we will continue to send out sentries beyond those boundaries to defend ourselves.

What this does in the end is show that we do not trust ourselves and our boundaries. We never get to test those appropriate walls to see if they can in fact do their job. By not allowing them to do what we’ve built them to do, they will never get the chance to prove to us that they can, and we will continue to send out a forward offense/defense.

At the risk of being obvious, I am that monarch.

I may have spent years building and refining a system of appropriate boundaries, but I am loathe to test them. Instead, I employ an extra electric fence to ensure that those boundaries are never even tested. Because what if they fail.

I surround myself with an added, superfluous layer of defense and offense, because I am scared that if you get too close, my appropriate resources won't have the ability to measure and defend your threat.

But. If I don’t allow you to get to the wall of the castle, I will never know if you are friend or foe. Instead, I will always interpret you as foe, because I have paid my sentries to treat you as such.

I don’t trust you, I don’t trust my boundaries, and so I am insulated and impervious. To all comers. Benevolent or not.

I hated feeling treated as though I were not capable of doing my job appropriately. It felt diminishing and disrespectful and disheartening. I hated having an extra layer of checks and balances around a system that worked just fine.

The appropriate layer of boundaries I’ve built around myself, that we all need (that is permeable, and fluid, and always learning and gaining in refinement) has been long-sheltered and is tired of this trigger-happy band of sentries, “protecting” my own system of protection.

If I don’t allow you to pass that ridiculous layer of defense, I will never know you. You will never know me.

And I will miss the opportunity to learn to trust myself and to create relationships that will enhance the whole kingdom.