My manager is not very good at communicating. She never answers emails and tends to change goal posts or give us direction. I am the team deputy line managing 7 people. There is another deputy managing 4 people. She has been there a year.
we have number of projects I oversee, which we are suppose to work on and report back to her. We have our own work streams and my role is to direct, advise and line manage. To this I need to know what the projects are and be involved, but not too much involved to allow my team to develop.
my manager wants to be directly involved and often changes goalposts. It’s as if she is more comfortable doing my role. She is so busy she can’t get involved fully, but tried. Or gives the team objectives without telling me. I will often help team devise a project schedule to discover my manager will have changed direction without telling me.
She says she likes details. So we started to put in meetings at certain milestones in projects to report back. She seemed happy, until project is due to be released and then changes plans or adds something in or doesn’t turn up. She says she prides herself on developing the team. But it’s the opposite, the team say she has weak leadership and they dread projects as they get anxious waiting on the manager changing directions last minute and we spend unnecessary time trying to anticipate what she is thinking. We can’t seem to be allowed to be innovative or develop.
myself and the other deputy had a chat with our line manager to tell her how the team felt. We did it professionally asking her how she felt and what can we as a team do to work better. She more or less told us she had to get involved as she needs the job done. We asked for more joined up meetings and reporting to her at milestones. She thought about it and came back to us a week later and said she felt ambushed and no to our request and she will do it her way. She phoned in sick next day as she was so upset. I feel I am marked as a trouble maker now as voiced the teams thoughts and she is making my life hell.
This has now resulted on her controlling everything we do. We are close to finish on a project. We have sent her the material weeks ago to proof read. No response until today where she has forgotten the original plan and changed it all. Still wanting us to deliver in the planned date. My mum died 6 months ago and I had an extended period of time off. I asked for a delay in the project and was told no. We are now rushing it through.
team are now frustrated and I know various members are looking to leave. Her boss says we need to find away to work together. We are trying but my manner won’t budge. The more we try and find ways to work the worst it is. But it’s not me, it’s how the whole team feel.
what can we do? It’s becoming impossible and honestly I have given up independent thinking and just doing minimum as any effort to plan or do anything is fruitless.