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.

Blimey!

I’ve had a couple of 360 feedbacks and found them incredibly helpful, I still refer back to mine now when I’m reflecting on my performance at work.

I think you’d have to do them very badly for them to be extremely damaging.

Playing devil’s advocate, could they be right, at least on some things? Sometimes it takes a fresh pair of eyes to come in and question! Are you threatened by them?

I agree about 360, overall. I think they have potential to be done well, and be useful - but rarely are. They can be very destructive in that context.

Could not disagree more. They are extremely damaging. Comments made with little thought can and do have long lasting effects on people. I have known people who are still on anxiety/anti depressants years after receiving ‘feedback’, people who left careers, people whose confidence has been destroyed by them. It is armchair psychology at its worst.

I suspect I am rather like your managee. For me it works best if I have my own projects or parts of projects where it is clear that I am in charge and I'm responsible for their success or failure, then leave me alone. If I fail a bit of harsh criticism works well and I won't make the same mistake again. I'm getting much better at working in teams and manage team projects now, but it's taken a lot of practice and some very understanding managers who give me genuine feedback. I get really nitpicky, critical and negative when I'm micromanaged, or feel I'm going to do a bad job of something because I wasn't given the chance to make a good job of it. I'm know I'm a complete pain in the arse. I do try not to be though!

This is what I would describe as them being done very badly.

I don’t think you need to be a psychologist to know that the feedback needs to be framed constructively and with people who are seeking that feedback. It’s not something which should be done to people as a blanket thing, and it’s not something which should be unfiltered when it’s returned.

It should not be done by anyone who isn’t a qualified psychologist. Full stop.

People who are not qualified psychologists do not have the tools to deliver these effectively and more importantly do not have the tools to deal with the aftermath.

It is really worrying that they do not recognise this themselves.

I respectfully disagree.

I think I'd tend to agree too.

It can depend, a little on the environment, but yes, I'd agree that without proper professional skills, this can be highly problematic and easily a cause of distress.

That is where you really have to shut them down and rein them in. That is behaviour that will breed resentment and put people's backs up.

I've recently had someone join our team and she is the most critical person I've ever met. I don't even enjoy speaking to her now and it's only been 6 months. Thankfully I'm not the line manager although am senior to her.. this is not a recent graduate so its not just the younger ones.

I think you need to do some research on what Leadership means in the 21st century and how to nurture the talent of staff so they get the best in terms of career development and you/ the company benefits from their productivity.

you sound as if you think management involves them only ever having one opinion (your opinion), being grateful when you praise them (depending on whether it's a proverbial pat on the head or a meaningful acknowledgement of work well done), happy for them to have ambition but as long as they sit in the corner and keep quiet.

some of what I've said above may be harsh or inaccurate, but it does come across that you think that being their manager means you must know more than them and have the last word. Nope it doesn't. One thing you'll need to do if you want to retain talent is to get to know them and understand their expectations of the job and what will make them feel like they want to stay and not head out the door.

What's the difference between 360 feedback and a line manager giving you feedback though. It's (wrongly) not very common to go through any psychology/mental health/coaching/feedback specific management training before you become a manager, so people just have to work with the knowledge they have, which yes, can knock people's confidence - sometimes because the manager is being deliberately malicious, sure , but mostly because we as human beings are terrible at accepting constructive feedback, and just as the average person isnt perfect at their jobs, neither are managers. I'm not sure how 360 would differ from this, which is unfortunately just part of working life. Is it the volume. Or people filling in the feedback badly and not backing up a bit of feedback with evidence?
I will call out my own bias here, as the only people I have ever seen get upset over 360 feedback are people who would say the feedback was completely unfounded, yet in every case the feedback as accurate.

Any observations about staff should never be stored up and dished out at "360degree time."

the time to give effective inputs into the quality of someone's work or the way they behave is at the time. Landing that information well, is the difference between the person going away with motivation to work on an area for improvement, knowing they are fully supported by the manager including requesting a relevant training course to assist them, and feeling like utter shite.

unfortunately many managers are ill equipped to address poor quality work, behavioural and attitude issues and interpersonal skills, because they don't have the guts or the communication skills so they bury their head in the sand, kick the can down the road and delay giving feedback with context at the time, and the moment is lost.

It is what stood out for me as well. OP - you need to seriously clip their wings on this one, and explain that it is not their job to either change procedures or to criticise the way anyone else does their job.

@daisychain01

Have you actually read any posts here, especially OP's?

Your take on OP's quandary & invented notion pf leadership makes no sense at all.

@EarringsandLipstick if you take a moment to read the post above mine and the few above that, which had some interesting points about feedback and the lasting damage it causes morale, I was adding to that discussion.

I think you're the one with comprehension difficulties or maybe you don't realise that this is a chat forum and people can, y'know, chat about relevant topics being discussed. Shame I need to have to explain that to you.

The difference is one person giving feedback. In PPPs that feedback is measured based on written goals. It is quantifiable and can be agreed/disagreed with privately. 360s involve many people - peers, management. Its a pile on based on very little fact other than opinions. Delivered by team managers/HR with zero psychology experience to deal with the aftermath. It is damaging and destructive.
I have seen people leave companies, go on stress leave, go on medication as a result of unqualified people delivering these as 'fact'.
"In every case the feedback was accurate" - says who? Are you a psychologist? What psychology qualifications have you got to state the accuracy of other people's opinions in relation to anyone other than yourself? I would hazard a guess - none.

I would urge anybody to refuse to participate in these altogether.

unfortunately many managers are ill equipped to address poor quality work, behavioural and attitude issues and interpersonal skills, because they don't have the guts or the communication skills so they bury their head in the sand, kick the can down the road and delay giving feedback with context at the time, and the moment is lost.

I tend to agree with the above. Many managers were promoted to their roles because they were good at doing a different job entirely. Many are not equipped with either the experience or personality to effectively people manage.

😂😂😂😂

@daisychain01

Your comprehension hasn't improved much.
You slated the OP for being unable to take on board the points the new employee had, ignoring all of OP's posts where she explained she has given ample time to the employee's points & opinions.

HTH

In my company in 360 you get to choose who you ask for feedback? You need some of peers, juniors and seniors. Encouraged to ask not just our mates, so i discuss with my manager before who i will ask. It’s not anonymous and we are coached to write reasonably about each other. Certainly if i was mean or laid into someone that would be called out by my own line management as a bullying issue.

And yes, the objective is to ask people what their opinions / perceptions of us are, because like many jobs, part of the role is being a good team player, being collaborative and so on. I guess if i worked in a genuine sole contributor job it wouldn’t be relevant or helpful but most jobs do require an element of teamwork.

I’ve found it really helpful to understand certain things I do which come across to others in a certain way, which could be helpful to the OP’s managee. Things like trying to be helpful and coming off as patronising. Most of us don’t want to go through life coming off as patronising so it’s helpful to know to address it because life is happier if we get on with people.

In my prior company we didn’t have 360 and i nearly got fired over a particularly savage feedback from a really horrible boss. Feedback from peers and the people i was managing was great (but never documented). I still have nightmares about it years later and was mega traumatised.

I guess a poor performance management process is bad whatever it is.

It's hard to work with very bright people, they can be very disruptive to teams and cause low performance from other team members as they don't value other's opinions and so others stop offering opinions and lose confidence.
We had one leave us a couple of months ago, they'd reached a senior level and whilst I will miss their insights and their sharp attention to detail, I will certainly not miss their arrogance and how they bulldozed their ideas and struggled to listen to the others who had skills they didn't possess, others were more in touch with people - emotionally intelligent and had a better feel for the aesthetic. I'm not sure you can change someone like this, they need strong, careful management and the right role, our person understood they were very direct and struggled to form relationships with certain team members, they intimated the junior team members (not on purpose but this is why they couldn't connect) but they couldn't stop themselves and their opinions and the longer they worked with us the worse they got. I didn't drop a tear when they left - I think we had a lucky escape.

You have completely misconstrued my post above.

I wasn't "slating the OP" at all, you have read it wrong. I was commenting and responding to the posts above in general terms about 360 feedback, not about the OP, not about ignoring what they'd said.

You're off on one for no reason but don't worry, just have a nice day.

You have completely misconstrued my post above.

Yes I have. It wasn't clear that when you talked about managers ill-equipped to give feedback, that you didn't mean OP.

You're off on one for no reason but don't worry, just have a nice day.

I wasn't, actually. I was replying to what I read. As I said, I didn't realise you weren't referring to the OP's situation at all.

This sounds very similar! It's exhausting.