This is so frustrating.
At my workplace there are several smallish teams (4 - 8 people) and in each team one person is the team leader. This person also does the same job as the rest of us but is paid more for doing more administration, going to the management meetings and feeding back whatever management wants this week, and generally being the point of call for anything that doesn't fall in the standard role remit. I would say that 80% of the team leader's role is just to do her job like the rest of us. 20% extra stuff on top.
In my team, we are all qualified professionals who have been doing this job for quite a long time. We work collaboratively at times, and there is a decent amount of respect for each other's expertise and professionalism. I like my collegues and often learn from them.
Also worth saying that although one person is the team leader, other people in the team might be the authority on a particular aspect of the job. I have a contracted part of my job which makes me the lead on one aspect of our work for the whole staff, and management defer to me on this particular thing because I have experience and qualifications in this field. The same is true for my collegues in other areas.
For reasons best known to themselves, management have appointed a new team leader in our team who has never actually done our job before. She has been extremely heavy handed in her first two weeks, definitely trying to make the point that she's The Boss. She assigns us admin tasks, which is unusual. She says things like "and when I say that's due on Monday, I mean before 8am Monday, not at some point when you feel like it." She has not made the slightest effort to get to know any of us, and she is certainly not coming from any perspective of respect for any of us being able to do our jobs.
We are not a team in need of 'fixing'. In fact, we're doing well and have been leading the way this year. She has come from a background in managing a small business. I think she thinks we're staff. Which, I suppose we are, but it's really getting everyone's back up to be spoken to constantly like teenagers trying to cut corners in their part-time job. We all work hard and take pride in our work.
I have a large piece of work coming out in a couple of weeks and she asked told me she would like a sample so she could check I was on the right track. This is unheard of. (She has never actually done the thing I'm doing, whereas I have done it many times before). I asked her what she wanted to check for, and she told me that she checked my collegue too and found they were overusing pronouns in their writing. WTF?? Anyway, I gritted my teeth and sent her a page of my work and she's sent it back covered in highlighters, and apparently I overuse pronouns too. (I'm actually going to quote her feedback: "You have used two many pronouns. Can you join some sentences together so you use less?" I promise I'm not making this up.)
I can't complain to management (very complicated situation). I'm stuck with her for the rest of the year. How do I manage this without being rude or bursting a blood vessel in my temple?
Please, please, does anyone have any calm and measured advice on how best to deal with this situation?