Strategies to deal with unpredictable colleague

[mammasmadhouse]

Hi All
I work with a very successful academic who works in a male dominated area, we largely get on, however at times she seems to not trust the way I deal with things. At times I feel micromanaged. She doesn't like to say no to anything regardless of her workload and does put in a lot of hours, which means at times she is often doing stuff last minute resulting in requests for info, that requires prep/work with little notice, and a lot of pressure. If she is stressed I get a lot of messages/emails/calls even when she is on leave. In meetings she will quite often talk over me. Last week I spoke to her about some additional work we need to do to improve security & safety, and was told that she thought what we had in place was working ok. The next day a male colleague mentioned the same thing, (he joined the meeting I had arranged about this with an external colleague but did not stay for the duration but I updated him after) and she didn't push back on the request in this conversation at all. I can be asked what is needed to sort for example visitor access and will respond to find that she has also spoken to someone else who has advised differently (in this case this was also the person I spoke to and I did mention this). I just find this so difficult to deal with at time, it is a bit like walking on eggshells sometimes as I never know whats coming. I know she values the opinion of the male colleague but I have also become aware that any ideas or suggestions for improvement I make, he will at times speak to her about as if they were his. So I do feel really conflicted about all of this at the moment and just not sure how to deal with this or even if I am the problem in this?

Any words of advice, bar finding a new job, as it is starting to wear and affect my confidence

Given you don’t want to leave, and you’re unlikely to significantly influence your manager’s way of working, in the examples you’ve given above I’d suggest the problem is the male colleague. Did you invite him to the meeting because it’s his specialist area or responsibility? If so, it’s then pretty normal for him to update your boss. Ideally that would also acknowledge your ideas and input, of course.

One option would be to work on building the working relationship with him e.g. “I’m very committed to the safety project, could we work together on it?” That might give a longer-term opportunity to build trust, rather than separate episodes where you feel a bit ignored.

Essentially, what I’m saying is - look at who your boss trusts, see if there’s any of their skills / behaviour you could learn from, and if all else fails try and secure them as an ally so they will also encourage your boss to trust you!

Develop some boundaries. Push back if her lack of organisation means she places unreasonable demands on you. If she ties to micromanage you then just say 'Would you prefer to do this yourself? I'm more than happy to pass it over to you'.

The endemic learned sexism of some (older?) female bosses is a thing imo.

I had that too, mainly older female team, only 2 males on it, you should have seen how female boss was bigging up the younger of the 2 men! Backing his promotion, giving him a massive platofrm, talking down female employees, mentioning their family responsibilities and health issues in public......

How long have you been in post OP? do you think she goes with whoever she knows best, taking thr path of least resistance as she's so busy, she doesn't have time for strategic thinking?
Could you give it some time and find ways to build her trust in you e.g smaller projects done perfectly by you which she has no choice but to acknowledge your fab input?
Do you have 1-1s regularly, how is she at the nuts and bolts of managing you e.g performance reviews?
Can you pre-empt her next need or a task e.g creating a new streamlined way to do xyz and ask her if you could be given sole responsibility as you feel ready for it and wpuld relish the chance to have sole charge of it.
That way she'd not go running to her (male) go-to maybe.

If you don't want to leave

Thank you @Allwelcone @Hidingthegoodchocolate @WonderingWanda for your replies, my LM has suggested that it maybe that this academic favours working with male colleague and struggles to see other females as an equal. I can appreciate that in her field she has had to prove herself.
I have been in post 18 months and have had some very limited good feedback. The male colleague is very much a yes man and is looking for promotion and we do work quite closely on some aspects as our roles do overlap. Male colleague was invited to the meeting and joined for a few minutes in the middle. I am the detail person, who pushes back when things aren't quite right. A a couple of pieces of work I did at the end of last year, where the academic didn't like what I had done was discussed with the male colleague, who of course made me aware of this before anything was mentioned to either me or my LM. All in all I feel a bit invisible at times and I am just not sure if I am taking this the wrong way or not?