Reported my manager to her senior

[Chunkychipschops]

Hi there😊work related post: I’m normally someone who just minds their own business and just wants to get on with my job and go home after. I believe I get on well with my team, and everyone has been respectful as I am with them too - however, recently my manager basically went on a rant at me about certain work areas and spoke to me really rudely and with a lot of hostility.
As I’m naturally reserved, I was completely dumbfounded and didn’t even know how to respond. Honestly felt like bursting into tears during the conversation but I managed to
hold it together. She mentioned so many random stuff and it just felt like I was just her target for the morning. After the call (she ended up calling me several other times that morning), I felt so low and built up the courage to report her conduct to her manager.
I decided to report it based on the delivery and tone of how she spoke to me and various other irrelevant points she mentioned. After speaking with her manager, he seemed nice and understanding, but had that underlying “well, what do you really want me to do about it?” type of vibe? It was like he decided to speak with me just to sort of pacify the situation - he did say he was going to speak to her blah blah but I guess I feel a bit weird now. I don’t have a problem with my manager but she definitely crossed a line and I felt that reporting her behaviour was the right thing to do. What would you have done? I don’t normally report people, I think this is probably the first time so it feels really weird for me, but I guess I have to learn to speak out when something doesn’t seem right. 😭😭

Sounds like the manager had had enough re an ongoing situation with regard to your poor productivity

Perhaps that is why the business don’t seem to have taken your complaint very seriously

I think going straight over her head first time was a mistake. As a senior manager I would always expect people to have a conversation direct with the person first unless it was serious bullying/discrimination type thing.

Was she ranting at you about things in general or specifically about you/your work.

You should have spoken to her directly first.

I would have thought that the first thing to do would be to sit down with your own manager and make them aware that they you were unhappy with the conversation. However you do need to self reflect. Were the issues she raised relevant. The things that you say were irrelevant are they irrelevant to you but maybe not to the business.

Going over this head to their manager for what appears to be an one off was ott and I would not be very impressed with you if I was thier manager.

The ranting - was it about you/your teams work performance or was she ranting about things outside your control like the weather etc.

I don’t agree with other posts. I would have reported if I was faced with what I felt like was an unfair tirade.

Then I would have written an email to my manager outlining my perspective on the engagement and then I would have given her a chance to process my side. In my email I would have let her know I had spoken to her superior about it too. It isn’t about getting the boss to agree with the other perspective, it is getting them to recognise you are not there for them to take their frustration out on.

There is a hierarchy and natural power imbalance in the workplace. If someone abused that hierarchy by speaking inappropriately to me I would restore the imbalance by speaking to their superior before calling out the behaviour.

I had one of my team come to me with a similar complaint, I listened to them separately and then together helped them agree some ground rules for communication with each other. It felt like instructions and deliverables where getting lost between them. I took it as a cry for help but unfortunately they felt they could then by pass their manager for me which was not appropriate.

How on earth have you read OP's post and come up with this?

As you've actually done it, not sure how helpful it will be to hear what people would have done. But since you asked, and maybe for the future, it would have been better to address it with her in thd moment.
Just because she's your boss, you don't have to passively allow her to talk at you. Its perfectly reasonable to say "Excuse me, can I stop you there, because I'm struggling to take in so much negative feedback all at once. Could we talk about this one thing at a time so I can respond?" This forces her to stop ranting and think about her delivery.
Going to her manager straight off is unlikely to improve things, especially as your complaint is about things that are hard to evidence (tone not content).
Your best bet is to try to handle it in the moment and keep repeating that you're struggling to take it in in this way, so could she please email her concerns. If you establish a paper trail of inappropriate criticism then you have evidence to pursue it through the grievance procedure.

As unfair as it may seem to you, reporting it could make the situation with your manager worse. You have also made the senior manager aware that there may be issues with your work. Reporting people at work is rarely straightforward unless you have something pretty concrete and serious to report (ideally with some sort of written evidence).

I think you should have approached her first. It smacks a bit of telling the teacher.

Ooft. I really don't think you should have gone over her head like that. It sounds very much like tattling.

As I’m naturally reserved, I was completely dumbfounded and didn’t even know how to respond.

If that's code for you sat there and smiled sweetly while saying absolutely nothing, I think you're going to look very silly reporting her.

If you addressed her points in an adult manner and you were still unhappy, then fair enough. You did the right thing.

After some of my experiences, I have voted yes, I would have reported. A manager ranting at one of their reports and being rude to them is inappropriate. It hasn’t achieved anything positive. Even if there was some need for your manager to give you feedback about something, that opportunity has been lost due to the way the manager conducted the conversations. The manager has been ineffectual on this occasion.

A few years ago I went to work for an organisation and my line manager had, to put it mildly, issues. It was obvious to another manager in the team about how I was being treated because she approached and spoke to me about it. I’d already started looking for a new job by this point; it was a classic clash of personalities situation and my manager had some sort of disorder but ultimately it was obvious I wasn’t wanted.
I eventually spoke to her manager on what ended up being my last day in the office and when asked why I was resigning explained what had been going on. Her manager threw her hands in the air, shouted, “why am I only hearing this now,” and proceeded to have a go at me about not approaching her about the situation previously. What I took from that was you can’t win. Some people will still find fault even if you try to resolve a situation with your line manager’s poor behaviour yourself and don’t report it higher up the chain. Therefore, you may as well report it.

I think what I'd have done would depend to an extent on my overall relationship with my line manager. This behaviour would be very out of character for my present line manager, so if it happened I would assume there was perhaps something wrong - I would give her some time and space, a few days, then ask for a meeting to discuss the matters again, and I'd start by telling her honestly that her manner of raising the issues had upset me, and I was hoping we could have a more constructive discussion about how I could put the matters right.

Assuming this wasn't my present LM and there was a history of this kind of interaction, I think in the first instance I'd ask advice from a trusted colleague who knew my manager on the best way to handle it. I would probably still ask for another meeting before escalating things, but if a second meeting didn't improve matters, then I might ask for a conversation with my manager's manager.

It’s a relatively unusual move to go straight to reporting someone from a single interaction when it’s not been something totally outrageous.

Generally I’d expect someone to give some time for the dust to settle and have a basic follow up conversation themselves. Then if that didn’t suitably address things, escalate it at that point.

Sometimes people realise they went too far and apologise themselves.

I wouldn't actually call reporting it to a senior standing up for yourself in this context. That would have been asking for a pause mid discussion. What you’ve done is follow up.

That said, you chose to go that route, which is fair enough. Realistically though, unless there was anything that crossed an actual line (rather than you just found unpleasant) Youre unlikely to see any specific response. The senior will probably feed it back, get their perspective, and it that suggests it was excessively harsh then they’ll be told to reconsider their tone in the future.

If it turns out that 20 other people have also raised same concern then it may turn into a performance issue for your manager, but again you’ll only get insight on that if they ultimately leave the organisation for a vague reason.

You should have addressed your concerns with your line manager first before going off to tell tales to her boss.

When staff come to me with stuff like this, I usually ask them first of all what they have done to resolve the situation directly. If they haven't done anything, I would ask them to think about how they could approach this.

If they still want to complain to me, I ask them if they want me to treat the matter as a formal grievance. If they want me to take it forward with a proper investigation and a right for their manager to reply, then I'm more than happy to do so. If they just want to have a whinge, then I haven't really got time for that.

I used to listen to informal complaints very patiently, and feel that it was better to deal with things informally before they escalated into bigger problems, but then I learned that there are just some people who like to complain about everything without ever being willing to own what they are saying. Especially the ones who say "I don't want you to say anything to x, but..."

Right?! I think there’s just a certain type of repeat offender who likes to get a nasty jab in and then disappear.

@Chunkychipschops I think in future it would be better to have contacted your manager direct and explained directly to her that you’re upset and why. You said you’re quite cool and reserved and who knows perhaps the manager went a bit more nuclear because they thought they weren’t getting through to you at the time they saw no obvious reaction that they perhaps expected.

It doesn’t make the managers behaviour correct but I fear going over her head will appear like a betrayal of sorts and it may be difficult to build a good trusting working relationship back up. Also I prefer to control the narrative myself on these sensitive things as I honestly feel some senior managers have no professional backbone anyway when they receive such reports and would just roll their eyes with the manager or they are professional but it still makes you seem like you’re telling tales and were not professional enough to at least try and handle the situation yourself. Of course if it repeatedly happens you’d have no choice but to go over their head but I wouldn’t have recommended it as a first response myself.

Well, I understand what you mean and I’m definitely not the sort of person that ever reports others, but on this occasion I felt that the tone and delivery crossed a line. It felt like she wanted to just unleash whatever frustration she had on me and that’s not acceptable. I didn’t feel comfortable approaching her afterwards or even during the conversation to let her know that I wasn’t happy with how she spoke to. I guess looking back I’m fine with the choice I made to inform her boss because the workplace culture is very hierarchal and some people can take advantage of you if you’re quieter.

I hear you. But she crossed a line. It wasn’t about telling tales, it was about reporting behaviour that I was deeply uncomfortable with. I understand I could have just spoken to her during the meeting and explained that I wasn’t happy with the delivery but I was so taken aback during the meeting and was trying to take in everything that the emotions just flooded after and I realised that the way I was spoken to was not okay. I don’t have a problem with feedback at all, but you don’t need to belittle me to pass the message.

So you say she was rude she’ll say she wasn’t where can here boss go with that

you could ask for a mediation meeting

Well, I was trying to be transparent - if there really are issues with my work then it would be out in the open and my manager can be upfront about what the issue is - but during the meeting she was vague and I didn’t understand what she was referring to. Sharing my concerns with her manager was not about being a tattle tale as I’m not expecting an apology or anything like that, I was just making it known that I didn’t like how I was spoken to - I think speaking to others respectfully is the bare minimum.

Well, I didn’t say she was rude, I just felt incredibly uncomfortable with the way she delivered her “message”. I’m not going to specify the exact things she said, but for context, it would have gotten anyone riled up - mentioning things that were irrelevant at some point. I wanted to make her boss aware of how I was spoken to - I don’t know if other people have ever made similar reports regarding her behaviour but if they have, then this could potentially point to a hidden pattern.

Yes, thank you, this is exactly why I shared my concerns. It wasn’t about telling tales or getting anyone to take my side. It’s about making it clear that you can’t offload your frustrations on me - I guess it also creates a boundary because as I mentioned, it’s not the first time she’s spoken to me condescendingly- I usually let it go because I just don’t have time to retaliate or speak to her formally. But on this occasion - I felt it was right - some people will take advantage and start treating you terribly if you don’t nip it in the bud. Since that time she’s become strangely calm and speaking/writing respectfully. I don’t know if she realised she crossed a line or if it’s just damage control. Either way, the message has been passed - I’m not resistant to feedback, but I won’t be disrespected.

Ultimately the question is what's going to resolve the situation in the best way to ensure you can work well together in future, and I don't honestly think this is going to do that, @Chunkychipschops.

As another pp has said, this kind of complaint is hard to evidence- you didn't catch her with her fingers in the till. You say "she crossed a line", but that's an opinion; others might disagree and unless you have witnesses, the senior manager isn't likely to accept it as an objective truth. Remember he's also closer to her than he is to you (he's her line manager, not the office behaviour ombudsman).

More to the point, you've chosen to try and put responsibility for policing the relationship into someone else's hands instead of managing it yourself, which isn't generally the approach senior managers want to encourage or reward. You've come back to post in a way that seems quite defensive, so I don't know how far you're open to disagreement, but I do think you'd be hard pressed to find any HR professional who would have advised this as the right course of action. He will now be wondering not only whether you are a poor performer, but also whether you are able to handle conflict in working relationships, as we all have to from time to time.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Parent-Adult-Child dynamic from psychology- I'm no expert on it, but it sounds as though she communicated with you in a "parent" state, and you responded in a way that accepted your "child" role instead of reframing it as an adult-to-adult interaction. The "adult" response would have been to communicate calmly and clearly that you were finding the interaction difficult, that you'd like to find a way to explore how you can respond constructively to her feedback, but that you suggest finding time to do so another day. This gives you back some power in the exchange, instead of trying to hand all the power to an outside authority.

There are a lot of resources to help you manage difficult workplace interactions in future- I find Miss Claire Benjamin on Instagram useful, for example, and there are many others. But I think you do have to start by reframing your ideas about what your own responsibilities in the workplace are, and perhaps taking a less passive approach in future.

Thanks for this, I do understand where you’re coming from and I appreciate the advice. Obviously my opinion of how she acted is subjective because it’s based on how it affected me and that’s what is crucial here - not whether she intended harm or not. I feel in some situations there can be space to have those open conversations, and other spaces where there might not be room for that. After all, I’m the one that had to sit through the difficult conversation so I know its impact. I’ve also been on the receiving end of people reporting me for things and not coming to me directly, so I know it doesn’t always seem fair - but if that person felt that’s what they needed to do then so be it. I’ve definitely learned from this situation though 😊