Dealing with a bossy coworker

Dealing with a bossy coworkerDealing with a bossy coworkerYou might expect the occasional order or command from your boss. But its a whole other thing when its your peer whos doing the bossing around, isnt?Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreSkye Schooley, a writer for Business New Daily explains, A bossy co-workeris generally someone who dictates the room, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and shares their opinion as fact.Their behavior may consist of telling you what to do, critiquing you on how to do your job or even monopolizing brainstorm sessions. Dealing with a bossy co-worker is frustrating and sometimes impedes productivity.Sound familiar?If so, rest assured, there are ways you can handle it. I had the chance to weigh in with Schooley to share my own advice on dealing with this kind of colleagueDont go it aloneDecide with your manager on what tasks are superfluous t o your role and worthy of passing on.Then contract verbally with your manager that theyll back you up and provide cover if and when yousay Noto a task. If your boss endorses the boundary youve created, you have a much better chance of overcoming pushback from your colleague.Redirect themDont come across as completely uncooperative or unwilling to pitch in. Neither of these builds your reputation for results. When you offera no to a low-prestige task like taking the meeting minutes, come back with a give a yesto a higher-caliber one that would give your gruppe an edge, like performing a competitor analysis.Be preparedHave a few friendly but firm retorts ready for abossycolleague. Instead of Thats not my job, you can come back with Thats an interesting project. Im not sure its realistic with my workload though, Let me steer you to someone who knows more about that or Hmmm, let me talk to my manager about it. At a minimum, train yourself to buy more time and not to give a yes at the mo ment.This article first appeared on Be Leaderly.