‘Jane’ is a mid ranking manager in my wider team - collaborative, assiduous, and produces good work. Areas for devt have included a tendency to ‘turn’ against people where she feels they haven’t supported her as she has wanted; disorganised, so others have had to pick up significant workloads to help meet deadlines, and not always been proactive (confident?). She also struggles with feedback and cries, often needing a couple of hours to recover.
I have managed Jane across a few projects and have always supported her. I have advocated for her, taken time to go through feedback, taken work off her plate, given her space to discuss challenges etc - I have given a lot of time to trying to build her confidence.
on a recent project, there was another manager between me and Jane and this manager raised several concerns about Jane’s performance. She fed these back to Jane, Jane cried, they worked together to address these points - this happened 3 times until the manager said to me she needed to replace Jane in order to meet deadlines. When she shared this with Jane, Jane took it badly, walked out of work and has now been off sick for 6 weeks.
In the meantime, she has shared with her line manager that she feels this situation is largely of my doing; that she was struggling and I hadn’t checked in on her enough, she doesn’t want to work with me again and has used the ‘toxic’ word.
I feel pretty hurt by all of this tbh. All her feedback previously has been of the ‘exemplary leader’ type and to have leapt so quickly to this feels like a real kick in the teeth. I obviously have to be professional when she returns, but I’m battling a strong personal desire to distance myself - be polite but remote. I worry this is petty and I need to be the bigger person / continue to support her - wondered if others have experienced anything similar and what they’ve done?
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Managing personal feelings while being professional
MaintainingBalance · 25/03/2024 06:53
Medschoolmum · 25/03/2024 07:38
In your position, I would ask for the matter to be treated as a formal grievance with a proper investigation. She should not be allowed to throw around words like "toxic" without you having an opportunity to properly respond to her allegations.
Unfortunately, you are discovering what most managers discover sooner or later. When there are performance issues with an individual, 9 times out of 10, they will look to blame a manager for their underperformance. Even when you have bent over backwards to help and support them up until that point.
The only solution is to not take it personally. Of course, when people raise issues, you should reflect on your own behaviour to consider whether the comments they are making are potentially valid, but if you have done your own soul-searching and concluded that there is nothing to warrant the claims, you just have to accept this as something that goes with the territory of management. When people feel threatened, they lash out, and because of your position in the structure, you may well be in the firing line.
I find that the best way of dealing with it is to rise above it.
WarshipRocinante · 25/03/2024 08:27
She isn’t up to the job and cries all the time. You’ve wrapped her in cotton wool, taken work off her plate, done things for her, haven’t just been Frank with her. She cries anytime her performance is questioned… and you haven’t put her onto a PiP? That’s bad management. And now that someone else has said enough is enough, off she goes on the sick and you’re still trying to figure out how to continue on as if this didn’t happen?
When she comes back, she needs to be put onto a performance improvement plan, you need to start documenting everything properly and getting everything lined up to manage her out. She can’t do the job…. In a way, you have created a toxic environment. She can’t handle the job or anyone else managing her because they expect her to actually get the work done, so she fails. Because you’ve been covering for her. Stop it.
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