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Self-Confidence, Self-Belief: Your Antidote to Rejection and Intimidation
Self-Confidence, Self-Belief: Your Antidote to Rejection and Intimidation. If you believe in yourself, as well as become confident in what you do, nobody can intimidate you, irrespective of the differences between your age and/or academic status and those of the people who intend or plan to intimate you.
Immediately below is the story of the incident that led me to discover this fact.
I joined one of the commercial banks in my country in the early 1980s after my education.
Then, I was barely 20 years old.
I was posted to the Foreign Accounts Department of the bank, which was responsible, among other things, for the preparation of the bank reconciliation statements of the bank with its foreign bank partners.
During my first participation in the preparation of the bank reconciliation statement, in less than three weeks after joining the bank, I discovered that many things were wrong with some of the past bank reconciliation statements prepared by my department.
One of the anomalies I discovered was a series of unresolved trial balance errors, which were responsible for the statements not balancing naturally.
I pointed out those errors to my immediate boss and advised him to allow me to make the necessary corrections, but he ignorantly turned down my offer.
“I don’t have time for all that,” he said rudely. Just join your colleagues in preparing the bank reconciliation statement the way we have been doing it here.”
That got me angry, but I didn’t show it.
“If muddling figures is the way you people do your bank reconciliation statements here,” I remarked politely, “then, count me out because I can’t be involved in doing what I know to be wrong.”
I meant well for my bank and my department, but my boss mistook it for disrespect and rebellion and vowed to punish me for it.
A few minutes after that mild drama, the Assistant Controller of my department sent one of his office assistants to come and invite me to his office, and I accompanied the messenger to see him.
As I knocked and walked into the Assistant Controller’s officer, he peeked at me, through the top of the rim of his glasses, and continued what he was doing.
When he was through with what he was doing, he removed his glasses, kept it somewhere on his desk, and asked, in an angry-laden tone: “Why did you disobey your boss’ instruction to prepare the bank reconciliation statement the department’s way?”
As I opened my mouth to answer his question, he hushed me down and barked: “Who are you to disobey your boss?”
“Have you forgotten that you’re just a few weeks old in this bank and can be dismissed with ease?
“Now, go to your seat, sit down and do exactly what your boss asked you to do, or else…
“Leave my office, now and go and do your job!”
Inasmuch as I had respect for the Assistant Controller of my department, his threat could not force me to change my mind,
Do you know why?
Because I knew I was on the right track, while he and my immediate boss were on the wrong track.
When I insisted on not preparing the bank reconciliation statement in what I considered to be the wrong way, my immediate boss angrily issued me with a query, which I responded to.
About 48 hours after responding to the query, I received an invitation from the Personnel Manager of my bank for me to appear before him in his office, within the next 24 hours, and I honoured the invitation.
The first question the Personnel Manager asked me while going through my file in his office, was: “Why did you refuse to do the job for which you were employed to do?”
After he had finished listening to my own side of the story, he asked me a few other minor questions and allowed me to return to my office.
The Personnel Manager visited my department the following morning, to see things for himself, and invited me to meet him at my Assistant Controller’s office, which I did.
“My investigation into the matter at hand,” disclosed the Personnel Manager to my Assistant Controller, “revealed that the query issued to this young man was don maliciously by his boss.
“Otherwise, why would someone who offered to do a better job be issued with such a highly worded query, instead of being given the opportunity to do what he claimed he would do?
“Anyway, the Executive Director of Admin/Personnel has requested that this young man be given the opportunity to correct the mistakes he talked about.
“I’ll be back in two weeks’ time to find out how far he has gone with the correction exercise.”
As soon as the Personnel Manager left for his office, my Assistant Controller looked at me scornfully and said: “Since you have become Mr. Know-it-all, go and prepare the bank reconciliation statement as you wish, and let us see.
“If you fail to do what you told me you would do, then, you and I will have no other option than to appear before the managing director of this bank.”
Rather than being discouraged by the cold treatment I received in the hands of my Assistant Controller, I became fired up more to put the bank reconciliation statement in a good shape.
Getting back to my seat, after what seemed to be a tall order, I requested my immediate boss to furnish me with the past 24 months’ statements from our bank’s foreign partners, which were used to prepare those muddled bank reconciliation statements, and he did so, with great expectation.
It took me about four working days to do the job, and I did it to the satisfaction of my immediate boss, my Assistant Controller, the Personnel Manager, and the Executive Director, Administration/Personnel of my bank.
That feat won me the admiration of almost everybody in my department, including my colleagues.
With that admiration, I became known as the guy who had the solutions to the knotty bank reconciliation statements’ problems.
I did what I did to my immediate boss and to the Assistant Controller of my department not because I was proud or stubborn, but because I knew I was on the right track and that my little knowledge of accounting would help my bank in a big way.
So, I enjoin you to always believe in yourself and in what you can do.
If you become confident in who you are and in what you can do, and not unnecessarily proud or stubborn, nobody’s contrary opinion, intimidation or rejection can rock you.
Trust me!
Self-Confidence, Self-Belief: Your Antidote to Rejection and Intimidation. THE END.
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