Think about a moment where someone in authority or power made a demand of you.
That moment may have happened as recently as this morning.
Maybe it was changing a project scope or direction, or “asking” for a chunk of work to get done by a seemingly arbitrary deadline. Or any one of countless demands you’ve gotten in your work career.
How do you feel when you think about that moment?
Probably angry, possibly scared that you might not be able to deliver, and stuck with a sense of unfairness and ill-usage. Why is it ok for them to demand things of you and act that way towards you?
React or Respond
This demand may be out of the ordinary for this person. They may typically share vision and build buy-in, rather than demanding.
That makes it feel more shocking when it happens. And it increases the value of trying your best to respond rather than react to the demand.
Reacting traps you in coping strategies, locked into filters that undercut your ability to find solutions to the real problems.
Responding allows you to tap into your full freedom, choice, and power, and to bring all of your ability into identifying and achieving what you truly want.
One way to help yourself avoid reacting is to practice empathy.
Empathy Shift
All communication expresses a need someone is trying to meet.
When your boss demands something of you, they’re stating some tangible business outcome. They’re also expressing a need they feel in a way that they hope helps them meet that need.
In a business sense, demands from managers often come from a need for safety or belonging. Your boss fears being cast out of the group (or job) because a business goal has not been met, or a leader has expressed displeasure.
Unfortunately, they have turned around and done the same to you.
By shifting your perspective to empathy, you can ask yourself “What kind of need might my normally even-tempered boss feel, to start demanding things?”
Curiosity over Judgement
This doesn’t excuse or change the demand behavior. It opens you up to responding with curiosity about their need, rather than reacting with judgement of their behavior.
Most of the time, that momentary curiosity and suspension of judgement is all it takes to help them change course.
You don’t have to ask directly about their feelings and mental state – that depends on your relationship and comfort in asking. By shifting your stance to curious rather than reactive, you will create space for them to let go of whatever is driving the demand energy.
If you react with judgement and confrontation, that puts even more stress on their feeling of being in danger, and it triggers an escalating spiral of reactivity.
Curiosity needs empathy to happen. Your brain judges when it is closed to feeling empathy towards others.
As Ted Lasso quoted Walt Whitman, “Be curious, not judgemental.”
You can do this.
Note – if you have someone who consistently demands as their dominant or only method of “asking” for things, that’s toxic. While curiosity and empathy will help you, you also need to find space to escape the toxicity, because your empathy is unlikely to attract change for them.