How do I cope with boss giving conflicting instructions and unclear expectations?

Question

How do I cope with my new boss giving conflicting instructions and unclear expectations, and how do I deal with the fact that I don't respond to criticism the way they expect me to? I get told to speed up, and then to slow down, to be more accurate, and then not to over-research. I get excused for not knowing things because I'm new, and two days later I'm supposed to be experienced enough to know what they want. And I get criticized for not doing enough work on a project, when the exact amount I was supposed to be doing wasn't specified. And all the criticism makes me anxious instead of building my confidence like my boss says it should.

Answer 1

This is a common occurrence with new staff and with Bosses who are not great at giving direction.

You are trying to find the edges of the road to travel along, so you don't end up in the grass.

What you should do is note down the times when you were given a seemingly contradictory instruction, then at a 1-on-1 session with your Boss, ask them about this.

"Boss, you asked me to speed up on this task, but the next day when I was speeding up, you told me to slow down - I am confused - can you elaborate on this?"

What you will probably find is that there are certain elements of a task where the Boss has a reasonable expectation of your performance (which is where he wants you to speed up) but there are other elements of a task that require much more care and attention to detail (which is where he wants you to slow down).

Getting the examples will hopefully allow you to identify in future which parts you you need to do go full-throttle on, and which parts need care and attention (and so-on for all the other seemingly contradictory advise).

Answer 2

Sounds like both you and your boss have the same issue -- lack of experience. You lack experience at your role, and your boss lacks experience in providing direction on work tasks, which is part of management responsibilities (aka being a boss). So you end up being the 'guinea pig' on whom your boss gets to 'practice' and build their management skills, and along the way you get to learn to deal with inexperienced bosses. It sounds like in both cases the skills are built the hard way, i.e., learning from own mistakes.

Unfortunately there is no shortcut to becoming an effective subordinate or an effective manager. It takes experience and time in the trenches to learn how to communicate effectively, provide direction and feedback, clarify expectations, and so on. The closest thing to a 'shortcut' for you involves learning by observing how others in roles similar to yours perform their tasks and communicate with management. Try to do what they do; ask them questions and see if you can find someone to mentor you informally, share experience, provide advice and guidance.

Since your boss cannot improve overnight, try to give your boss the benefit of the doubt: be patient with them, assume that they are not being vague, contradictory, etc. on purpose but rather that this is likely unintentional and stems from their lack of experience and reflexivity on how their words are being taken. Patience is key to gradually building up the experience.

That said, a word of caution: if over time you don't feel like you and your boss are making much progress on improving mutual communication, and you feel you end up being used as a 'punching bag' over and over for no good reason, this might signal intentional bullying behavior by your boss. A tell-tale sign of this is if literally nothing you do is right, and you get picked on over and over again. If a boss wants to pick on you, then no matter how good of a job you do the boss will always find something to pick on.

In that case you should not try to 'wait it out' but rather, consider other options including changing bosses (i.e., transitioning within the organization to another unit, or changing employers). Good luck!