Are my expectations of my manager too high?

[Fedupatwork2]

I’ve had quite a turnover of managers at my work (think big national/corporate company), but had my current one for about 10 months now.

She more or less leaves me to my own devices, so there’s no micro managing (a plus).

However:

-We work in different offices which are c.90 minutes apart, and she has not once suggested meeting in person (either me attending her office or vice-versa). It’s common for other employees who are remotely managed to actually see their manager and any travel is expensed.

-Our catch ups are simply her rifling through what she has as talking points, there’s no opener of how my week has been, how I’m feeling about work etc. Just feels like ‘best get this out of the way as quickly as possible’.

Am I expecting too much? I mean point one I can live with, but it’s symptomatic of point two. There are genuine issues I want to bring up sometimes but it’s difficult when most of the call has been taken up with her talking at me.

I feel incredibly unmotivated.

There are genuine issues I want to bring up sometimes but it’s difficult when most of the call has been taken up with her talking at me.

Take charge of yourself! Tell her at the start of the catch up “actually there are some issues I’d like to chat about today”

don’t sit there pretty not saying anything then leave the call deflated.

That sounds poor. What is she talking about for most of the time?

in your situation I’d ask for a face to face at her office, and suggest a little ‘standing agenda’ for the 1:1 calls, perhaps with one a month focusing on feedback/development rather than business matters.

If she’s poor, she’s unlikely to do much about any concerns you raise, so would think carefully about what issues to raise with her vs other options to tackle the issues.

Just work related stuff, but mainly things I hardly get involved in myself!

OK, so business matters not especially relevant to you. Poor of her. You can seek to do it differently - managing upwards 😂

I did this with an irritating past manager whose face remained nonplussed/sheeplike in all circumstances. I’d usually start off with ‘I’d like to update you on X and Y projects then discuss a challenge am having with team Z’, and stick to time so that he could cover anything he wanted to. I wouldn’t often bother asking him to help me with problems as had low confidence he’d do so!

It’s poor management skills not to ask you open questions about your work. I’ve had a crap manager for 3 years and it was so draining. She just wanted updates and then liked to tell me what to do / fling orders at me and my team.

I have a new manager and within 2 weeks I’ve had more useful and productive conversations than I ever had with previous manager. I like it when managers ask me questions / my opinion on work ideas, and when we can have a genuine back and forth riffing and idea generation. I try to do this with my team members, to give them space, autonomy and value their thoughts on how to approach the work.

That’s good - I’ve had similar managers in the past. Perils of a big company unfortunately