Overbearing Opinions In Leadership

The higher you rise in Leadership, the more opinions you will hear.

The majority of the time people give them in good faith, and their hope really is to help you.

It can become a lot though, and some people can become completely overbearing.

So, what are you to do about these opinions?

The first thing you need to learn to do is to trust yourself.

The person who has the best insight into your life is you.

No matter how well-intentioned others may be, none of them will ever fully understand you, or your position, 100%.

As a Leader, if you don't trust yourself, then others will struggle to trust you as well.

This is also a spot where others will begin to notice your lack of trust in yourself and will be more likely to give you their opinions.

Learning to trust yourself will lead to you being able to see opinions more clearly.

The next thing you can do is explain your position better.

Sometimes opinions that are off the mark simply need to be guided to understand the realities of situations better.

If you are able to show others that you understand why you do what you do, often this can shut the opinions down.

When people see you understand what you're doing, and have a plan, then they will have no reason to give you opinions anymore.

They can begin to learn to trust you.

However, this won't stop all of the opinions that people try to give you, so there are other things you can do.

Another simple solution is to just ignore the opinions of others.

It can be pointless to indulge people who act blindly giving their opinions.

If you ignore them long enough, usually they will get the hint.

When people are overbearing in giving their opinions, they often just want to be heard by someone, anyone.

If you aren't going to listen, they will just find someone else who will.

If this still isn't enough, we do live in a world that generally is technologically focused.

So, often if specific people are overbearing in giving you their opinion, block them.

On social media, you can literally block their accounts from seeing or interacting with yours.

In email, you can report spam and unsubscribe, and if they are really getting bad you can also report them as phishing.

Still, this won't cover every situation where opinions will be stated.

Another thing you can do, after you trust yourself first, is to vet through opinions that matter to you.

Sometimes people may be overbearing in their opinions, but that doesn't mean that they aren't right at least some of the time.

So, you can listen, and decide.

Is it worth listening to?

Sometimes it may be, and sometimes it may not be.

Try to find people who are reputable first and foremost.

How much you listen should be based on how knowledgeable they truly are.

If they aren't very knowledgeable, then be wary about what they say, maybe opting to do further research if it sounds interesting with more reputable sources.

At the end of the day, you can also choose not to listen, especially if they are not knowledgeable and they don't seem to have their bearings right.

This leads to one more situation that you can end up in.

The Overbearing Individual who wants it their way, and won't listen to anything else, who you can't avoid.

One option is to simply give in to their position, even if you feel, or worse know, that it's wrong.

This will give them power though, which may or may not be beneficial to you depending on the circumstances.

The other option is to simply hear them, and stand firm in what you do and say.

Don't argue with them and don't fight them, because these individuals tend to thrive on that.

Simply hear what they say, stand firm, and don't even give them reasons why you aren't changing.

Just stand.

When you don't give them anything to fight, but they have been heard and know they have been heard, they become at a loss for what to do.

They will try to push buttons.

"Did you hear me?", "Yes, I did."

"So, you'll change/do what I say?", "No."

"Why?", Just shrug.

"But you get what I'm saying right?", "I do."

"Do you need me to go through it again?", "I got it, but you can go through it again if you want."

Eventually, they will run out of steam.

When you hear them, stand firm, and don't fight, there's just nothing really to do anymore.

I also find at times, this last individual has other things in life happening that really have nothing to do with you.

They try to force their opinions on others because, in the parts of life that feel important to them, they feel their opinions aren't being heard.

They try to fight with others because, in the other parts of their life, they are feeling fear and anger and are trying to find someplace to offload it.

Is it right for them to offload it on others in the ways they typically do?

No, it isn't.

But it sadly happens frequently due to most people not knowing what to do with their emotions.

High Emotional Intelligence is rare these days, unfortunately.

However, this fact does not mean that we, as Leaders, should lower our own standards.

Opinions will always come, in endless waves.

Being prepared for the tides will allow you to function better as a Leader.