10 Reasons Your Team Hates You (They Just Won’t Say It To Your Face)
Your team hates you. Really. They do. They hate their boss (you) but they just won’t say so because they like getting paid. But when they go home at night, they spill their bile about their taskmaster of a boss who does nothing but drive them crazy (isn’t that what you do too?).
It’s been a while since I’ve been controversial (okay, maybe the post on trust not being the most important aspect business partnerships was provocative but I’m talking controversial at the level of the I don’t care about your degree post). For this post, I’ve been sure to drink a glass of vinegar before typing.
If you don’t start fixing some of these behaviors, you might end up with a mutiny on your hands. In today’s world though, that doesn’t involve them tossing you in a dinghy – instead they’ll all just quit their jobs.
Before you go all “Mike has lost it again. This post doesn’t apply to me so I won’t read any more of it.” I’d ask you to spend the 2-3 minutes it will take to spin through the below list and see if any of the points resonate. If you make it through all ten and can honestly say none apply to you, bravo (related: are you hiring?).
If some of the points do resonate, I’m asking you to commit to rectifying some of these behaviors. We’ll all be happier that way. To assist with that, I’ve offered some suggested behavior modifications for each of the ten.
Full disclosure – I’ve been plenty guilty of some of the below behaviors. Fortunately I’ve had talented folks around me help me work on many of them. I’m not perfect by a long shot yet. I guess what I’m saying is all of these things apply to all of us even in some small measure.
So here goes… 10 Reasons Your Team Hates You:
10. You don’t prioritize. Everything is important. When you do this, you remove your team’s ability to say no to less important work and focus their efforts on critical tasks. The fix: write down all the tasks you have folks working on and FORCE yourself to assign a H, M, or L to each task (and treat it as such). Thou shalt only have 33% of all tasks in each of those three categories – you can’t assign everything a “High” importance.
9. You treat them like employees. You don’t know a darn thing about them as a person (which makes them feel like nothing more than a number). The fix: read this post about 7Up (and if you want the full version of the story, grab a copy of my book One Piece of Paper – CLICK HERE to get it).
8. You don’t fight for them. When is the last time you went to bat for a team member? And I mean went to bat where you had something to lose if it didn’t work out? When you don’t stand up for them, you lose their trust. The fix: identify something you should have gone to the mat for recently and get out there and fight. Get someone that raise they deserve. Go fight for them to get that cool new project.
7. You tell them to “have a balanced life” then set a bad example. You tell them weekends are precious and they should spend them with their family then you go and send them emails or voicemails on Sunday afternoon. The fix: either curb your bad habit of not being in balance or learn how to do delayed send in Outlook so your messages won’t go out until Monday morning.
6. You never relax. You walk around like you have a potato chip wedged between your butt cheeks and you’re trying not to break it. When you’re uptight all the time, it makes them uptight. Negative or stressful energy transfers to others. The fix: laugh, get a remote controlled car or tricycle to drive around the office, or put on a Burger King crown. When you relax, your team knows it’s okay for them to relax too.
5. You micromanage. You know every detail of what they’re working on and you’ve become a control freak. They have no room to make decisions on their own (which means yes, they’ll make a mistake or two). The fix: back off. Pick a few low risk projects and commit to not doing ANYTHING on them unless your team member asks you for assistance. It’ll be uncomfortable for you. Give it a try you micromanaging control freak.
4. You’re a suck-up. If your boss stopped short while walking down the hall, you’d break your neck. Your team hates seeing you do this because it demonstrates lack of spine and willingness to fight for them. It can also signal to them that you expect them to be a sycophant just like you. The fix: try kicking up and kissing down instead.
3. You treat them like mushrooms. Translation: they’re kept in the dark and fed a bunch of crap. Do you ration information? Do you withhold “important” things from them because it’s “need to know” only? All you’re doing is creating gossip and fear. The fix: stop acting like 007 and spill some beans.
2. You’re above getting your hands dirty. You’re great at assigning work. Doing work? Not so much. They hate watching you preside (and they hate it even more when you take credit for what they slaved over). The fix: get dirty. Climb under the proverbial tank and turn a wrench. Roll up your sleeves and pick a smaller project you can handle in addition to your other responsibilities and DO THE PROJECT YOURSELF.
1. You’re indecisive. Maybe. Or not. But possibly. Yeah. No. I don’t know. OH MY GOSH MAKE A DECISION ALREADY! That’s what you get paid to do as the leader. You drive them crazy with your incessant flip-flopping or waffling (mmmm waffles… oh. Sorry… still writing). The fix: DO SOMETHING! Acknowledge you might make a mistake but do something. A team is much more likely to follow a leader who makes decisions (even some bad ones) than a leader who makes no decisions at all.
There they are: 10 reasons your team hates you. Do any of them fit? I’ll tell you what: I DARE you to email this post to your team members and ask them to anonymously circle any of the above behaviors that apply to you. I then further challenge you to fix the one or two that have the most votes. Trust me – all of you will be happier if you do. How’s THAT for provocative?
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
– If you want to be a better leader than the above, grab a copy of my book One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership
Ok Mike,
I'll bite – you are 100% on the money here (being serious, not a sycophant – :)).
The biggest issue (IMHO) is that managers at levels progressively higher on the chain have a tendency to exhibit more of these bad behaviors – maybe because it got them ahead, who knows.
I worked for a manager at a previous job who actually was pretty good in all of these, EXCEPT he wouldn't fight for the survival of the very small (only 3 of us) team. In the end, that was the demise of the team, and this individual was then 'freed up' to become an individual contributor again.
In some sense, I've never forgiven him, because he could have fought for our team by FINDING us a leader to take over, but that thought didn't cross his mind.
So, in short, managers – FIGHT for your team and their survival, and they will most likely have your back when you need it most.
Thanks for sharing Guy. Yep – a leader has to fight for his/her people. That's the role of the human crapshield – protect the team from BS and stupidity. I trust you're living up to that standard…
OK – but only because you asked – I pose a corollary to #4. Standing up for principle is a good thing, but you have to know when to let go. You also have to know when you're missing the point.
http://ungard.wordpress.com/2008/11/
.. but great advice, great post. 😉
I especially appreciated the 'forced distribution' concept as it applies to H, M and L priority items. Good stuff!
Great post. And funny enough, and this is the honest truth, I sent this to my team without even reading the last paragraph! As soon as I got to the 10th list item, I felt like I knew which I may be guilty of, but wanted my employee's thoughts.
I'd say that one reason my employees DON'T hate me is that I genuinely expect feedback and constructive criticism, and ask for it. Hey, if I can't take that type of input, how can I expect others to, right?
I'll keep you posted on the reply I get!
@Jason – I'm pretty sure it'll be a favorable response from your team solely based on the fact that you read these kinds of things and actually care enough to help them learn. Please do update us on the results of your informal survey. And thanks for spreading the gospel of leadership. I hope to see you and your team as regular readers of the blog.
Great list! The problem is, that the people who need to read and absorb it don't see these traits in themselves. Who is going to tell them?
EXCELLENT ARTICLE! Although I have never been a boss (I've worked for plenty), the article is on point. Some of the behaviors regarding priorities let me know where I would need self-improvement if I were a boss. So now I can work on how I treat myself. VALUABLE INFORMATION!
@Mary Jo – YOU ARE! See the "email this" and "share this" buttons? As a leader it's our responsibility to share perspectives like this with those who need it. My challenge to you: get this into the inbox of at least 5 people who REALLY need to hear it. Better yet – have coffee with 5 people who really need to hear it and help them be better leaders.
You just named 9 reasons why I'm quitting my job. (My boss is the owner, so #4 doesn't apply.) Thank you for validating these issues for people like me.
My husband thinks I'm a little crazy for quitting my job in this economy. I'd rather try and make it on my own than continue to be a micromanaged mushroom with no life and no credit for my work.
-Moving on.
@Anonymous – I applaud your courage to leave your job and do what's right for you. I'm sorry to hear it's been a bad situation for you. I hope you find somewhere that will be a better fit for you. Best of luck!
Good points and could it be that the leader truly does not know her or his talents, non-talents and weaknesses as well as how she or he makes decisions? Presumptions of what we believe to be true can be very dangerous and negatively affect the performance of team members.
I agree with the list but wonder what a leader should do when they have treated their small group as a team and now feel as if they have been completely exploited by the team. I want all team members to grow and everyone to have opportunities, but by the same token, want to know what is going on in the group – not to micro manage, but to understand as the accountable manager. All of the privileges of being a member of the team have had to be slowly stripped away due to their inability to communicate and the appearance of being a team is just that.
I'm a great leader, I would never do any of the things in your top 10list, at least in my own mind. Your last paragraph is the key. It is not how you perceive your actions, but how the people that work on your team perceive them. You have to be open to their feedback to get better.
Even better than the High/Medium/Low prioritization would be a straightforward queue of tasks. Get A done, and when it's done, do B. When that's done, do C.
*cough* five *cough*
I've worked for bosses like that in the past. I am fortunate to be in the exact opposite situation now. I can truly say that my current boss does not violate any of these.
Gosh I love this. It's like poetry. I want to cry. I am mostly serious. It's lovely to see it all there in print. I just wish I could send this to my boss. Thanks, Mike.
Interesting way to make your points. I agree with Mary Jo that the bosses most likely to read and think seriously about them are the ones who need them the least. Awful bosses mostly seem wrapped in a Reality Distortion Zone of their own making.
I do have a caution for the bosses who take your suggestion and forward the post to their team members. If you've got a reputation for using criticism as the inspiration for a witch hunt, don't be surprised if you don't get any responses, even after promising anonymity. And don't expect candor if this is the first time you've asked for feedback since Truman was president.
If you don't get feedback, take it as proof that you really need to do some work at showing up a lot, having real conversations with your people, and sussing out what's really going on. It won't be quick, easy, or comfortable, but in the end you'll be a better boss and your team will probably have both higher production levels and higher morale.
@Wally – awesome point. Sort of a new perspective on "silent but deadly" 😉 "If you don't have anything nice to say…
@Anonymous – send it to your boss! Just print it out and leave a copy on their chair (unless of course you're their only subordinate…).
@Ben Fulton – I sort of concur. The problem is there are always new "A Priority" tasks so in theory, many of the C's will NEVER get done. I'd also argue that's a good thing.
@Bruce – I encourage you to get that feedback from your team and confirm the view that you're a great leader. I hope the feedback matches the perception. Good point.
@Anonymous – sorry you feel hosed over by your team. I agree you need to know what's going on in the group. I'd ask yourself the hard question as to why they're excluding you. It might be something you're doing that you're not aware of…
Interesting… someone just rated this post a "2" (boring) out of "5"… I'm guessing they're the kind of person this post is directed at but they don't realize it's directed at them… 😉
Thanks Mike. I have searched and searched for an answer on why this team has such difficult dynamics and have also asked myself the hard question. It may be the difference in American management style vs UK style, but I would hate to put it all on that and not accept responsibility where needed.
Dear Mike,
You are right. And here's more: In my experience, which is extensive and lengthy in fairly senior executive management levels, I would say that the vast majority of bosses fall into this category…maybe 80%-90%. Perhaps they aren't all as BAD as this…but most managers are terrible managers and have no idea about how to manage or treat people and have no business managing people. I've seen many many great people go through so much hell while trying to deal with a horrible boss. Unfortunately, the employee rarely "wins" in this situation as companies are very hesitant to take out the boss. And here's the other problem…most of these managers are so egotistical and narcissistic, there is no way they can recognize themselves on this list! Most of the time they think they are the best bosses ever!! Amazing really. Until companies start practicing what they preach on all their cutesy little placards hanging around the office and dump these controlling and abusive managers, employees who find themselves in this kind of a situation need to get the heck out of dodge at the first opportunity!! Sorry to be so negative…but this is the reality. The long term solution, I believe, is to get to the CEO through the board and assess his/her leadership style. If ok, then we need to convince that person to make the hard decisions with respect to poor managers. Companies need to stop promoting people to manager level who are good technically in hopes they will develop the right leadership skills. If they don't have them, it's highly unlikely they will somehow magically get them along the way!! My belief is you can teach someone to be a better manager but you can't teach someone to be a better leader. You either have it or you don't. And, I'll take it a step further…Leadership is something you are born with…it's in your DNA and extremely difficult to develop! Just my two small cents for this morning!
Mike – another great post as always. I would love to hear your opinion from the other side meaning what can someone do if he/she does have this kind of boss. Quitting your job may be an easy (?) solution; but short of that. Your suggestion about sending it to the leader is a good one too; but what do YOU have to do when dealing with the leaders that fit the above profile. How do you manage up?
@Deborah – amen. I'd ask you then to share this with individuals who need it. Be direct with them. Feedback is a gift… 😉
@Haresh – Try these: http://thoughtleadersllc.blogspot.com/2007/12/kick-up-kiss-down.html and http://thoughtleadersllc.blogspot.com/2007/12/human-crapshield.html
Wow. This post has gone gangbusters (over 8,500 hits today alone). For any of you who are signing up for email updates to the blog, please remember – after you sign up you'll get a confirmation email where you have to click a link. Until you click that link, your subscription won't be active. Welcome to all the new readers. This is amazing!
I'll add another; You act like a HIPPO ( highest paid person in the room)
I bloged about this at http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/11-follow-the-leader-is-a-dangerous-game-particularly-when-you-follow-a-hippos/
mark allen roberts
http://www.outbsolutions.com
7 (work/life balance) is always a tricky one, and I speak as someone who has to work hard on working less hard. I don't subsribe to the delayed send model at all since it is just disingenuous – you are pretending to be serenely gliding along, whilst paddling furiously when just out of sight. Worse yet your team and others arrive to a fresh and shiny new week, full of possibilities, only to find their mailbox is possibly full.
And, sometimes it just isn't possible to avoid work at the weekend or evenings (try driving a post-merger integration!). My offering here is to show the team that it is OK to let home life intrude into work, as much as to let work life intrude into home. And, to be open about what works for you, and that different folks are different – for example, if I have work to do in the evening I'll often chill until gone 10pm, then work until 1 or 2 in the morning.
Of course, whether the general pace of the world is smart is quite another question … but we need to solve what we have control of, not wish the ways of the world away 🙂
I read this post yesterday, and as I laughed through it (thinking of my management) I realized that my team probably has some opinions of me. I immediately sent the link to them and asked that they work together to provide a team critique of me. While they provided some very positive feedback, I now have insight into the improvements I can make to provide a better work environment for them. Thanks Mike, for the entertainment and the advice.
@Jacqueline – That. Is. AWESOME! I love hearing how our writing helps people be better leaders. I applaud your courage for asking your team for feedback. I'm glad it was helpful and constructive. I hope we've brought you and your teammates into the fold of being regular readers here. I encourage you to spin through our archives too – we try to ensure everything we write is "timeless" and can always be applied. Thanks for following up on the post!
Let us not forget the boss who leaves stuff in their IN Box until the last minute then expects us to stay all weekend to complete the 'rush' and (all of a sudden) highly important task.
"Lack of planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on my part"
-author unknown.
Dear Mike,
I happened to work under a boss who not only the demonstrated the activities mentioned by you but more than those things.
I think you missed out about ethics, exploitation, not lifting the people from hell (doing donkey's work), retaining the company facilities for himself or mis-using the same and not providing them to team members.
Thanks
You hit the nail on the head. Your post describes 99.9 of managers, directors, presidents, and any other so called leaders. These same jerks also get promoted.
I read this today and found my poor excuse for a manager in all of them. You might want to look into other traits such as over promising and unequal treatment. I work in a small department about 15 people, small and close and some of us are the garbage level and others are golden and it is blatantly obvious where each of us falls. I'm a mushroom and I want to be a flower! I want sun and strength not weakness and crap.
Thanks
We could probably offer many additions to the list and one that I find is important is "Attitude". What happens when you have a manager who is doing well against each of these 10 areas, yet has a poor attitude? I've seen this across several organizations over the last year where otherwise good leaders are falling short because they are falling victim to a downsized attitude. Perhaps this is number 6 +. Relax and remember to be positive. People take notice if they never see you smiling.
You hit the money — do you know my boss? Mine nails 7, maybe 8 of these bullet points. I've said for two years "when everything rises to the category of "important" then the priority scale is flat and nothing is therefore important.
@Anonymous – then send it to your boss (or leave a copy on his/her chair). I'd also challenge you to send it to your team and see if they have a different assessment of you (I know they do because you're smart enough to read this blog). 😉
While I agree with the basic premise of the blog, I would add a question and comment.
What do you use to assess someone's ability to make an IMPACT?
A degree, or set of letters, should (but doesn't always) represent a standardized set of accomplishments, but it's a record of past effort. It cannot by itself help you assess future impact of the person. Just like experience may not always be a good guide either (we want to try something NEW and experienced people often tell you it CAN'T be done…).
My Dad got an equivalency degree in engineering. The degree mattered because it was a marker of accomplishments. But you couldn't decide whether he was the right person for a job either by the experience list OR the degree. It's a nice marker for making a decision (I could eliminate non-RNs from my applicant pool if the job legally required an RN), but it won't tell me who's the right person for the job. Don't conflate those two issues: the value of a degree and an assessment of an applicant for a given job.
The key is to recognize what the letters actually mean…and don't mean.
This is really interesting. Though I haven’t lead a team so far, but would definitely know what not to do!!!
Thanks for the great post!!!
As usual — great stuff. Love the "human crapshield" comment. I am speaking at GCASTD on Wednesday…Topic – Behavior In The Workplace. We will be discussing team and leadership styles. How to click and why 70%+ of leaders fit one of two personality types. (Why do they get ahead anyway?) http://tinyurl.com/ylb4abe
The suggestions in this article contain some of the most direct and challenging propositions that a manager could be confronted with. Having had the fortunate opportunity to work for some very successful firms, my observation is that the most successful managers apply all 10 principles.
More importantly, managers and team leaders who employ these techniques to the point of living them, have a direct positive contribution to the bottom line of the firm. They also are more satisfied in their role and the general esprit de corps is higher with greater team efficacy.
An insightful post. Will definitely help.
Thanks,
Karim – Positive thinking
Enough said about those poor people who manage us! I agree to every point written here in black and white. However I believe that we deal in "packages". When we hire or get hired we think of what all negatives of positives are associated with a person. A person who may be failing on all above fronts may have some of the positive traits that makes him a good manager. Vice a versa, if a person is good on all these fronts may still be disliked by their team or fail to prove his worth of other fronts!
So, in my views, it is unjustified if we start blaming our managers without looking at own low-lights. I would certainly like to evaluate myself before evaluating my manager on these fronts! As a team member how many times did I do my work honestly without making my manager come to my desk for a reminder? I would certainly like to ask myself what good I have done to be recognized? And there may be so many other questions.
In a team environ, it's not just the manager who makes or breaks a team, rather the entire team. From top to bottom if we analyse the members on merits or demerits, it will become difficult for the entire team to stay together. I have seen many teams growing inspite of having weaker managers and have seen many team crumbling in spite of having a very effective manager. So those who point fingers at their managers, may please look at themselves how they behave or perform in specific circumstances. On the other side, improvement is a never ending line. Once must strive to improve one's traits regardless of associations or circumstances. We may pretend to be near perfect, but that will certainly reflect on one or other domain at some point of time.
The conclusion is: Be what you are! Do your best! Take criticism as learning opportunity and give your best shot every time your enter in the field!
Dear Anant,
Pl. read the article from the beginning. The title itself is "10 Reasons Your Team Hates You".
Your observations are totally in different direction. The discussion is about managers hated by the team members. It is not about how the team members are reacting to managers. For that one also, HR experts will give you lot of insights. A team's success or failure purely depends on the manager(s). When they fail in their act (the points are listed in the beginning and many more people have added their thoughts also), people working around them start dis-trusting their managers and problems start cropping up in the teams, which may ultimately leads to failure of teams. Don't imagine the team means one working at very bottom level. It may be a team of top executives reporting to CEOs. Here also problems can crop up if the manager (that means CEO) exhibits the same traits mentioned above.
Thanks
This post has been very inspirational & I've posted it in front of my desk, so I have to read it everyday! The last thing I want to do is have my team hate me….the way I hate my boss 😉
Good post. I'm trying to catch up on some backlogged email and got linked here from another link.
I have actually participated in a "mutiny" as you described, not with a dinghy, but by the individual team members going to the team leader's manager, and laying the situation out. Unfortunately at the time, nothing happened, so we started going in groups, 3 -4 at a time.
"Him or me, this project will not get completed with this team as it is." People were actively seeking transfers to other departments. It is a rare incident, but take heart, anonymous, and others, it does really happen. Our new team leader was diametrically opposite and everything took off like a rocket.
Great things to think about as I begin a new leadership position and working with a new staff! THANKS!
Mike,
What do you do if you have a co-worker like the boss you describe? Reality: There is no opportunity to change jobs, the company VP has personally asked you to stay (although no incentive is offered), and the contract manager has actually gone to bat for you to help with the situation. The stress is affecting your health to the point that you stay depressed all of the time, and you see no way out because the economy is bad, and you have bills to pay.
Mike…I love this article: it’s so refreshing seeing the ‘How not to do it…’ angle being pointed at the reader. I learned how to manage by watching a string of crap ones with skewed priorities, micromanage teams into despair. Now I work with the fall-out of very bad IT and Engineering Managers who seem to have mastered your list beautifully. Not all of them, to be fair, but a majority. They get hired for their technical skills and fired for their personal ones, on the whole – or rather, lack of them. Can we blame HR for not understanding what makes a good manager and leader?
By the way, may I suggest to MB above that if the VP has asked you to stay and the contract manager is coming to your aid, it sounds like you’ve got some powerful support there. Or do you need to delegate some responsibility to others? When no incentive is offered, does it mean you can’t get what you need if you ask for it?
Mike, thank you for pointing out these points. What I hate so much about my previous boss and the current one. Both of them lack of the team solidarity. They both allow their department become the “server” to do other department duties that they slack of. I’m so sick of it because I’m the one who get to do it. Why can’t they stand up for us a bit more? I was told that I’m not everyone’s personal assistant, but yet in reality, I am. All due because my boss won’t stand up enough. Just because they have the serving others mentality, doesn’t mean I share that view. I got my own job to do. Helping others are great and I like it, but not because the ppl from other department decided that our department since we all are women can be used as their PA’s.
She said she hate them treating us like this, but yet, over and over, she allow them to do this to us.
I think (while I have no direct reports to send this to) I am probably likely to exhibit #9.
Have just read this article. 🙂 I narrowly missed having a boss that turned out to hit at least 6 of these. My former team-mates are feeling the pain. They’re still my client department, so I’m not free of the effects, but it could have been a lot worse for me.
But my boss would probably take a dim view of sending this to our client, and I doubt my former team-mates would dare.
5, 4, 2 and 1 are the reasons why I hate my direct boss. She micromanages…and when we’re all assigned to work in the same area for a half hour, she doesn’t care if my female coworker and I talk to each other while we work, but if I talk to my male coworker, she sends one of us to a different area…she sucks up to the woman who promoted her…she’s started to dress, talk, and even walk like her…she doesn’t bother doing work half the time, unless one of the main supervisors is there, and she’ll tell some of us to work in certain areas when we don’t have a lot of people, but then she’ll change her mind and send us to other areas.
11th reason they hate you
No particular ranking: You don’t ask for help. Asking for (meaningful) help implies and demonstrates respect. When you think you can go it alone, they’ll leave you alone, and they will rarely, if ever, come in and offer to help. Fix: ask for help on something that is tough for you. That will help foster a collaborative effort that is what we are all really looking for.
And another, related to not going to bat for them: they never see you standing up for what you really value. Not “The company,” or your family (although you damn well better do that). It’s not loyalty to an “other” entity, it’s loyalty to your own beliefs, the ones that connect us all. As an example, if someone at work spewed racial hatred, the leader better step up and demonstrate his/ her core values. One of my pet peeves: someone in a group blurting out a controversial opinion with the assumption that everyone agrees. How about if someone is jerk at work, a bully? Leader needs to get up off his butt real quick and deal with it. The fix: demonstrate with words and actions who you really are, what is of great value to you.
Our Fire Chief makes a point of setting up a mentoring session every week for other Chief Officers. He finds a topic, researches it, comes in prepared. Best Fire Chief on the West Coast. And yes, he DOES ask for help!
Just my thoughts, sent in to the ThoughtLeader.
My robotics team hates me.
Sorry to hear that. Maybe try to figure out which of these reasons is leading to that conflict. I hope you figure it out. Good luck!
My team resist me more, as one of the senior employee who is not interested to become manager but want to take charge of entire team. I am a new joinee as Lead to Manger in the Team. The senior employee is the first employee in this respective team and as he knows the in and out of the product he is making the team against me. He use to point infront of everyone for silly things [for ex: Initially for some personal problems I use to get more telephone calls. This he use to say you are getting lot of calls in office time]. As he is the old employee even Management is also supporting him for whatever he report on me. Want to know how make the team not to hate me for hearing his words. As I am recruited as Lead to Manager I cant step into more technical as we work in a matrix method like reporting manager is different to the working manager. Please suggest some best tips to overcome and help me to continue in the organization to deal such hardies.
Regards,
Bhanu
Sorry to hear you’re having so much trouble. It sounds like this individual needs a formal feedback session where you express your concerns and how you’d like him to change his behavior. I’d also have the same conversation with your boss.
Emphasize to this employee that he is valuable and he brings a specific set of skills to the team and you bring a different skill set. Highlight that you’d like to work closely with him so both of you can be a more effective team.
If he doesn’t change his behavior, you may have to go a more formal counseling route and then make a decision on whether you remove him from his role or make the choice to find a new role for yourself. Good luck getting it resolved.