Have you ever had an employee or colleague accuse you of doing, thinking, or saying something you didn’t do? If you haven’t yet, and you lead teams or an organization… don’t worry, you will. At some point in your leadership career, someone on your team will unjustly project assumptions onto you. So how do you handle it?
It’s not fun, but here are strategies that can be applied in almost any situation. Every situation is unique and will require nuanced and thoughtful approaches, but these foundational approaches will get you started. Bonus: Some of these concepts can apply to personal relationships as well.
Before we dive in, let’s specifically explore the nature of authority wounds and projections.
How does projection work?
Almost everyone has wounds of authority. When an authority figure does something that echoes a bad experience from your past, it pulls up all the memories and feelings of that experience. If you aren’t consciously aware of (and attending to) the memories and wounds, then you will project your feelings onto the authority figure who is triggering the memory, just like a movie projector projecting a story onto a blank screen. The mind essentially makes an incorrect assumption that the past and present experiences are the same.
For the person watching/projecting the movie, it feels very, very real in the moment, even though it’s not. For the person who is the blank screen, it can feel like you’ve been thrust into an alternate reality. “WTF?” is the most common response I hear.
Impacts of Projection
Unfortunately, when an employee or colleague has complete conviction that their projection is real, they can make quite a mess. HR often doesn’t have the tools to distinguish an emotional wound movie from reality, at least not right away. So I frequently see my clients endure HR investigations, difficult conversations with mediators, or even demotion. The worst situations can blow up into lawsuits. It can get quite ugly.
What can you do?
You can’t control someone’s projections, but you still have significant power in these situations. Consider these six strategies.
1. Catch it early.
If you think someone is treating you strangely, they likely are. Don’t bypass an odd interaction because you don’t understand it. Catch it, get curious about it. If you can, ask the person questions and try to clear up any misunderstandings before they get out of hand.
2. Get to the bottom of the misunderstanding.
When you can, try to figure out the origin point of the misunderstanding that triggered the projection. It’s like a fork in the road where your reality and the other person’s reality began to diverge. If you can correct it at the fork, you can reduce some drama.
3. Understand and accept how your authority role is perceived.
Sincere and humble leaders often don’t understand why or how their employees or even their peers give them more power than their position warrants. The more successful you are, the more people will project power onto you. This is the unfortunate reality of leading teams of people who have wounds of authority (and, again, that’s almost everyone).
Unless you have incredibly competent, mature, and emotionally healthy people around you, you will need to accept that people are more insecure, need more from authority figures, and weigh your words and behaviors more heavily than you think they do or should.
My favorite example was from my Buddhist teacher. We had volunteers prepare his tea for him before retreats, and one very sincere volunteer asked the teacher what kind of tea he preferred and how he liked it prepared. His simple answer, over time and with additions from more volunteers, became a ridiculously complex four-page Bible of tea making. When I finally caught wind of it, I found it both shocking and hilarious. My teacher laughed with me and said, “This is the reality of people taking everything I say way too seriously.”
Your employees might make four-page Bibles out of little things you say. Have your eyes wide open, don’t be naive about it, and be prepared to address misunderstandings. Yes, it’s tedious. Yes, we’d all prefer to work with empowered grown-ups. And no, that’s not the reality.
4. Become aware of your own projections.
Everyone engages in projection, unless they develop enough self-awareness to stop it entirely. What are your projections, past, present, or future? When did you project more gravity or meaning onto an authority figure’s actions/words than was warranted? Look to relationships outside of work for clues as well. Do/did you have any projections onto parents, friends, significant others, etc.? Are you giving too much power to any one person or relationship? Being aware of how projection is working or has worked in your own system helps you understand others and how it might work in them.
5. Stay grounded in what’s true for you & keep your communication consistent.
At the point that a projection is in full swing, your job is to stay grounded in reality and communicate that reality as clearly, consistently, and compassionately as possible. Do your best to bridge the gap between their reality and yours, but don’t bend in your conviction of what’s true. Sometimes, it can help to be clear about your intentions and apologize for any unintended impact. Document conversations or behaviors as needed. Enlist the help of your HR team or others as necessary.
By taking this approach, you are clearly and gently offering to walk them back into reality. They may not take you up on it. But if they do, they may just have a significant breakthrough that leads to healing their original authority wound. I’ve seen this multiple times, and it’s why I say that holding a firm but compassionate ground in reality is one of the kindest things we can do as leaders.
6. Harvest all your lessons.
Finally, with each challenging projection, it’s helpful to ask, “What am I learning in this situation? What’s the growth opportunity?” Every challenge is an opportunity to grow. Sometimes it’s about setting better boundaries, clearer expectations, or learning not to overestimate people. Sometimes it’s simply a lesson about a bad hire. Maybe it’s something else. You can get stronger and become a better leader out of situations that can be quite painful. I said to a client recently, “Well, you’re in this awful situation – might as well harvest all the learnings and get your PhD in it so you never have to do this again.”
Experiencing someone’s projection is a significant leadership lesson about power. I hope you make the most of it and become stronger for it!
I’m here to help you sort through situations that are confusing or challenging. Let me know how I can help. Schedule a session.
If you know anyone who has or is currently on the receiving end of someone’s projections, please share this with them. Thanks for caring for your community!