Personal Effectiveness as a Leader:
Setting Personal Boundaries

A couple of notes about the OneLab Summit before we begin. As a reminder, this 
session is being recorded, and if you encounter any technical issues during the OneLab Summit, 
please email the OneLab inbox for support at onelab@cdc.gov. If you have questions 
throughout today's event, insert them into the Q&A function below using the Q&A icon on the 
bottom of your Zoom panel. We'll ensure that we'll answer questions at the end of each 
session. 
And we have posted a link to the live captions in the chat. If you are using the captions, 
please be sure to keep the caption window open in addition to the Zoom meeting. I'll now turn 
it back to Alicia Branch, our OneLab Network lead, to introduce our next speaker. Alicia? 
Thank you, Blanche. It seems like my background has disappeared. Oh, well.
Again, I'll read the CDC external presenter disclaimer, and then introduce our second 
speaker, Dr. Christine Bean. Slides may contain presentation material from panelists not 
affiliated with CDC. Presentation content from external panelists may not necessarily reflect 
CDC's official position on the topics covered.
And I'm excited to introduce our next speaker, Dr. Christine L. Bean. Christine oversees 
experiential learning programs as the chief learning officer at APHL. These programs include 
fellowships, internships, leadership, academic partnerships, and the training and workforce 
development programs to develop and deliver training for APHL members and laboratory 
system partners. She joined APHL in October 2021 after serving as a director of the New 
Hampshire Public Health Laboratories from January 2005 to October 2021. She was the APHL 
president in 2013, served on numerous APHL committees, and was a Clinical Laboratory 
Improvement Advisory Committee member from 2007 to 2009. Our next speaker is Dr. 
Christine Bean. 
Thank you so much, Alicia. I'm really happy to be here today. I'm going to bring my slides 
up and share my screen. So let me do that. Here we go. Just one second. Don't know why I can't 
get to my — hold on. There it is. OK, here we go.
OK, welcome, everyone. I'm really pleased to be here today to be part of the CDC 
OneLab Summit. And I'd be remiss if I didn't share in my best wishes to everyone for a very 
happy Laboratory Week. 
I was reflecting this morning on my 42 years as a laboratory professional. And just a 
couple of things about my background and experience. So I began my laboratory career in the 
clinical laboratories as a generalist medical technologist back in those days, and then became a 
microbiology specialist in the clinical laboratory for eight years, I spent, before joining the 
University of New Hampshire in the medical laboratory science program there, where I taught 
microbiology, lab management, and a number of other things — setting up clinical sites for 
students for 15 years, when an awesome opportunity opened in New Hampshire, when the 
state public health laboratory director retired. We had worked with them for clinical 
internships, and I thought this would be a really exciting next step for me to step into the field 
of public health.
So I've had a really interesting career in laboratory science, and would recommend it to 
anyone tomorrow. It's been a great, successful career for me, as I've been able to really develop 
skills and evolve over time. So it's one of my ways that I really like to pitch the career of public 
health laboratory science. So happy Lab Week. 
Today, we're here to talk about personal effectiveness as a leader in setting personal 
boundaries. So what I will begin with is a discussion about what are personal boundaries. So, 
what are these?
We're really talking about setting limits, and for ourselves, both personally and 
professionally, within relationships — personal relationships, work relationships, expectations 
that people have of you in a very demanding laboratory science role you have. And one of the 
things you'll learn today is that a person with healthy boundaries can say no to others when 
they want to, but are also comfortable opening themselves up to having close relationships 
with people. And the fence here is kind of a metaphor about what you let in, what you allow, 
and really working today on thinking about how you set personal boundaries. 
It's not an easy thing to do, and it's something that is really a habit that you can improve 
and practice as a leader, and will improve your effectiveness in that role. So it's very critical for 
maintaining your well-being and sense of control. 
Many times in the laboratory profession, we know we have things occur. We don't 
expect they're going to happen. You have emergencies. You have outbreaks. You have surges 
beyond your control. And how are you going to manage that?
To thrive in a professional environment, we must be able to set boundaries. So we're 
going to talk today about challenges with personal boundaries, and then strategies to help 
everyone set those boundaries for themselves. 
So who has challenges with boundary setting? Just raise your hand if you have 
challenges with that? Many of us do. And what we know is — I see lots of hands and thumbs up 
— we're being honest with ourselves here.
It's not easy to say no to something, where as professional people, as scientists, as 
women and men, we want to do everything. We want to do all the work that's required. And 
that leads to having some challenges with what you're going to be able to do and what you 
can't do.
Let's first look at the caption here on the right, which I think is really important. In the 
end, as a leader, you are always going to get a combination of two things — what you create 
and what you allow. It's up to you. So setting boundaries, both at work and at home, will help 
other people understand how to work with you. If you don't set them and people don't 
understand how to work with you, you're setting yourself up for never getting a work 
environment that's conducive to what you require to achieve success. 
Over time, people will learn how to work with you and start to fit in with your patterns 
and standards. It's almost like you're training people to understand your needs. Both setting 
boundaries at work and home will help you reduce the amount of time you spend reacting to 
other people's desires. So let's stop being as reactive and maybe begin being more proactive. 
You'll be able to work more on your own terms rather than playing by someone else's rules. 
Common boundaries challenges. What are some common challenges? And I'll give some 
examples. Obviously, these are not all-inclusive of boundaries that exist. There's many, many 
boundaries.
But one could be a lack of a clear understanding of the difference between what is 
urgent and what is important to maintain a healthy work/life balance. In your work setting, in a 
clinical laboratory, urgent is a stat order. OK, that's a clear message, and that's very useful to 
you. That is your urgent work. That's your urgent CBC to run — versus what is important to 
finish by the close of business today is to get all your chemistry profiles out and get them 
reported to the physicians. 
Procrastination, or being a perfectionist. And many times, as scientists, we want 
perfection. We work very closely with some of our teams to say, when is it good enough, right? 
When is good enough? It's not easy to accept something as good enough, and being a 
perfectionist could become a challenge.
Is the time we spend on projects proportionate to their importance? This is an 
important one to think about. You may be spending too much time on a certain project that's 
not as important as something else that should be taking the priority. And we could have a 
whole other session on delegating, because that's an important skill for people to develop as 
well. Maybe your focus should be on those projects with the highest importance, and have a 
team of people working on those that might be less important to you. 
Multitasking. Boy, are we all guilty of this. We're in an environment where many of us 
work remotely. And we multitask to try to do sometimes three things at once — hopefully, not 
more than that. But multitasking steals our ability to focus, and drains us of our energy. 
And we recently had a retreat with our teams at APHL, and we had a guest person that 
came in to do a talk on us about collaboration. And I really loved something that she said, and I 
had never heard this: turn multi-tasking into multi-asking. I thought that was a really, really
important way to think about things.
OK, so let's transition to look at some of the boundaries. Number one is time 
management. So boundary one, time management — how you use your time.
So for those of us that work in an office or in a remote environment, you can use your 
calendar to do that. And I know not all of you work in an office. Many of you are in those 
laboratories. So I'll give you a couple of examples of that too. 
But if you use a calendar and work in an office, use it. Use it to your advantage. Book 
work time for yourself, which is focus time to complete specific tasks. Block it off. I do it on my 
calendar on a regular basis. Block that time off.
When I was in the public health laboratory, I was in an office, and I would use my door 
with a sign that said, please do not disturb, if I was writing grants or reports. I didn't want 
people knocking. I did have an open-door policy. But there are times you need to set a 
boundary to say, "I'll be free after 1 o'clock." 
The way you manage your time is sacred. Use your time effectively. Using it effectively is 
critical to maintaining a sense of control over your day and improving your productivity. 
So I know many of us are guilty about trying to do it all and doing too much. And in 
some fields or professions, there are limits to the amount of hours people can work in a day, 
right? A pilot can only fly a plane for so many hours or so many miles. Why is that? It's unsafe if 
they do more than that. So there's some examples where time management is done for you, 
where you cannot work longer than this many hours if you're in a surgical unit performing 
surgery. So thinking about using time management.
The second one is the ways you work — setting the time you start and finish work. What 
are your work hours? Do your work hours meet your needs? 
You have kids to drop off at school? That's your priority. You've got to get the kids 
dropped off at school at 7:30, your work hours begin at 8:00 AM. And those are your hours. 
You can set the environment in which you work. So for some of us, we may have a 
remote environment, which may be a little bit more flexible. But the environment in which you 
work is very important and conducive to setting boundaries. So are you working in an office 
with people, or--? 
There was a time I was working in an office environment in cubicles. If anybody's ever 
had cubicles, you need to have cubicle etiquette so that you have the opportunity to have time 
to concentrate and get your work done, and not have people bothering and interrupting you in 
that cubicle. For those who've been there, you know what I'm talking about. Always keeping in 
mind, you won't always be able to work exactly the way you prefer, but if you don't set 
boundaries, you can be sure you will never be able to.
OK, boundary three. Privacy, involvement, and sharing of information. You have a right 
to some degree of privacy even in the workplace. And we want to think about how you want 
others to be involved in your work. If you share every single piece of information you have, over
time, people will expect that. 
So you may want to have projects where you're the lead on the project, and you have 
others involved, but you bring them in when you need their assistance. And they may not have 
to be involved in every aspect of that project or know everything. 
If someone is hovering over you and trying to know every part of everything that you're 
doing, it might sometimes feel like you're being micromanaged, or it could maybe feel like 
there's a lack of trust for what you're doing, which is not a good work environment. So you 
need to be careful with some people. If you give them an inch, they certainly could take a mile. 
The fourth one is about behavior. So this is an important one. And it's talking about if 
people are rude or disrespectful to you and your team members, this needs to be corrected. 
And setting boundaries around this. Without doing that, people will simply continue to act as 
they please, which sets a precedent for future behavior.
If someone steps over the line, you need to be able to name the behavior and say that it 
isn't acceptable. We're not always good at this — giving feedback to people. While there are 
many models, what I'd like you to consider — and I'm going to go in a little bit more detail on 
this slide — using a model called the SBI model. 
And this comes from a book that we'll put into the chat as I go through this slide called 
Feedback That Works, a tool that could be really useful to you. I was able to learn about this 
book when I was in the national public health leadership training maybe 10 years ago. And this 
is put out by the Center for Creative Leadership. It's a very good reference for you to look for 
anything that has to do with leadership training. But this is around the SBI model, and I'm going 
to go through these — S, B, and I.
So in order to give feedback around behavior, the first thing that you need to do is to 
capture the situation. So what this means is be very descriptive and very specific about the 
situation, location, and time something occurred to create a context for the person that you're 
giving feedback to. So be very specific about describing the situation that occurred.
Number 2 is the behavior. Describe the behavior or actions. And what you want to do is 
to use verbs to describe actions, not adjectives that describe your impression of those actions 
or interpretation of behavior. So you're not judging the behavior. You're using verbs to describe 
the behavior.
And I'm going to give you an example here. An adjective is very subjective, as you can
imagine, and a verb is very objective. So here's an example. "You were rude to the client."
Now, that is very subjective. It's an adjective using the word "rude." You're interpreting 
what their behavior was. "You were rude to the client" versus "You raised your voice in front of 
the client." That's what the person did. It's a verb. It's subjective, saying the situation, the 
behavior. 
And thirdly is the impact. So explain the impact that that behavior had on you and 
others that were present if people were there in the situation — what you experienced as a 
result of the behavior. The person receiving the feedback you give cannot easily dismiss the 
personal experience that you had from their behavior.
So let me give you an example of this. This is actually from the book, but I revised it. So 
here's my example — "Kevin, in the meeting this morning with the new vice president, you kept 
your voice at an even tone, even when she questioned your team's numbers. The team and I 
were really at ease with your delivery." 
So you describe the situation — when, what happened. This can be used in a positive 
manner. It doesn't necessarily have to be used negatively. You describe the situation — "Kevin, 
in the meeting this morning with the new vice president... ." The behavior: "you kept your voice 
at an even tone, even when she questioned your team's numbers." And the impact: "The team 
and I were really at ease with your delivery."
Now imagine you've given someone this feedback, probably Kevin will repeat this 
behavior at the next meeting you're at. So take a look at this resource. I have it at the end of 
the PowerPoint as well. 
So before we transition to strategies for setting boundaries, I'll just share this quote and 
let you take a minute to read it. OK, so let's look at strategies for setting boundaries.
The first one is to identify your most critical boundaries. So start by choosing the most 
important areas of your work that you want to protect. Think about that. What are the most 
important areas of your work that you want to protect? 
It might be my time, right? Maybe it's my time that I want to protect. Maybe it's my 
ability to make decisions on projects. But start by choosing the most important areas you want 
to protect. 
Sometimes that could be your pain points. What bothers you the most? You're all 
thinking of things. So think about that. Identify those most critical boundaries. 
In general, you're not going to be able to set boundaries for every aspect of your work. 
It's not necessary. But it's only in certain areas where you find people taking liberties and 
pushing your buttons.
Dumping work on you that you didn't know was coming. How could they do this again? 
They did this last month. They're doing it again. I'm sure that's happened to people. Things 
coming at you that you don't expect. People making priorities or emergencies out of situations 
that you don't know are coming, and you may be thinking, "Their emergency is certainly not my 
emergency."
So your ability to manage your time might be one of your most critical boundaries. So 
the first step is to identify what those are. 
The second is take a position. Take a boundary position, and be clear and be firm. Think 
about this with your children, if you have kids at home. Take a position. Be clear. Be firm. If your 
work hours are not before 8:00 AM, your work begins at 8:00 AM, then you're not available 
before 8:00 AM. Take a position regarding the situation at hand. It really means defining your 
stance on the problem, and this will become your boundary position. But you can't set a 
boundary if you don't have a clear position. So be clear.
Third is to automate. So in some cases, there are ways that you can automate your 
boundary. And if this is true, it's a very useful system or process that can help you with that. So 
let's think of some examples of that.
In many cases, you might have a ticketing request system. So at APHL, in our IT 
department, there's a ticketing request system. If I have a problem, and I need IT to solve that, I 
complete a ticket or a request. And on that request, I will explain the urgency. It asks you to 
explain this. It's an emergency. Is this an urgent need? Can this wait till tomorrow? So you could 
possibly automate that boundary if possible.
In clinical labs, one of the things I thought about for clinical laboratories would be 
turnaround times. You've established turnaround times for your tests. And most of the time, 
you meet those turnaround times, unless you have an instrument breakdown. But that's one 
way that you can automate your boundary. 
Our turnaround time is six hours for a routine CBC. It's only been two hours, but we will 
have it to you shortly. But being able to automate is powerful, and it can be quite achievable for 
you. 
And fourth is be consistent. So consistency is a huge part of setting boundaries at work. 
You don't want to be saying your hours are 8:00 to 5:00, and on occasion you let people make 
meetings with you at 7:30. You have to be consistent because it trains the people around you to 
behave in a certain way.
I'm not saying that you never will be reachable before 8:00 AM, but consistency means 
your typical workday begins at 8:00. My typical workday ends at 5:00. My team knows that.
Of course, I'm reachable in the evening if they need me. I have a cell phone. They can 
call me. But I'm not sitting at my computer until 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock at night. I'm certainly 
more of a morning person, for people who know my work style. 
And then also, resolving conflicts, I think this is important. So the ability for you to set 
these boundaries may be incompatible with the needs of people around you. You certainly are 
not trying to be difficult. You're trying to manage and set some parameters around your work 
and your style. So as you begin to set these boundaries, you may start to see that there's 
potential areas of conflict. 
And what I want you to do is to view these as opportunities. So these conflicts are a 
perfect opportunity to have an open discussion about what you need and why you're trying to 
put boundaries in place.
So if you have situations that come up — I think about COVID, where maybe everything 
was off the table for setting some boundaries. But if you don't ever set them, you're not going 
to have any limitations on the amount of time, and the conflicts are certainly an opportunity to 
have a discussion. And people will understand and improve communication where you describe 
with people you work with what you need. 
So maintaining a personal boundary by reducing stress and time management and 
organizational techniques. So let's take a look through this. So I'm not going to read through it 
all, but read through and see if there's a couple that resonate with you. 
So to reduce your stress, there's ways that you can pick things from this list. So we're 
planners, planning for each day. Some that resonate with me is time management and using 
organizational techniques to really be more mindful of managing, developing good time 
management and organizational techniques.
Another that resonated with me is using humor to lighten your mood and recharge. I 
think it was National Humor Day yesterday. So during COVID, as an example, where you want to 
reduce your stress, find people to be around that lighten your spirit. 
Be kind to yourself and others. Say nice things out loud. You know, "good job." Pat each 
other on the back. Practice optimism, I think, is a nice one, and positive expectancy. And try to 
be supportive of each other.
So one of the things you can also do is to create a buddy system. So in a laboratory, you 
may have coworkers who would be willing to switch weekends with you if you're on weekend 
coverages, or do an extra day for you when you're going to be willing to do that for them at a 
later date.
So I saw that in the public health laboratory when we went through surges — not just 
COVID but before that. We went through other emergency events, some that went on for long 
periods of time — like one was a hepatitis C event that was ongoing for one year of time. And 
people needed to just be free and be off on a weekend, or take a day off. 
And what we would do is say to them in words — like, speak the words — we will not 
call you this weekend. You're off. You go do something fun. And we will cover you. We've got 
your back. 
So use a buddy system, and make sure that people feel like they have support in their
work environment, because the work we do can be stressful at times, and can be a lot. 
So going forward, really, in many cases, when you set a clear boundary about something 
that is important to you, people will simply respect it. In many cases, they will. If you set 
boundaries for yourself with family, personal relationships, professional relationships, people 
will respect you for doing that.
Also, as a leader, you will set an example for your peers and your staff that they may be 
willing and able to do that as well. If you don't do it, they're certainly not going to do it for 
themselves. So be an example for others. 
Start setting boundaries at work for the aspects that are most important to you. That 
way, you can craft a working environment that helps you feel calm, in control, and empowered 
in your leadership role. And when you think about this, it's a really good strategy to use to help 
retain people. We need to be able to retain people in the laboratory professions, and not have 
them burn out and leave to change careers, or go to some other lab setting. This could be a 
useful tool for that. 
And remember, always remember, "no" is a complete sentence. So practice. Practice 
saying "no." Practice — not in a rude way, but you have a right to say no. 
One of the other times I did this talk when we were talking about time management, 
you don't have to accept every meeting invite you receive. There's a reason why there's a 
"tentative" button on that reply. Maybe you'll be able to, maybe you won't. You don't have to 
say yes all the time. 
So for one of our final activities, here's what I'd like you to do. Write a note to yourself 
about what you will commit to doing to set your personal boundaries. Write it down on a sticky 
note or on your notepad that you have next to you. Write it down. 
And if we were doing this in person, what we would do is have the audience write this 
on a note card, and we would mail it to the participants a month later. It's a pretty useful 
strategy to do, to see, a month later you go out and get your mail. Oh, there's this letter to 
myself. And stop and make you think about, how are you doing with that commitment? 
Because if you don't set boundaries for yourself, very few people will do that for you. 
So having healthy boundaries is certainly a form of self-love and self-respect. So practice 
these techniques. Be a role model for your laboratory and for your peers. Some of the 
resources that I mentioned here are available to you.
I would definitely suggest taking a look at the Center for Creative Leadership website. 
They have very useful tools, webinars for all kinds of leadership topics that could be helpful to 
you. So we'll go to questions. And let me stop sharing.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. So again, we will take a few minutes to answer as many questions as 
possible. If we don't get to answer your question today, we'll do our best to answer it, respond 
via email — that's if you hadn't submitted it anonymously. If you have any questions after 
today, again, send them to the OneLab box. It's onelab@cdc.gov. 
So let's get started. Let's see. What's the first one? This is a good one. What are your 
recommendations for sharing negative feedback using the SBI model to someone who is in a 
higher position than you are?
It's a very good question. So the SBI model, I would say, first of all, practice it. When I 
first learned the model and the tool, it's a good tool. I practiced it at home on my husband 
without him knowing it. Practice, right? 
I mean, think about these things. It doesn't come naturally to us. So practice a little bit 
on your family. Practice on some of the people at your level in your job before you practice it 
higher up.
Once you master the tool and you know how to do it — you're using verbs, you're using 
adjectives, you're describing the situation — people will respect you for being willing and able 
to have — it's a constructive discussion. 
It's not judgment. It's not adjectives. It's not pointing fingers. It's describing, this was the 
situation, this was the behavior, and this is the impact that behavior had on me, on my team. 
And what I would say is, "I feel that I have a responsibility to bring this forward and inform you 
that this happened."
Because if you don't do that — think about the impact of not doing that.
Right. 
You want to change behavior and have people people learn and understand what the 
impact is. If they don't understand the impact of behavior, they'll never change that. So practice 
it first. 
I've found that writing it down and standing in the mirror saying it helps. 
Good idea. That's a great idea.
Boundary setting is sometimes more difficult for others than the person setting the 
boundary. How do you prevent reversion to previous behaviors? 
That's a good idea. Be consistent. The only way you can prevent reversion to previous 
behaviors is to be consistent. Don't give up. If it doesn't seem to be working, you don't want to 
give up on your boundary setting because someone's not abiding by it or their behavior is not 
changing. Just be consistent. Be firm, be clear.
Don't be rude. You don't have to be rude. Being firm and being clear is not rude. It's 
being constructive, and having that — giving that feedback. And don't give up.
Great. Let's see. Oh. How would you deal with boundary placing in a work setting where 
the power dynamic kind of forced you to be agreeable.
OK. So you have a boundary dynamic going on where you feel like you're being forced to 
agree. Interesting. 
Because the environment is agreeable.
The environment is agreeable. It's like a groupthink environment, and everybody's going 
along with it. 
Well, some of that depends on your confidence level in yourself, right? So the group 
may be an agreeable group. Well, then you may raise your hand and say, I don't want to be the 
naysayer at every meeting, but I'm going to bring up this point that we should consider. So 
again, you're not pointing a finger at someone saying you're wrong, you're rude, to just say it 
might be useful to consider this, or different strategies that way. 
Unfortunately, if that's true, you don't really have a good group. What you want to do is 
bring groups of people together that have different ways of thinking about things so you get a 
good outcome from a decision. So I don't know if you can change some of the members of the 
group, or maybe work with some of those team members on that group on the side to have a 
private discussion before your next meeting.
Great. Well, this is good. How do you handle the anger and aggression that comes from 
not pleasing everyone?
That's a good question. So people, hopefully, don't get too angry with you or aggressive 
with you for not pleasing them. So in a work environment?
It's dangerous. 
I would say, if people are angry, you may want to just have a — you're opening a door to 
communication — remember that — for explaining what your needs are, and have a discussion. 
So any time you can open a door to a discussion and communication, it could lead to a good 
outcome, because someone will understand you better. Hopefully they're not so angry with you 
that they're yelling at you, but they may disagree with you. And you have an opportunity to 
explain why you have a boundary set a certain way.
I think this next question is something we've all experienced. "As a new grad in the lab I 
made myself available early in the morning and late in the evening, that my supervisor took 
hold. How can they go about setting more reasonable boundaries from the expectations 
they've created early in their career?" 
OK. So someone new in their career is available all the time it sounds, right?
Early in the morning, into the evening. Well — .
You're not being paid for those hours, right? We all do more than we should. You're not 
being paid for those hours. 
I mean, we have to set limits. People cannot expect you to be on the job or available 12 
to 15 hours a day. It's not sustainable. No one can do that. And if people begin to expect that 
you're going to continue to do that, you have a problem there, because you're not setting the 
boundary on having privacy, having your own life and commitment. 
So you have work to do with setting that. One way or the other, you're either going to 
start early and end earlier or start later and end later.
So it's up to you. You're the one who has to set that boundary. And if you're not willing 
to do it, people will allow you to work 15 hours a day. It's too much.
All right. So someone wants to know if you've implemented this model with your team, 
and if you've had any issues with implementing the model? 
The SBI model?
Yeah. 
We used it a lot in the public health laboratory because I found that many of our 
laboratory supervisors really could use a tool to be better at giving feedback to their staff and 
to their peers and to their managers. So we used it a lot. It's something that you can do as a 
group, and think about, and practice it — like scenario practicing. 
And I think it worked really well. I think people got better at feeling more comfortable 
with giving timely feedback. You certainly want to do it in a timely manner. Is more effective to 
do it right away. And as a leader, as a supervisor, as someone overseeing people, you need to 
encourage people to do this.
So one example I had was we had an issue in our central receiving area in a laboratory, 
and someone from that area came to my office — which was fine — and explained a situation 
they had in central receiving. And it was kind of a personal situation that I would not have been 
aware of because I didn't work down there. 
And I said, I'm willing to help you if you need my help. But to me, the best model, or the 
best way this should be handled, it would be for you to say something to this person. You work 
with that person. You're there every day.
If that person thinks that you've come to me and told me this, they're going to wonder 
like, who else have you told? And it was kind of a private situation. I said, the best thing would 
be for you to have a conversation with this coworker and explain your concerns about their 
behavior or the situation. And that might change things. And that was a better strategy. So 
people got better at doing it, with some encouragement and some practice.
OK. Well, this person wants to know, how do you utilize the SBI model for more passive

aggressive mannerisms or other behaviors that may not be as verbal or explicit?
Yeah, that's true. I mean, you might see people with non-verbal communication that's 
not — you're not happy about, right? People rolling eyes, or — I see that, even in Zoom 
meetings. It's much more easy to see. I don't think people even realize they're doing it. So when 
you see that kind of passive-aggressive behavior, they're not saying anything. But "here she 
goes again," rolling eyes. 
You've got to do something about it. You've got to say something — not there, maybe 
not right on the Zoom meeting with everybody on there. But take an opportunity later to follow 
up. Explain, when you're on these Zoom meetings, when you were on the Zoom meeting this 
morning, and you rolled your eyes, I didn't understand what you were so concerned about, and 
I wish you'd be more willing to talk about that with me. So, following up on that and opening 
the door to have a discussion about it would be useful. 
I think we have a eye-roller from this question. They said, sometimes I need to take a 
step back so I don't speak in the heat of the moment. What is a reasonable amount of time to 
wait to utilize the SBI technique without losing impact?
Mm-hmm. That's a really good question. So you certainly don't want to — I don't know. 
I don't believe people should react in the heat of the moment, because you haven't thought 
through what your best strategy is. You don't want to wait till next week. You certainly don't 
want to wait till someone's performance evaluation in June to be discussing these things. That's 
not fair. That's not equitable or fair, because people deserve to get feedback on their behavior 
so they can improve themselves. 
A reasonable amount of time, in my view — my father taught me well. He was a very, 
very calm, professional person that said, always think about something overnight. You might 
have some clear thought about your strategy or words overnight. Your emotions calm down. 
You've got a clearer head and you're not mad anymore.
And then you can have a normal-tone discussion. You can use verbs and not adjectives, 
and not yell. 
But it's tomorrow. It's not next week. It's not at the end of April, or May or June on a 
performance eval. Give yourself an overnight. I think that's always a healthy strategy.
This is a good one. Someone wants to know what was the most difficult boundary that 
you had to set, and how did you set it effectively?
Mm. That's a good point. I don't know if it's time. Probably time during COVID, I think. 
Yeah, let me use that as an example. 
And it may not necessarily have been for myself, because there was no boundary I could 
set during the COVID. It was just on, on, on, right?
But we used our staff. We rotated people. We had people working seven days a week. 
Every day was on. We had a manager on weekends. We rotated managers on weekends. And 
what I would do would be to have one Wednesday remote day, at least to have a day at home 
during those weeks so you could kind of regroup and find that. 
But probably the most difficult boundary I had to try to set with those in leadership 
roles at the state level was our laboratory staff could not continue to work 24/7, and go on and 
on through this. It was not healthy. We didn't have enough people. We contracted for people. 
So how do you set limits when you have — you don't have a lot of depth in certain areas 
of your laboratory function, like IT or your IT administrators. Clinical labs have that, lab 
information systems, hospital information systems become a lab information management 
system at the state level. I had one or two deep.
And the lead person was a young man with a young family. And I'm like, we cannot 
continue to keep calling this person all weekend, every weekend. This is just not sustainable.
And making that boundary and setting it. People were telling me I must give them his 
phone number. And I said, no, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. Because he's going to quit the 
job. And setting boundaries for others, is sometimes even harder than for yourself for people to 
accept.
But I was very protective of them because I knew their limits. I knew them. I knew the 
workload. I knew the stress they were under. And really trying to have people understand, 
without getting mad and angry about it, that there has to be a limit set on what the expectation
is for these people seven days a week. That was very difficult for me. 
Great. We'll take maybe one more question. Let's see. What is the best way to set 
boundaries for a person who is not in leadership? In other words, how do you avoid the other 
duties as assigned when the duties infringe on your boundaries?
Mm-hmm. Good question. So you're not in the leadership role, and other duties as 
assigned just keep coming at you, right? They just keep coming. 
Probably speaking with your supervisor, and explaining what your work is, what your 
role is there, and that you can't keep doing that. Maybe being somewhat flexible, to say you're 
willing to do some of these things, but you cannot continue to accept all these duties as 
assigned. 
Especially many times they're coming at you without warning. Right? Oh, here comes 
another one. You feel like you're just being put upon and put upon and put upon, and there has 
to be a limit that's set for that. So communication is key — no question about it. 
Well, thank you so much for reminding us to set some clear personal and work 
boundaries. I'll turn it over to Blanche. 
Thank you, Alicia and Chris.