Line managing a very patronising but capable person

[JeeezeLouise]

I am so tired of it. It's making me want to leave my job.

This person is bright. They are also extremely opinionated, critical of everyone and everything, impatient, like a dog with a bone about most things.

I try to be as supportive, responsive, accommodating, positive as possible and praise all their good work.

But I'm constantly feeling like my efforts are just thrown back at me.

I'm senior in age, role and experience to this person.
I am all for people being ambitious, but not at the expense of exhausting everyone else in the team around them.

I just need a rant I guess. If anyone has been in a similar position was a line manager, any tips as to how to deal with this would be greatly appreciated.

The thing is you're sacrificing the morale of the whole team for the ego (feelings if we're being kind) of one team member. I find managers often do this because it makes their life easier but to the detriment of other team members. A really good manager would tackle this. You have to think of the bigger picture because you'll find that all the more harmonious employees will end up just walking and you'll be left with the person who appears to want your job.

I'd start by having a one to one in which I would say that you have an open and collaborative team but the prime focus has to be in getting the day to day work done, not changing the way everything is done without thinking things through, for example any potential unintended consequences. If they have any ideas at this early stage they should run it by you in a one-to-one but only having made an appointment so it's at an appropriate time. Emphasise that you have accountability to the efficiency of the department and an important part of this is a cohesive team. Point out that other team members are finding this person's constant complaints demoralising and unhelpful.

Yes agree, giving them particular projects to work on seems to help to a certain extent but they are really keen to change how everyone else does everything

They're not short of suggestions! I'm just tired of the constant debate

Thank you.

Yes good points.

Do you have organisational values? And do these include anything about respect for others or anything similar? If possible, I would try to feed back to the employee about where you feel that they are not working in line with these values.

If you have behavioural indicators attached to the values, then even better if you can find something specific where his behaviours are not aligning with what you would expect?

I had exactly this.

I had a chat with them about people's strengths and weaknesses being two sides of the same coin. A strength can become a weakness if you misuse it.

Eg Tenacity, like a dog with a bone. So their fantastic strength is how much they care about their job and are passionate about the organisation and the quality the service users receive. Amazing, brilliant, exactly what's needed. But when they go too far with it by not taking no for an answer/pushing back too often, it becomes a weakness as it causes issue X.

And that's not bullshit, when talented people are being annoying it's usually an extension of something that actually makes them successful, in my experience. So if the conversation is a positive one on the appropriate use of their talents, they will usually understand.

Don’t do a template. That’s is lazy and poor management.

Ive worked with people like this. One was very vocal to the point of being disliked in the office, he was given more responsibility as a project leader and took to it well. However because he was so vocal, he wasn’t a good team lead as he talked people down. And other vocal people continued studying and left - both are now solicitors.

You can’t change people’s personalities. Sometimes people just aren’t the right fit. And sometimes the org. and mgt needs a good shake up.

Im sure the person’s ideas aren’t altogether new. Surely there are examples you can look back on to say why they haven’t previously worked?

Well what harm is it doing , is it a problem or just a personality clash of style?

I was probably a bit like your colleague when I was inexperienced in the workplace. What helped me was thinking about circles of control (what can I control, what can I influence, what is out of my control), which helped me think about where I direct my energy. I also came to realise that if I moaned about everything, then people people just heard the moaning and not what I was actually saying. I learnt to say less to be heard more. That's just my experience but those two things really helped me. I was open to change and challenging how I thought about things which your colleague may not be.

I worked in a team where we all got on really well, then a person like this was employed. Straight away they decided everything we did was wrong, they refused to take on board why we had certain processes and procedures. Needless to say they ended up pissing off everybody and caused a lot of work putting right all their ‘improvements’.

Their behaviour wasn’t addressed by management and one by one all the old team left.

Oof this person sounds like it could have been me a few years back. Now i think of it and cringe. From (probably) this person’s perspective they may be trying to impress with their ideas and enthusiasm, plus maybe masking some of their own insecurities. Certainly it was this way for me.

I’m lucky enough to have a great line manager who managed me very well and did the following:

• Gave me the praise I clearly was craving and adopted my ideas where appropriate. I think she found smaller things which could more easily be adopted without ruffling too many feathers to make me feel my ideas were being listened to.
• Gently shut me down on the non-helpful stuff, acknowledging my thoughts but kind of gently explaining what we can and can’t change
• Got me a career coach internally, just a nice person from another team who had in retrospect probably been briefed to coach me to pipe down, calm down, you don’t always need an opinion on everything etc. But it was sold to me as a person to help me manage my career rather than someone to help me be less annoying so i really valued it and took on board this mentor’s feedback

This probably sounds a lot if effort but I think my boss, me and wider team all feel it was worthwhile. I now contribute in a more helpful way (i think!), have calmed down and get on great with everyone. The overall team has gone from strength to strength. I feel a bit embarassed about how i was earlier in my career now though.

Hope this helps x

Same - this is what happened to me. The person in my team was almost bullying everyone and was so rude to boot!

Despite the team manager listening to our concerns nothing was done to reign in the new know it all and so I left and I know others are actively trying to get out.

I have to agree with @Pelham678 it is not good management to be sacrificing this persons ego for the sake of your team. I have been in this situation before, I am hard working with good work ethics and experienced but would gladly walk about from this poor behaviour of a colleague and manager. This really is the start of a toxic work culture and environment and nobody wants to work in that.

Thank you so much for this it's very helpful.

What changed your way of thinking?

but they are really keen to change how everyone else does everything

That's the bit you need to be really firm about. You are crystal clear to them it's not their role.

@alkinetyh

I don't think you should be embarrassed! You show great reflective skills & self-awareness.

It's great you'd a supportive manager, but you were also open to change & growth which is what's made the difference.

360 assessment from the team? Personality assessment from HR and working on soft skills.

Please do not do 360 feedbacks. These are extremely damaging and should be banned. I cannot tell you how badly these affect people.

They are completed by people and feedback given by colleagues and mgt who have absolutely no qualifications to remedy the negative repercussions.

You need to address this in a structured way. The fact that the employee is a good performer is not the full picture -their behaviour is in itself a performance issue because it is affecting the rest of the team.

In these circumstances, I would be taking the colleague to one side to have a structured informal chat.

I would serve them what is known in the trade as a "shit sandwich". In other words, start off by praising their attributes and telling them what you and the business appreciate that they do well. Then explain that you need to talk to them about addressing an issue that they appear to be struggling with -their general behaviour/ attitude. You then need to explain what you mean, along with examples if necessary, so that they can see that you are not imagining this. If they seem to accept this and do not push back significantly, you can close the "sandwich"with another positive comment and see how things go.

If they are very resistant and refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem, or if the problem persists, you will need to speak with HR about starting a formal performance improvement plan.

If you don't address the problem directly, there is a risk that the employee will see what is coming and raise a preemptive strike grievance against you, on the basis that your constantly pulling them up on their behaviour is bullying.

I would agree with the comments upthread about some of the positive steps you can take, too, but you do need to address the behaviour directly.

HR are administration staff. Are HR psychologists now? No? Then do not suggest they pretend to be. Any HR pretending to be experts on psychology should be sacked immediately.

I’ve got a whole group like this! They are very young new grads in their first role. They have expressed their discomfort at not being in the room when decisions are made and their opinions aren’t sought. We are a public sector organisation working with limited funds of public money and balancing competing priorities and challenging politics. There is no way they can or should be part of the senior leadership team.
They are unhappy that they don’t have “autonomy” to act as they see fit in relation to communications and brand and think they should be allowed to order services such as graphic design ad hoc. They have no understanding of the constraints, standing financial orders or internal processes and they don’t care.
They think nothing of pointing out where they think things could or should be done differently by people who have more experience and a full grasp of the regulatory environment, preferring to imply that these colleagues don’t do their jobs very well.
It is very difficult to manage, no matter what approach is tried, they’re impossible to influence.