help...apparently my whole team hate me!!

[seriouslydudegivemecake]

Little bit of background...so I have just taken up a management role in my office to cover maternity leave. Ive been member of staff for 10 years and often cover maternity/sickness for managers but Ive never fancied doing it permanently so have always declined when it was offered. My new team consists of 15 staff who I am responsible for, usual stuff, checking their work, prioritising and dealing with their HR etc. I stress I have also worked with everyone on the team for a number of years and always thought I got really well with everyone.

Well today that illusion was well and truly shattered when I was unceremoniously screamed at by a colleague. At the time I kept my cool and just asked him to calm down and we would speak later about it. After around half an hour we went to have a chat and he proceeded to tell me everyone on my team dislikes me, that i had been agressive toward him on numerous occassions and I was unprofessional.

This has absolutely devastated me beyond words. I can handle criticism fine and I expect them to have a little chatter behind my back when Ive asked them to keep the noise down or asked why they havent met their targets but it felt really personal today. I dont think Ive ever been aggressive toward anyone and i always put 100% into anything i do at work.

I was so hurt i went to the loo and cried told my boss i had a migraine then came home. I dont want to go in tmrw now either.

Can anyone offer any advice on what i should do? I am seriously considering just withdrawing from the management role and keeping myself to myself. I cant sleep with worry about what i have done to make people who i thought were my friends dislike me.

Glad you had a better day. Do let us know how his review goes

Did you speak to the staff member in question to follow up on his outburst?

I'm really glad you're in a better place about it and pleased you kept your cool

I've been a manager for the last ten years in some challenging places and picked up a team in July who had been through the mill

On any given day at least one person is out for my blood or "hates me" ....usually offset by others who hail that I'm the saviour of the service and yet others who try to manipulate me for own ends, all of them are lovely in their own way but it comes with being the boss

I'm a direct person but professional and polite and overtime have realised a few things

The manager is often the easiest target for frustrations and anger even if it had nothing to do with you ...they get dehumanised on occasion and teams believe they are there to be blamed for everything up to the state of the world economy.....keep your boundaries in reasonable place even when you get on with people and let the rest roll off....it's not you anyone dislikes it's usually the role

And the other lesson I've learnt is its all transitory ....the people that " hate " you now will love you Tomm when you do something they like...try not to take it to heart its all in the wind and teams as a dynamic are remarkably fickle

It's worth taking into account kiplings saying about meeting triumph and disaster the same way....as long as you know you're doing a good job hold to that

euripidesralph. I agree with so much of what you've written.

I frequently find myself uttering the words " if you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs, and blaming it on you..." on a regular basis where I work

Glad to hear it OP and thanks for updating us, I was thinking of you and hoped you were doing ok.

Op, surely this staff member deserves at least a verbal warning for screaming at you like that, esp as your the manager. if he did that to another member of staff and not you, I'm sure you would have pulled him in for an official verbal warning on the grounds of gross misconduct.

Have a chat with your manager and have him/her present when you give the staff member a verbal warning. That way if he does decide to rant at you about your unprofessionalism then perhaps your boss can give him his first written on top of his verbal as verbal was for the incident yesterday. He'll also be on his last strike at that point.

I always think it's much easier managing a "new" team than going from being one of the team, to their manager.

I used to worry about people "liking" me etc until someone said to me "they don't have to like you, they have to respect you". I really changed my mindset and it helped enormously.

I also agree with PPs that there is a lot of learned "female" v "male" behaviour and expectations e.g. If you're a man you're assertive, if you're a woman you're bossy. Fuck that.