Hi Professors!
Have you ever had a productive work session get suddenly derailed by an aggressive e-mail? This e-mail could be from your colleague, your chair, or an influential scholar in your field. I’m sure that many of you have had this experience at some point in your academic careers, if not last week.
So how did you navigate this moment? Were you able to get back on track with your research or writing afterwards? Or did you find yourself distracted or disturbed, unable to resume your work for the remainder of the day?
In this podcast episode, I’m going to share with you 10 tips on how to respond to such e-mails and how to gradually reclaim your time.
How to Better Navigate Aggressions in the Workplace
So to be clear, I am not referring to any e-mails that would require professional intervention and a timely response. For instance, you may receive a frantic e-mail from a student who is experiencing a mental health crisis.
In this case, you may have to quickly familiarize yourself with the various resources and offices on campus that are dedicated to students. Be responsive to students and connect them with the right professionals when you have to.
Now what I’m talking here about are e-mails that are essentially forms of microaggressions or racialized aggressions. They may contain veiled threats or harmful remarks. Or they may instantly provoke a WTF response from you. And more often than not, there is a larger context from which these e-mails emerge.
Perhaps the same individual who sent you the e-mail previously disparaged another WOC faculty in your department in front of you. Or they mentioned to you in conversation that they do not value your line of scholarship because it is overly descriptive and lacks theoretical rigor.
When the e-mail from this same colleague then hits your inbox, there is a lot of baggage already attached to it.
Some of these e-mail inbox intrusions may be passive aggressive in nature and present mixed messages that are difficult to interpret. Other inbox incursions may be more explicitly aggressive and triggering.
While you are having to process this e-mail, you also know that the academic system that you are in requires you to be evaluated by that same individual in a tenure review case or through the peer review process. It’s a tough situation to be in.
Meanwhile, the time that you have reserved for your own research and writing has been upended for the day. No wonder you are stressed out and upset.
Learn to respond, not react
When these situations arise for you, it is a good practice to learn how to respond and not react.
Here are ten ideas for you to try out the next time you receive an aggressive or passive-aggressive e-mail from your colleague or a fellow scholar in your field.
- Pause and take a few deep, long breaths. If you are able, find a place where you can take a moment to recalibrate.
- Do not feel compelled to compose an e-mail reply immediately, especially in the midst of a heightened emotional state. Sit on this for a while and think through your intentions behind your future reply as well as the possible outcomes.
- If your work session was derailed by this e-mail, then consider whether or not you can return to your originally scheduled plan of work. It may be that you can resume a type of task that is easier, like formatting citations or downloading articles that you want to read. Having a “grab bag” of light work activities that you can pull from is useful in these situations. That way, you can still make some progress on your work.
- Find trusted allies who you can consult with if you need extra help. I mentioned in a previous podcast episode that it is important to find a small group of WOC faculty who you can trust and confide in. They can serve as a great sounding board, as well as provide you with necessary support. You can listen to that episode at: RisewithClarity.com/3.
- If you receive several e-mails that are similarly aggressive in tone and content from the same individual, you may need to notify your chair or even embark on a grievance process. Start a log and begin to document these occurrences.
- After you feel more relaxed, compose a brief, but direct e-mail. And if you can, keep this in your drafts folder until you feel comfortable sending it out.
- Use the schedule send function and schedule your reply to be sent the following morning or in a few days. If general, try not to send out work e-mails late in the evening. Keep boundaries on your work e-mail habits.
- Along those same lines, try to resist checking e-mail incessantly. Keep your notifications off during a work session. Some people also find it helpful to dedicate a block of time during the week just to address the inbox backlog. And if you’re up against a writing deadline or a grant deadline, give yourself a break with having to be so responsive. Or have an auto-responder set up saying that there may be a slight delay with responses during that week.
- With your reply, stand in your values and speak up if necessary.
- If you find that this e-mail is part of a larger pattern of mistreatment, then you may want to begin considering tip 5 seriously (which is to log and document these occurrences), along with a possible exit strategy.
Some of these tips are pre-emptive, while others take into consideration what may happen after you hit reply.
If you are in a particularly thorny situation and you do not trust anyone in your department, do try and reach out to other friends and colleagues in your circle.
I also offer 90-minute confidential strategy sessions that are perfect for thinking through a single bite-sized topic—such as how to respond to such an e-mail in a way that is professional but also true to yourself. I serve as your sounding board as well as your thinking partner. If you’re interested in booking a 90-minute strategy session with me, check out RisewithClarity.com/strategy. I’d love to work with you!