Hate being a line manager

[susanaa]

has anyone else tried a line management job and decided it wasn’t for them?

I am 3 months in. I think my team is challenging outside of my inexperience - so maybe if I led an easier team, I’d enjoy it more.

I’m currently feeling deflated. 2 people on my team are a nightmare to manage - one has performance concerns. The other applied for my job and didn’t get it, so is very standoffish and rude and unwelcoming. This one also gives advice to the other, so it feels like them against me and I dread team meetings. I’m not sure how much experience I need until I feel comfortable in role, or if I just need to cut my losses

Also my manager isn’t supportive. The issues I am dealing with are concerning by nature, but I get the feeling experienced managers might ignore as to not rock the boat. So is it my inexperience that is making me tackle this?

It's definitely something you learn as you do more of it , so I would say stick with it if you can.

Couple of things that really help

Get a mentor - if this is something your organisation doesn't support (they should), look outside. You need a safe space to offload and get a second pair of eyes on your experiences. And to get support, practically no one is good at this to start with, and mostly not confident either, in fact the over confident ones are often the worst leaders. Find out if a local college is running coaching courses, if so they often need coaches and can be a source of high quality free coaching.

Learn about leading people, and about yourself! There are loads of internet resources or books. I'd recommend Dr Nicole LePera for understanding yourself and your reactions and Kim Scott Radical Candor (American spelling) for leadership. I especially like the last as it gives practical tips and exercises.

Hi, in my past job I was a line manager, and I got my position a week before the lockdowns. I didn’t hate it per se, but it was very challenging, and many of the staff I managed had lots of performance/intense mental health issues that made me dread dealing with them. I envied my peers who had easy teams to manage. Like you, I also had to manage people who had also applied for my role.

Eventually, I found my groove and stayed in the role for 2 years. That isn’t to say I enjoyed it.

It is very important to have a manager that supports you. My manager was not very supportive in the sense they seemed a bit clueless about what was going on most of the time. I would ask other higher ups for guidance and support, and that’s how I learned and developed a thicker skin. Eventually, I learned to emotionally detach from the annoying things and silly dynamics. I had a “community” outside of the team I managed that gave me perspective and kept me sane.

I strongly urge you to see if you can find similar mentors, as it certainly helped me with the emotional aspect. 3 months is not very long, and I am sure in time you will evolve in the role. However, that’s not to say you have to stay in it. Use the transferrable skills you develop to see if you can transfer to something else down the line.

Definitely agree with the comments regarding a mentor. Peer to peer support as well is invaluable if you can identify a few.
I previously managed a very very challenging team. Now manage another team have at least 2 challenging staff. You will always have one or 2 that challenge or have performance issues.
Managing staff isn't easy so you do need to consider if this is for you.
Having a supportive manager is a game changer though.

It might be too early to write them off, but my manager isn’t really supportive. To date, they just sort of make the right noises but never follow through. The one time I pushed, their implementation was weak and fell flat. I raised concerns with them and they raised them in a team meeting to “support” me. Someone made a unfounded/unevidenced remark blaming me and my team which my manager knows is false, particularly as it’s something I actually alerted them beforehand. My manager didn’t even correct them or show support. I think there’s an expectation I grit my teeth and go with the flow

I’d recommend that you read the Ask a Manager blog regularly- the person who runs it is American so some of the advice on legal issues isn’t relevant but she is down to earth and her practical advice on how to deal with staff issues is excellent!

Managing staff is an underestimated job. Sometimes it's rewarding as you develop people, mentor them support them through personal issues, achieve team success etc.... Often you're the person stuck in the middle of service and higher management requirements and individual staff who behave like petulant toddlers whilst you try and ensure the rest of the team are not impacted.

OP- Are we twins? This sounds exactly like me a few years ago. I also had to manage a colleague who didn't get the job! I inherited a team that had multiple issues- lateness, sickness, underperforming and more. I had to performance manage several, navigate referrals to occupational health then read up all about maternity appoinments/allowances/risk assessments, because 3 announced their pregnancies within a month. I went on a leadership and management course, and thought it was useless, as was our HR department.

People are often given jobs at the next level- because its the natural next step, but there is often no training or support to actually line manage and deal with managing people!

I would read all your HP polices, especially if you need to performance manage anyone. Do you have anyone at the same level you could speak to or at a another site/branch? Things improved for me once people were managed out of the company or left, and I got to appoint my own staff. I'd give it more time and see how you get on.

BTW- I no longer line manage. Its just worked out that way, not a specific decision, but I'm also grateful to not have the additional stress.

I hate managing people and now won't do it. I hate managing people, I'd rather stick a folk in my eyes than be a people manager again.

I had that , promoted to manage someone who wanted the job. Had to stand up to him and had a mentor. Years later we were friendly and he admitted I was better than him. Pick your battles , but every issue you learn from and if you do nothing, they will walk all over you. I wanted a career though, so had to take it on or fail. You will know how much you need it.Management training in the UK can be crap , you are just thrown in. good luck

I'm a line manager and it's so stressful. There's me and another colleague who are full time and our 3rd colleague works 2.5 days a week. We need to line manage 70 staff and it's so awful. Especially when they're ringing in sick or putting fit notes in 😔

It is hard, especially if your team have a lot of health/personal issues. You end up spending all your time with five or so people who have problems and neglecting the other 15 who are getting on quietly with the job, which is all kinds of wrong. I did it for three years and wouldn't want to again

If your team have health issues do you think they want to have them? A good manager will deal with this effectively, supporting their team AND look after everyone else, not neglecting anyone.

There are only so many hours in the day! Even the best manager will need to spend time to sort out issues and support staff. I inherited a team with multiple health issues, pregnancies and performance management issues. I had no time to actually do my own work and next to no support. How would you have suggested I supported everyone, when I was already worked additional hours in an attempt to get it all done???

Not sure where you're getting the ' do you think they want to have them' bit from - I've had more than my fair share of health issues myself, I know it's not something anyone would want.

Just as pp said, there are a limited number of hours in the day.

@CharlieBigPotatoes1 No need to be so aggressive. Things like this can happen. Yes, ideally we should be able to spend an equal amount of time on each staff member, but I’ve had days where handling particular staff member issues took many hours. Instead of being able to use time to plan out staff development plans, it was a case of putting out huge fires caused (unwillingly, of course) by staff with devastating mental health issues. That was on top of all the other daily duties expected of someone in a management position.

All you can do is make it clear to your own supervisors that you’re falling behind for X reason, and see if the workload can be temporarily alleviated so that staff don’t suffer as a result.