To think she resents me

[Purpoole]

I’m stepping up to manage my team for a couple of months whilst we wait for the new manager to join.
I didn’t apply for the role as I’m happy where I am and only got a promotion into my permanent role towards the end of 2020.
I am the most senior person in my team and have been there the longest, am very capable and have the legacy knowledge which made it an easy decision when senior leaders needed an interim solution.
There is a woman who recently joined my team on a secondment who is the same pay grade as me, but lacks the knowledge of what the whole team objectives/projects are as she is only working on one specific project. She wasn’t even considered for the interim position as it wouldn’t have made any sense, but I get the feeling that she feels she should have been as she has been in the organisation longer albeit in a totally different dept.

From the time she found out I was temporarily going to be her manager she has been trying to undermine me.
I’m very easy going but now that I’m generally accountable for the oversight and progression of all the teams projects I (unfortunately) have to get more involved in them sothat:
a) I understand the inner workings, key deadlines, activities, risks etc
And b) can report at weekly slt meetings and answer any follow up questions they may have.

It’s been like pulling teeth. I ask for something and it’s like she takes it as an attack. I ask a question that someone in SLT asked me, and she’s immediately on the defence. It’s tiring and I feel like I’m getting my back up now… which is not where I want us to be.
In team update meetings she is all over the place so I’ve tried to ask specific questions to try and focus the responses to make more sense to me/be given in a chronological order of what needs to happen and when, but she seems to take that as me implying that she’s not doing work or something. She will then reel off all the things she’s doing and it’s pointless.
I will ask her to invite me to partner meetings or share documents in the hope that it will fill in the gaps and result in me not having to ask her as much, but she doesn’t and makes excuses.

I think she thinks I’m being overbearing as she says things like “I prefer when people just let me get on with it and let the results do the talking”, but unfortunately I am the one that’s accountable at the moment so I need to at least be in the loop.

I think she resents me and at this point I’m ready for this to be over, but I found out yesterday that the new manager doesn’t start until the end of august/early September which is much longer than anyone had anticipated.

I’m keen to make the most of the interim position but this person is getting me down and I’m struggling.

What do you think?
Have you been in a similar position? If so, what did you do?

Thanks!

If this was for a longer period and you had performance management responsibility over her, I'd be saying you should include accurate and timely reporting in her yearly goals, to make it so that this is literally part of her job. However, this is such short term (2-3 more months?) that it's almost not worth introducing it at this point.

I would say be as transparent as possible: explain exactly what stats/information you need to report to SLT and when, so she can see why you are asking. You could set up a shared document that you both have access to, with headers for each project she's working on etc, so that she can just update it as she goes and you can check it, so that you're not constantly asking her. Frame it to her in a way that makes it sound beneficial to her - it's in her interest to 'show off' everything she's doing, and by sharing evidence in this way she's making sure she gets the credit for each part of the project she works on.

If all else fails you can have a come to Jesus chat with her - "I've asked you several times to report X and Y to me but you're not doing it. What's going on?" and see what she says.

You need to have a 1:2:1 ASAP. You need to be firm with her. Possibly allude to unprofessional behaviour.

Explain that you need to be kept informed of progress on projects so you can answer SLT questions.
Quote her back e.g. I know you “prefer when people just let you get on with it and let the results do the talking”, however the his does not work for me nor the SLT. We need to agree a method that works for both of us that ensures SLT have the information they need, when they need it.

Then ask her what her preferred method is of regularly updating her managers, this puts the onus on her to say her preferred method. It also means if she doesn’t deliver you can then try and address it again.

In team meetings when asking for information de-personalise it by stating SLT has asked for this information when can you provide an update or there is an SLT meeting tomorrow please can everyone send me an update on their projects. As pp suggest you could introduce shared spreadsheets/project update docs.