Blind sided at work and don't know what to do next

[katedan]

I have been struggling for a while at work for a few months, lots of pressure but I work very hard and very long hours and thought I was a good manager. Today I was given feedback from my manager in relation to the people I manage,s feedback about me as a manager and it was brutal!!! Lots of negative feedback about me as a manager. I fell apart on my manager and currently see no way back. I know I could get signed off ( have not taken a day's sick in 5 years I have been there). I cannot stop crying and feel awful i sacrificed my own kids and my home to give 100% to this job and although I am not perfect I always felt I was a good manager. Please advise me as I have to face everyone Monday morning knowing what they have said.

I’m not saying this is the case, but is that feedback actually fair and are your team asking for the kind of support in their roles that are really necessary from a manager. Sometimes people don’t really want to take responsibility for their work and want someone else to make the hard decisions for them. If everyone on your team are all good friends they can also influence each other to think in a similar way. I would agree with others that you need to speak to your manager to reduce your workload so you have time to support your team.

Try to consider this as constructive, rather than brutal - but I appreciate it stings. Your team have clearly been asked for how things could be improved. From your updates, things could actually be improved by you having more time with your team. This isn't a fault of yours per se - this is clearly a work load issue. Is there anything you can delegate? Is there scope to put in a proposal to seek additional staffing - which would in turn help you to spread the work load a little? It sounds like you really like your team and I suspect they like you too - they've just been asked for input on improvements and it's felt like an attack. Unfortunately, as a manager, the blame can fall on you - even when you're doing absolutely everything you can to keep things going. There's such a fine balance between maintainung a good, friendly working relationship and management. Given this feedback, I'd sit back, consider exactly what you would do if you had the time and submit a proposal for staff development, including the time you require for it. You're being proactive in doing so and showing that you're taking on board the feedback. It's then up to your management to facilitate this. If they won't, then that's another issue.

Don’t say you wish they would’ve come to you first. If they could have then they would have. It won’t help repair the relationship to say this.

Stabbing in the back - cowards. If they needed something, they should have asked you to your face - at the time.

In terms of what to do - I would brazen this out. Hold you head up high and carry on. No more birthday presents for backstabbers. Don’t get signed off - push through this. Don’t quit - it’s your job and money.

Thank them for the review.
You surely want to know where to put effort in improving.
Respond that you will be taking a week of your holidays to reflect on how you can provide better one on one assistance to your coleagues.
Take the time, change and see how that goes.
Some things will suffer but the change might be what they prefer.
Ask for feed back more often.Take it seriously.
Be a team player.

What is discussed in reviews at work should not be a complete surprise and it's very strange that you've not had a 360 review in the five years you have been in your job. Very remiss of your manager. I wonder why they decided to have a review with you now as you've probably been working in the same management style for years and this hasn't been brought up before.
I am very cynical about work situations like this and it wouldn't surprise me if there are things going on behind the scenes that you aren't aware of. Possibly your managers have been told to cook up some reasons which will provide them with an excuse to move you to another department or make you feel like leaving. It's likely that it's not personal but it could save the organisation money.
Other posters have talked about your management style and they may be correct but I thought I'd offer a different perspective. I have been the manager told to fail someone who was good at their job, for spurious reasons. I refused to do it which didn't go down well but I would have hated myself if I'd complied.

It isn’t terrible feedback at all but did your manager present it as such and did they offer to support you to turn it round?
It is on them as much as you. Ask them to support you to build in the time for 121s. On the plus side if you are in social care and hugely busy - I can’t imagine that they would want to lose a hugely dedicated member of staff. I’m assuming it’s more about retention and making sure people don’t leave.
Sometimes people you are managing don’t see you as a real person. It can feel like the relationship with a Mum and a toddler. Deep down they appreciate you but by and large they don’t see all you give, they only notice you when they’re not getting what they want and when there is a problem they want it fixed now! 😂

You're in a role that has systemic issues and is impossible with the current workload and expectations. Your solution has been to make HUGE personal sacrifices to make this work and compensate for the systemic issues. That's not sustainable and your reaction to this suggests you're starting to burn out. Of course you would be, you've been doing an amazing job of keeping all the plates spinning for a long time. But no one has said well done for this or recognised that. Instead, they just want more and more and have been critical. I wonder if that's why this is stung so much and you've had such a strong reaction to the feedback. You've got some good management advice here. As well as this, why don't you try and work out why it has upset you so much?

I think you've got a bigger issue and that's that you're killing yourself for a job and no job is worth doing that for. It's a job and it won't look after you - or even thank you! It will just want more and more of you - if you let it. Others have given excellent advice on how to not let it while addressing the feedback (that's wasn't awful BTW). You need to look after yourself before you burn out. See this as a wake up call, like a warning light on your car dashboard, to say you've a very strong reaction to this shows that you've been working too hard for too long because normally you would have been able to take this much more in your stride. Please be kind to yourself and consider whether it's worth continuing to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

Op I knew you were in a similar role to me. Please put your family and you first. You'll never be a decent manager in a work environment like social care, the caseloads of your teams prevents that

The job of a manager is to manage others doing the work. This means you do much less of the work yourself. Which definitely feels like it can't really be the job.
1:1s should be at least 30 mins every other week. Team meetings should be at least once a week.
This is the bare minimum. You should also give feedback as soon as possible and not wait for a 1:1. The 1:1s are as much about you getting feed back as giving it.
1:1s are not about work deadlines they are about the people. How are they coping, where do they need help, what's working what's not. What skills do they need to develop. What issues are they having. What's the thing we should be discussing that we're not.

OK, it was not really bad feedback. All your team are saying is they would like to spend more time working through things with you. I have a remote manager who I see in person 3/4 times a year who probably is very similar and it sometimes leads to miscommunication.
Forget the birthday presents, no one is really interested in that. They just want more regular checkins, discussions etc

That's a rather unfair way of putting it.
The team were asked, they gave their opinion.
They didn't say anything nasty about OP, just that they needed more of her time to line manage them. Rather difficult to say that to her face when a) OP has no time and b) she is their manager.

OP don't follow the above advice. Firstly the number one measure of your teams success is outcomes for service users. If you're not being pulled up for that, then you don't have an issue there. Please don't be angry with your team, be angry with the system. It sounds like you simply don't have enough time to be the line manager you want to be. In the short term I would focus on 121s with the team where you don't discuss case loads, work etc. but rather how they are getting on, what training or support they think they need.

You shouldn’t have 10:hour days, that’s the first thing I took from it.

You shouldn’t be sacrificing your life for work. That language is very emotive and dramatic and is probably because you are feeling over whelmed and stressed. This state of mind has led you to massively overreact to some feedback on your performance. Don’t take it personally. Take it as information. You don’t have to accept it wholesale either. Perhaps ideally they would need more support but they don’t understand what else you have to deliver as part of your role. Use this as an opportunity to review where you are and what you are doing. This sounded like the perfect opportunity to discuss your 10 hour days with your manager and what might need to change to free up time to provide more support.

360 feedback is a stupid, borderline-evil idea invented by management consultants to line their pockets. It is massively open to abuse.

While that may be true where it's not done well, if it's done effectively, it's very valuable.

We have an annual meeting with our manager's manager. It's standard practice throughout the organisation. On one team, we had a manager who was obsessed with reporting and targets and wouldn't listen to what was challenging about individual cases. Staff would get bollocked because a risk assessment or action plan was a few days overdue for review and not want to know about how a client needed urgent issues addressed or what difficulties a case presented. Staff felt that much of the good work they did was overlooked because of the manager's obsession with minutiae and admin.

So many of the team raised the same issues at their "next in line" meetings, that the manager was mentored by a senior manager for a few months, and shadowed each of the team on a couple of visits so that they could see just what we were up against. It made a huge difference to how they managed us thereafter, and was really productive.

I do feel for you, I have a similar role where I am constantly pulled on all day and I know I am not able to do my job as well as I would like to, however I make sure my management team know this, I am open about it and try to get us to work to find solutions.

The system IS the problem but don’t hide in it with all the burden of all the pressure - be out in the open ‘there isn’t enough time/resources’ make sure you are trying to find solutions to your time management (even if they don’t actually exist). Sometimes there are things you can step back from, or better ways to manage time.

The feedback I get is not personal against me, I am trying my best, it is often basically the system we work in which is broken. But yes I don’t do birthday presents 😂

yes whoever said ‘they want more and more and more’ this is very true. The system sucks you into a dry husk. Those who don’t care and bad managers wouldn’t be sitting at home upset about this feedback worrying about their team.

If teams in your workplace were asked to take part in a survey then the questions asked always ask for specific feedback. The questions themselves result in feedback/encourage feedback and comments. Eg how could xyz be improved.
in my company we get feedback twice a year like this, you do become resilient. I take from it what I need to.
What you need to do is take control, a way of taking control is to simply say ‘thanks for the feedback, it’s very valuable and helpful to me as a manger’. ‘I will reflect on how I can introduce and/or work on some of these areas within what we already do’.
Its hard when you have become emotional as you literally spiral yourself eg make yourself feel worse and worse.

I agree with this.

You are chronically stressed at the moment, so you are viewing this far far too negatively.

Chin up, you got this, you can do it & you will be better off for it 😊🌻!

This is an opportunity to reset. Embrace it. Set boundaries. Get your team to help you more. Delegate. Think of succession planning so that you are empowering each team member with their career. They will really appreciate you for it and you will build strong colleagues.

No need to reactive defensively or take it as a criticism. You are obviously very conscientious and in a difficult work environment. But your approach to work needs a reset - your health is everything (I am one to talk 🙄😊, but you cannot take care of others if you refuse to take care of yourself. And you know that you are not taking care of yourself atm). Be brave, acknowledge the issue. Discuss with your team- but for any issue raised ask what practical solutions they would like to see (not promising anything, but all input appreciated, then you review everything said and form your own opinion) so that it remains constructive and up beat.

I agree with this.

You are chronically stressed at the moment, so you are viewing this far far too negatively.

Chin up, you got this, you can do it & you will be better off for it 😊🌻!

This is an opportunity to reset. Embrace it. Set boundaries. Get your team to help you more. Delegate. Think of succession planning so that you are empowering each team member with their career. They will really appreciate you for it and you will build strong colleagues.

No need to reactive defensively or take it as a criticism. You are obviously very conscientious and in a difficult work environment. But your approach to work needs a reset - your health is everything (I am one to talk 🙄😊, but you cannot take care of others if you refuse to take care of yourself. And you know that you are not taking care of yourself atm). Be brave, acknowledge the issue. Discuss with your team- but for any issue raised ask what practical solutions they would like to see (not promising anything, but all input appreciated, then you review everything said and form your own opinion) so that it remains constructive and up beat.

Have they raised any of these issues before OP? If not then I think this is really unfair. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them has their eyes on your job.

Never put work above your health and your family . You are just a number and will be discarded with a blink of an eye if it suits your employer.

You know you have too much to do.
This is just proof of that and nothing more.

You know you don't have time to give your team.
This is them agreeing with that.

It's not negative feedback about you exactly, it's feedback that your role is overloaded.

So take this evidence to the higher ups and ask how they can help.

Any other manager would have the same issue by the sounds of it - too little time and too much work.

If they can't help, then shrug and apologise to your team to explain that although you would love to spend more time with them, there simply aren't more hours in the day.

I agree with everyone else - this isn't negative feedback, your team have been asked what could be improved and they have said this.

You sound massively overworked and stressed, to have reacted like this.

I've been in your position - manager, huge public sector organisation, overworked, not taking lunch, I was always the one late for my kids picking up from school because of one last phone call or email to answer. I considered myself hardworking and conscientious. I had colleagues at a similar grade who did f all, or spent their entire time adding to their cv.

I ended up really unwell with neck and back issues because of the huge workload, glued to my desk and computer. My theory is that people allocating work will dump it on the most conscientious when everyone else has slopey shoulders.

Then an incident happened - I had reported serious wrongdoing by a colleague (I was duty bound to), and my corrupt, misogynistic manager decided to shoot the messenger. I'll not go into it all, but I ended up going off on ill-health retirement due to his harassment.

I now look back, and I was absolutely crazy to prioritise work to the extent I did. I thought I was making a difference to people's lives, and I suppose I did, but at what personal cost? I also think that one of the reasons I reacted so badly to what my manager had done (it was objectively awful what he did though, and I ended up with PTSD) was that I had poured so much of myself emotionally into the job. I now look back and feel angry with myself for not having better boundaries.

My advice is to try to use this as a reset. Push back on your manager and have a realistic discussion about workload. What can you stop doing, or delegate? In my role there was so much crap that 'needed' to be done, but in fact the world wouldn't stop if it wasn't. Stop going to meetings, or send someone else, or suggest they take place less frequently or do them remotely.

I would also knock making an effort around birthdays on the head. It's not your role, it makes you look desperate to be liked and it weakens your position as a manager, especially if you have to start performance managing someone.

I really hope you are able to lick your wounds over the weekend and start to look at this objectively. Your team want you to be more accessible for them. That's fine. Make sure you are, but make sure you start putting in boundaries around your own workload.

It might also be an opportunity for you to give some thought as to whether this is an organisation you want to continue with. It sounds overworked and a bit toxic. Why hasn't your own manager been supporting you more? You sound burnt out. When I look back, I thank my lucky stars I left, even though I hated the way it happened.

I am def reflecting on the feedback and will be making changes to improve 100% , not being defensive just very hurt but I will be using the feedback to make things better in the areas I can

You don’t need sick leave because you are upset and embarrassed. They are normal emotions in this situation.

Take the feedback on board and in your next meetings with everyone, say you’d like to shake up how you do the meetings to make them more valuable and ASK them what they need from you. You don’t need to have all the answers.