Boundaries in Business: Learning to Be Comfortable in the Uncomfortable

[Image created with AI to represent calm leadership and boundary-setting in high-stakes environments.]

“We need to teach people how to treat us.”

That sentence has stayed with me since one of my earliest managers, Dr. Jay Sullivan, shared it at the beginning of my career. At the time, I understood it intuitively. Years later, I recognize it as a lesson about boundaries, communication, and leadership.

A book I’m currently reading, The Untethered Soul, has also made me think about the distinction between experiencing something and allowing it to define our response. We can’t control every interaction, expectation, or difficult situation. We can become more intentional about how we respond to them.

That distinction is especially relevant at work. Healthy professional relationships don’t require the absence of disagreement. They require the ability to communicate through disagreement with clarity and respect.

To me, one of the most useful professional skills is the ability to remain thoughtful and clear when a situation becomes uncomfortable.

Learning to Be Comfortable With Discomfort

I’ve seen versions of this lesson in very different parts of my life. A social post once suggested that instead of teaching people to avoid uncomfortable topics, we should teach them how to talk about them. My son’s high school football coach expresses a similar idea when he tells parents that he wants the players to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

There’s an important workplace parallel. Psychological safety doesn’t mean that everyone is always comfortable or that teams avoid disagreement. It describes an environment in which people believe they can take interpersonal risks, such as asking questions, raising concerns, acknowledging mistakes, or offering ideas without fear of humiliation or punishment.

That distinction is important. A healthy workplace isn’t necessarily conflict-free. It’s one where people can address difficult issues constructively.

Modeling the Skill at Home and at Work

I try to model this same principle for my children.

I want them to know that it is possible to disagree respectfully. That boundaries can be set without hostility. That pausing before responding can sometimes be more effective than reacting immediately.

Observational learning has long been an important concept in psychology: people learn not only through direct instruction, but also by observing the behavior of others. That gives parents and leaders something significant in common. What we model can be as important as what we say.

The same principle applies in organizations.

When leaders demonstrate that questions can be asked, concerns can be raised, and disagreement can occur respectfully, they help establish expectations for how the team communicates.

Culture isn’t created only through policies or values statements. It is reinforced through everyday behavior.

Empathy and Boundaries Work Together

During an interview at Harvard Business School, I was asked how I handle angry stakeholders, competing priorities, and pressure.

My response focused heavily on empathy: understanding where someone is coming from, listening before reacting, and recognizing that frustration often has context we may not immediately see.

I still believe empathy is essential. But empathy doesn’t require accepting every demand, absorbing someone else’s frustration, or avoiding necessary disagreement.

Empathy and boundaries work best together.

You can understand why someone is frustrated and still explain what is possible. You can respect another person’s priorities while identifying competing constraints. You can listen carefully and still disagree.

That balance is particularly important in roles that sit between stakeholders, technology, users, leadership, and competing organizational priorities.

What Boundaries Look Like at Work

Professional boundaries don’t need to be dramatic. Often, they’re simply a form of clarity.

In practice, that can mean:

• Pausing before responding when a conversation becomes tense
• Asking questions before making assumptions
• Explaining constraints and tradeoffs clearly
• Clarifying responsibilities and expectations
• Knowing when a conversation would be more productive after everyone has had time to think
• Being willing to say when a request conflicts with an agreed-upon priority

None of those behaviors requires hostility. In fact, clear expectations can reduce the ambiguity and frustration that often create unnecessary conflict in the first place.

An Early Lesson in Professional Boundaries

Early in my marketing career, I had an experience that shaped how I think about professional boundaries.

An office manager instructed me to stand beside a printer and wait while books were printing. When I questioned why that was necessary, her response was essentially that I should do it because she had the authority to tell me to.

I did what was asked in the moment, but the interaction gave me useful information about the environment and what I wanted from my professional relationships.

Workplace incivility has real organizational consequences. Research by Christine Porath and Christine Pearson has connected uncivil behavior with lower morale and productivity, employee departures, and damaged customer relationships.

For me, that early experience became less about the printer and more about recognizing the difference between legitimate direction and authority exercised without a meaningful purpose.

I continued doing my job while also thinking carefully about where I wanted my career to go. Not long afterward, I accepted a position as a Resource Development Coordinator, with greater responsibility and an opportunity to continue building my career.

I didn’t need to turn the situation into a confrontation. I needed to recognize what it was teaching me and make a thoughtful decision about what came next.

A Lasting Influence: Dr. Jay Sullivan

I’ve thought about that advice many times over the years. I don’t interpret it to mean that difficult messages should be disguised with forced positivity. I hear something more useful in it: firmness and respect don’t have to be opposites.

Dr. Jay Sullivan, who has since passed away, influenced how I communicate, lead, and teach, both professionally and personally. I’m grateful for the years I worked with him and for the confidence he placed in me early in my career.

What We Should Be Teaching

Boundaries are not walls. At their best, they create clarity.

Organizations and families both benefit when people know they can pause, ask questions, disagree respectfully, and communicate what they need without turning every disagreement into a confrontation.

Respect is reciprocal. Good boundaries help define what that respect looks like in practice.

The goal isn’t to eliminate discomfort.

It’s to become better at navigating it with clarity, respect, and enough self-awareness to choose our response.

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References

• Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Prentice Hall.
• Edmondson, A. C. (1999). “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
• Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley.
• Porath, C., & Pearson, C. (2013). “The Price of Incivility.” Harvard Business Review, 91(1–2), 114–121.