I am a senior manager, above me are the directors. One team I directly manage are having issues with a dynamic I haven't been able to resolve or move forward with. I would like some advice fellow managers!
Most members of this team have worked there longer than me, and in a specific technical field so they are actually far more knowledgable in this specific field than me. I really trust them, respect their knowledge and their judgments. My role is to manage them from a HR and operational perspective (such as work flow, recruitment etc). I am on hand to make final decisions on operational issues, or guide them as to the directors wishes. Majority of the time they crack on with their work and they are self sufficient.
There is one member of this team who seems to have some issues with control, call them A. They will monitor other peoples outputs and are providing constant (mostly unnecessary) feedback. They also ‘tell tales’ to me about it. This started to affect one team member (call them B) confidence so I stepped in to tell A to rein it back and also pointed out this wasn’t productive use of their time. A has done this to other staff in the past so it’s not new.
B is newer than A, and A appears to have self appointed themselves as the member of the team no one can manage without and a martyr. A will take on a huge workload and never say no to anything, then will go off work sick with stress, causing stress to everyone else. B is still learning the ropes to some extent, but I can see that A stresses them out. B sometimes makes small errors which then A turns into a much bigger deal than it needs to be. No one is perfect and B is very involved in improving their work, but no one should have this level of interference.
As a group, I defined their roles as equal, (they are all on the same salary), although acknowledging A and others can use their knowledge positively to teach each other, but not to the point of going looking for other peoples errors.
Well A cannot manage to stop trying to control everyone else in the team, never saying no to anything, then spending even more time complaining to me about how stressed they are. I have had numerous conversations about having boundaries, not overloading themselves with work by going through other peoples work. A will not listen and has now started to accuse me of not being supportive and managing B, as B is making a lot of mistakes. B is on their last nerve. I do not have the capacity to babysit this team and neither should I have to, they are more than capable.
A is also now oversharing serious deeply personal, non work related issues with me, which then puts me in a position where I cannot address the work issues, because their personal issues are clearly coming to work with them and affecting them.
Would you start a conversation about capability and performance? Or a stress at work plan? I am reluctant to acknowledge work related stress, when the stress is caused by their own decisions at work and personal problems. I can’t see how we can move forward productively. What about the factor of their personal issues affecting them at work? I don’t want to lose this person I just want them to actually work!