Maintaining boundaries with difficult employee - did I handle this wrong?

[marriagehelpplease]

I need to navigate a tricky situation at work and would really value some outside perspective. I recently had a difficult employee leave. Looking back, I'm questioning my approach but also feel frustrated by how it's been perceived.

The employee had a pattern of inappropriate behavior - questioning my diary movements, repeatedly asking what was wrong in front of the team, and generally crossing professional boundaries. I responded by maintaining more professional distance and limiting informal chats, keeping our interactions to necessary work matters and formal meetings. Previously, I had been intimidated by them and didn't challenge their behavior, continuing to be friendly, but I finally had enough. They were also recently under performance review, adding an extra layer of complexity, so I chose not to involve them in extra activities to allow focus on performance improvements.

My decision to create this professional distance has been criticised by some (male) colleagues, who think I should have just "stayed friendly" and that my approach made things unnecessarily unpleasant. They keep saying the outcome would have been the same either way, so I should have just been nicer.

The employee claimed I created a horrible environment, saying I'd "changed." They even complained about me not speaking to them in their final weeks, despite being on annual leave and working from home for most of that time.

What's particularly frustrating is how my male colleagues consistently prefix any discussion about her with "I like her, but..." which makes me wonder what conversations are happening behind the scenes. They refuse to see her behavior as calculated, while my female colleague understands exactly what I've been dealing with.

I'd really appreciate thoughts from other managers who've dealt with similar situations. How do you maintain professional boundaries with someone who doesn't see their behavior as problematic? And how do you handle the criticism when others think you should have just "been nice" regardless of the behavior?

Is withdrawing from personal conversations and maintaining purely professional interactions wrong in such situations, even if it makes your feelings evident? I'm trying to learn for next time (hopefully there isn't one!)

Looking back, I think my main mistake was not setting firm boundaries from the start. Because we were both senior, I thought the dynamic could be different, but I now see this may have been naive.

Anyone?

I worked in a school rather than a corporate environment.

There were lots of difficult employees. Very few of them saw their behaviour as problematic,

I would say it's more unusual to have a difficult employee who does realise that they are causing problems to management (although some will realise and not care)

Refusing to have personal conversations - I presume this means that you wouldn't say hello to them in the corridor or ask about their weekend at break time.

If so, then yes it probably made the situation much more difficult.

Employees can be not up to scratch or difficult for a whole raft of reasons, none of which mean that you should essentially freeze them out of everyday pleasantries.

The employee will have noticed and may have presumed they have personally upset you, which for some people can be very difficult to cope with.

It's like firing people - ideally you do it in as "nice" a way as possible even if you don't like the individual concerned.

Thank you @Octavia64 , not quite was extreme as not saying hello no - but definitely less 'chit chat' interactions and contacting them at work at home days for general how are you chit chat yes. But never being out right/obviously rude in the way of blatantly ignoring.

It's been one of the most difficult managing situations of my life. Not because of the process but they are the kind of person to take zero accountability for anything

Are you said person's Manager.
I have a staff member like this who has no awareness of boundaries, overshares and is in general a bully to other staff.
I've had sone respite due to staff member being on a sabbatical but they are due back in January.
When behaviour was poor I would raise it however as staff member has mental health issues regardless of how I feel about them as their Manager I owe them a duty of care.
Therefore I still enquire how they are, I still ask after their family etc. I still praise them if work has been good.
I also feel that I should not treat any staff members differently or take things personally.
I think you are just making the situation worse as it comes across as hostile
How I intend to manage it is when I see boundaries being crossed I will cut the conversation short. I don't feed the behaviour.
It is hard but I think you need to take the higher road here.

repeatedly asking what was wrong in front of the team I personally don’t see anything wrong with this as you do say I responded by maintaining more professional distance and limiting informal chats, keeping our interactions to necessary work matters and formal meetings. So one minute you were friendly and the next minute you were ice cold it appears. Did this person report to you as you just say you were both Senior. If they didn’t report to you then I think your approach was totally wrong.

@HermoinePotter yes they report to me

Remind them that working relationships and behaviours are not about what feels good for the individuals, as a Manager you have to look at it from the angle of what is good for the organisation, and anything that damages that needs to be managed robustly.

@Redflagsabounded yes problem is this person is very manipulative and when friendly with them, the manipulation would get worse and rudeness, which is why I cut it out as a form of self protection but then has been perceived as me being cold and nasty due to the switch

There's not really enough information in your OP about their actual behaviour to judge whether your approach was warranted or not, but in all honesty I wouldn't waste too much time worrying about it.

Sounds like this person was a bad apple and now they've gone, so does it matter if she didn't like how you interacted with her?

As a general rule, you don't want to leave yourself open to accusations of bullying when performance managing someone, so you should continue to be professional and pleasant. But that doesn't mean you need to be chatty or overly friendly - if anything I'd argue that you don't want to give mixed signals if you're dealing with serious performance issues.

It sounds like you may have made your dislike of her a bit too apparent in her final weeks, so that's a lesson for you - but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

@elessar the pit. You make about mixed signal is exactly why I did what I did because even a month into the performance plan they were clearly not taking it seriously and this wasn't due to capability it was purely their attitude so I figures if I'm more stern with them they will understand

Sounds like the change in behaviour really got to her...

But agree does it really matter now?

@Allwelcone agree I need to move on! It's because I care deep down and want to improve that's all.

@marriagehelpplease My decision to create this professional distance has been criticised by some (male) colleagues, who think I should have just "stayed friendly" and that my approach made things unnecessarily unpleasant. They keep saying the outcome would have been the same either way, so I should have just been nicer.

Don't second-guess yourself and perhaps remind your (male) colleagues that their hindsight is a great help, but the action you took at the time was the only possible course of action you could have taken, given the particular circumstances!
They may have been willing to 'be nicer' but the (sad) fact remains that men can often deal with a 'situation' in a different way (ie they ignore it)

Logically, if the outcome would have been the same either way, then why should you affect your mental well-being by 'being nicer' to someone who was obviously taking the piss??

**edited to include @OP

@marriagehelpplease I need to move on! It's because I care deep down and want to improve that's all.

Have you considered the fact that you may not need to improve!

In whose eyes do you need to improve?? - your eyes of your (male) colleagues? Who weren't in the actual situation ....... and who " like her, but..."

It's easy for them to offer advice after the event, but really all you can do is go on a gut instinct of what's going to work under those specific circumstances.
You can follow HR general guidance but there isn't actually there isn't a 'one- size- fits- all' response (despite what male colleagues say)

A problem employee who is on a performance plan is never going to sing your praises. She's gone and you need to move forward, and own your decision. Self-reflection isn't a bad thing, but I wouldn't be taking any male colleague comments to heart (unless it is specific feedback that you require). My only query would be if you were treating the problem employee differently to your other reports? If you were maintaining the same professional level across all staff, then no problem.

@EmmaStone yes treatment was largely the same, except I'd withdraw when they were rude.

But I don't have chit chats with anyone, they were a very needy person that had an inflated view of themselves and therefore expected more attention and initially I gave it to them. After they became problematic I withdrew.

I think it was very unprofessional of you to treat someone who reported to you the way you have. You didn’t have the confidence to have a conversation with them but instead withdrew. You need to do better as a manager and I agree with your colleagues male or female, this could have been handled much better.

That last comment was a bit harsh.
i dealt with a similar situation where we both wfh, and while I kept it as pleasant as possible, it would have felt inconsistent to have a chatty exchange about triv one day and then have an appraisal giving negative feedback the next day. Looking back, sure I could have probably handled it better, but I did the best I could at the time while juggling many other plates.

I’m going to guess you’ve had no management training or coaching.

communication is the most important aspect of management.

so why on earth didn’t you speak to them when they were working from home?!

They even complained about me not speaking to them in their final weeks, despite being on annual leave and working from home for most of that time.

I think it was very unprofessional of you to treat someone who reported to you the way you have.

Have to say, I'm inclined to agree with this. It must have been quite a dramatic change in behaviour for the employee to have picked up on it, so it's not really surprising that it was interpreted as hostility. You just can't do that as a manager (or at least not make the change THAT obvious!).

You sound like you made a horrible environment in work tbh. Very unprofessional.

Is it because she was a woman and you felt you needed to put her in her place ?

What do you mean by 'I chose not to involve them in extra activities to allow focus on performance improvements'? Does this mean she was excluded from team events? If so I'm not surprised she left and your other team members didn't agree with your management style.

I think it’s difficult to judge whether you were unfair just from your post.

I used to work with someone who I suspect had Narcissistic Personality Disorder or, at the very least, displayed clear traits of it. I believe he also struggled with mental health issues. On top of that, he was a misogynist and a bully, lacking any insight into how his behavior affected others.
As he kept overstepping boundaries, I had to distance myself from him and limit my interactions with him to the bare minimum. I think some people might have seen that as 'rude,' but the reality was that I needed to protect myself from him.

Ultimately, I made a formal complaint because his behaviour was unacceptable, and I didn’t feel safe in his presence when we were alone.
I had no choice but to distance myself from him and minimise our interactions.

I dont beat myself about the fact that I could be nicer to him, I think some people need firm boundaries.

They were also recently under a performance review, which added an extra layer of complexity. So, I chose not to involve them in additional activities to allow them to focus on performance improvements.

I understood that as you being considerate enough not to assign them extra tasks so they could concentrate on improving their performance.

Or did you deliberately exclude them from certain activities that were obvious for the whole team, which could be perceived as undermining?

When I first became a manager of a team I discovered there were more people than I was expecting to came up and tell me why they thought I'd got it wrong. This was men and women, I had a team of 22. So I listened to them, talked to them and discovered they were just opinions, other staff had whinged to these people and those people decided to champion their cause. Which sounds like what happened in your case.

As long as you were polite and acknowledged her when passing and got back to her queries in a timely manner you didn't do anything wrong. She just went and whinged to people who might stand up for her and they did.

My basic 3 go to phrases for these gallant champion types were

"Thank you, I am aware of that and it's being or been dealt with"

The other version of that is "Thanks, yes of course, I'm sorry but I can't talk about that situation, I'm sure you understand why" Then rinse and repeat that you can't talk about it if they bring it up again. That adds an element of "you only have half the story" to remind people they only heard on side.

"The person telling you this should really be telling me. I will schedule in a chat with her about it and bring up the points you have told me" (That shuts the gossipy champion ones up really quickly and stops said colleague running to them because they are a blabbermouth). You do need to be quite confident to do this and carry it out but 8 times out of 10 they will beg you not to say anything.

None of them are lies.

There are always going to be staff members you don't like or who will push your buttons, I know full well I am one of the button pushers so I had to swallow some bitter pills knowing that. Staying professional is key to all of it and staving off the opinion airers and champions is all part and parcel of management.

And while it is good to know a little something about how yor staff are doing inside and outside of work, knowing too much can prevent you from being an effective manager too when tough decisions come along.

Having an environment where the staff member knows you are approachable and they have your support in your professional capacity should be a requirement of all team management roles. You don't have to be best mates for that. Chit chat is fine as long as it is light.

I am a very experienced manager and I think you didn't do anything wrong. You were performance managing them and they were being aggressive and difficult. You can't be all matey with them - it would have been inauthentic and potentially confusing. Don't second guess yourself - and thank god they are gone!