To speak to line manager about boss?

[GirlAtWork]

I work in a team of two people, myself and my boss. We are technically part of a much larger team, but they are based in a different office. We are supervised by a line manager based in that team, but he has little to do with our day to day work as it is quite different to his.

My boss is brilliant and we get on very well. She has been hugely supportive and encouraging and is an excellent mentor. We have a very good personal and professional relationship.

Recently, however (over the last 3 months or so) she has been off the ball in a way which is becoming very problematic. I am very junior to her and she supervises my work, and there have been a handful of occasions where I have sent her things for review and she has signed off on them, and subsequently it has transpired that there are issues. I now feel like I have no safety net to make mistakes, and that she isn’t reviewing judgment calls I make in an appropriate way.

She has also been taking a lot of last minute holidays where she decides the day before or even the day of that she won’t be in. This has included booking last minute time off at periods where there is very important work on where I really need her help.

The result of this is that I feel very exposed and unsupported, and the stress / panic of this is becoming intolerable.

A week ago, my boss has revealed to me that her wife is going through a very bad patch with her mental health. I know this is something that she struggles with frequently - she has been close to suicide before. It seems to me very likely that this is placing my boss under a huge amount of domestic pressure (they have 3 young children, all aged under 7) and that is causing her work to slip.

I have tried asking her if she has sufficient support and she’s brushing off my concerns. I think she’s trying to keep the plates spinning, and they are going to come crashing down on both of us.

What do I do? I want to speak to our line manager who is a very decent and supportive man, but I don’t want to betray a confidence and I think the mental health issues are a confidence. My boss has shared these with our line manager before, but not on this occasion. Does that mean I can’t do so? Or would it be a kindness to her to get this into the open?

I also don’t want to just complain about the issues without also giving our line manager insight into why she may be struggling.

The situation can’t really continue - there have already been slips which could be business critical, so I have a duty to voice my concerns now. But I don’t know the best way to go about it. So, do I:

1. Tell my boss (again) that she really must speak to our line manager
2. Share my concerns about work with my line manager but not the mental health stuff
3. Share concerns about work and mental health stuff with my line manager
4. Different option altogether?

Ooh that's a difficult one. I appreciate your boss in going through a hard time but she still has a responsibility to you. Could you suggest to her that she requests your line management responsibility be transferred for the time being? It would be part of support to her

That’s a tricky one, have you maybe got an HR person you can talk with off the record and ask for advice about how to proceed?

We do have an HR team so that could be an option. It feels odd because they are also based in a different office so I don’t know any of them, but they must come across this kind of thing frequently.

I don’t think her line management responsibilities can be transferred because the nature of our work is quite different to others in our team, if that makes sense.

I would go for your option 2. Raise your concerns re work issues, perhaps only alluding /raising a concern/query that its out of character for boss and you are a bit concerned about them.

Your boss needs support as well as you.

Talk to your boss again.

Bring up each incident and ask how between the two of you, you can avoid these mistakes and how you can get the support that you need in her absence.

It might be that you can work out a plan between you where you review the work.together and this results in you learning more and becoming more autonomous.

But having some support when she is not there is also quite crucial. It might be tags she agrees to give you a slot of time to review work at lunch time and again before the end of the day if she has a day off at short notice or that you hold off submitting anything until she gets back.

Neither of these are ideal if she is overwhelmed with stress at home.

Thank you everyone, this is very helpful advice

I would talk to your boss again like JaneEyreAgain suggests, and if that didnt work I think you need to talk to your line manager. From your post you come across as a very decent person and I am sure that whatever you decide will be right. One point though, I would be hesitate to talk to HR 'off record' as I think they will be obliged to act if you tell them that someone is struggling, and thus would actually be worse than talking to your line manager.

Just to clarify - by worse i mean would escalate it more quickly than it sounds like you want it to be