Not getting much work delegated even though manager is clearly under huge pressure

[Coldsoup]

Hi, can someone who has been in this situation help me figure out how best to manage it?

I took a drop in seniority to move role about 10 months ago, because I had to relocate for family reasons

My manager constantly looks very stressed, is getting chased all the time for things and complained to. They don't have time for 1:1s etc.

I most definitely do not have enough work. I turn everything around quickly and regularly remind her that I can take on more work. I am more than capable of much more complex work and she knows it. I don't understand why she isn't passing on more of the work to me? And I don't know how to have the conversation when she is always to busy to chat (we are meant to have a fortnightly team meeting too but she always cancels them). One of my peers is quite busy, the other one perhaps a bit busier than me but definitely could take on more.

Beyond nice reminders we can do more, what can we realistically do. I don't want to do anything that might be seen as "managing up" because I really like my manager I just want to take my share of the load

Yeah been there done that, I think the answer usually is that there isn't actually that much work to do at all, it's either that your manager is incompetent and hence the flailing around struggling to organise themselves and constantly chaotic, and/or they're deliberately acting very very busy because they're worried that someone else will notice how little work the team has to do and will make some or all of you redundant (why hire a new person into the team in the latter scenario you may ask, thing is not filling a vacancy is a clear signal to higher ups you're struggling for work).

What to do, personally I'd stop outright asking your manager for more work and just quietly try and fill your time more, if you see things needing doing, do them, even if not your grade or your official job just get yourself known as helpful/ a do-er, get yourself out there outside your own team, frame it as part of your induction process, go for coffee chats with people in other teams or ask to shadow them for a day or two, attend meetings that aren't strictly within your remit so long as they aren't super confidential. Especially with the incompetent manager scenario you have to find ways to quietly and diplomatically bypass them or take work off them without it seeming like you're overriding them or taking over their job, so e.g. if you can attend key meetings and take an action, say things like you're happy to do a first draft of that document or make an action plan for that change and will of course bring everything to them for their approval. You can also offer to your colleagues to do some of those horrible dull tasks no-one ever wants to do e.g. review and update all your team SOPs or guidance documents or create a training handbook, create workflows or flow charts, clear off any filing backlog, audit something - humiliating I know lowering yourself to junior admin level when you are meant to be colleagues but most people have been there.

From my experience what I would absolutely not do if everyone is is participating in the 'we're soooo busy, can't talk must dash, got sooo much to do' fallacy, even if it's very obviously nonsense is call it out explicitly or challenge it - that makes you no friends at all. Just recognize it for one of those strange corporate games we play from time to time, you'll probably make more friends and have a nicer time and ironically get given more work by pretending that you too are rushed off your feet but as a great favour you'll help them out with xyz...

I get your point, but I'm not sure. I think there really is plenty of work, it's just not being passed on. They have several complaints about delays because they aren't progressing work (and that's just the ones I know about). So the work is there but they seem to be hoarding it

From experience, it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees when this busy, and taking the time out to carve out and train someone else on something seems an impossible additional task. If you can identify some discrete pieces of work that you can take completely off their desk, I'd try to do this (and let them know). I had a boss who also felt bad for passing things over to me, so you need to assess if they have a martyr complex at all.

I get what you are saying @EmmaStone , and I definitely had weeks like when I was a manager. And I definitely know that delegating to some people(especially junior staff) can be more work that just doing it yourself.

But this has been going on for months. And they know I don't need any hand holding or explanation, I'm happy to just be chucked a task and figure it out from there. I can't pick up work separately because our process is it all has to come through them.

Just bumping this because I would welcome some more thoughts.
I know it seems a nice problem to have but my career is stagnating /slipping back as a result. I am applying for other jobs at same salary now just to get a more interesting/busier workload

If you’ve got to the stage of looking elsewhere, you’ve very little to lose by being really honest with her. Have a look at Radical Candor by Kim Scott or Dare by Brene Brown for approaches where you can be really frank but in the right way.

next time she cancels a 1:1 call it out - a 1:1 is for your development and for her to give you feedback (she may struggle with giving effective feedback in which case, those books would be good for her too!) skipping 1:1s is not saving her time in the long run, if you leave she will have to train someone else.

are her/your teams targets/objectives transparent ? If so, could you identify one that you could be completely responsible for taking on, framed as a development opportunity for you. Add on any milestones/stages that would give her reassurance that you are on track. I think a PP suggested this too.

do you have a 360 degree feedback system in place? Or employee satisfaction scores? If so, suggesting how to improve these by making work appropriately challenging might be a better way to approach this.

I personally love the Gallup Q12 questions (not an advert, there are plenty of other employee engagement tools around) because they get to the heart of what is needed. Even if you can just work through this list and your own responses, then identify one or two actions that would increase your score (from memory it’s a 5 point scale from ‘not at all’ to ‘yes, completely’) you will start to feel better and that you are not just waiting to react to her

by the way, the questions may seem a bit weird but their database is truly enormous and the “best friend” question is strangely hugely statistically significantly correlated with business success

Thanks this is helpful. I really like her, and everyone in my team /organisation, but to be happy at work I have to feel like I am developing and learning and productive. That's more important that a pay rise to me

I think you are right, she's actually cancelled the whole series of 1:1s and vaguely said she would sort some "soon" but I may need to bite the bullet and put a time in her calendar I think

I have no advice as am in the same situation at my work. Unfortunately I don’t know what to do about it as nothing I say either politely, or once, in an upset and frustrated way seems to get the message across that it is seriously impacting me. Like you I don’t understand why someone would not delegate when they are ridiculously busy. It’s affected my work wellbeing and driven me to consider and look elsewhere in the longer term. I have concluded that some managers (like my previous one) are natural delegators under whom you can build skills and grow, and others either don’t really trust anyone else to do the job or take it all on their own shoulders unnecessarily.

Yes I used to be a manager and I always looked for opportunities to develop and grow my team and help them progress their careers, that's what baffles me really

Exactly - I am only recently a manager but I am already worried that the person I manage will get bored and resign due to the lack of work I have to pass down so I am creating things for her to do!

Can you do your role elsewhere?

Yes it's quite an easily transferable role and there's a lot of demand for people with my skills, so even though I really like everyone where I am it doesn't make sense to stay and be massively underutilised

I have been in this situation where manager was keeping all the work to herself and team were twiddling thumbs. She was only giving work to one team member who use to work with her for years. Every time k ask her she would say there's too much and when I ask I'll work on xyz, she would say she will work on it and then she can handover. Thst work never comes to me. Her boss would say that delegation is an issue for my manager so, everyone knew she had thst issues. Her promotion was paused for to lack of delegation. Eventually she left and we all jumped on the different responsibilities which she was holding for us. I managed to woek on few tasks and my new manager was impressed with take woek and promoted me immediately. It was very clear thst she was holding the team.

There are a few things that could be at play here:

1. So busy that dont have the capacity to do the delegation. Sorting out lists and allocating tasks takes time in itself.
2. Dont actually know what you’re capable of. You know you’re capable, but they don’t necessarily know that. Ten months isn’t actually that long if they’ve not got capacity to pay attention to how you’re performing.
3. In theory know, but dont have the confidence to let go of stuff. If they’re accountable, and they’re not rock solid confident you’ll cover it properly and they will ultimately feel they need to repeat it or check it it’s easier in their eyes just to do it themselves.
4. Feel threatened by you, and by keeping stuff close avoids creating space for you to show them up.

How you tackle it depends on which of the above you think it is. Forcing the 1:1 to happen and tackling the subject is probably the way to go regardless. How you tackle in that depends on your view. To get best result, might be worth aiming for an outcome where you take one type of thing, or one chunk of things, or something recurrent, or something baseload esque. Or something that know will come soon rather than is already on the list. Gets a bigger outcome, and skips tye handover / letting go issue if it never really went to them.

I work with someone like that, thankfully not directly. She holds onto all the work because that is her power. No one else then has the info or processes to be able to do the work.

She won't document anything properly so all the information is held with her and her alone.

She berates staff as incompetent behind their back even though when speaking to others it is very clear her staff are highly competent.

She gets overwhelmed, stressed and likes to tell everyone about it but refuses to delegate ,she has been given budget to hire two new people to help but has refused to even try to fill the vacancies.

She's toxic and nothing will change it. It's all about retaining power unfortunately.

Thanks, this is a helpful breakdown of possibilities. It's definitely not 2 or 3 (I've got a long track record of success in actually more complex work than anything she would be delegating), I suspect it's a mix of 1 and 4 and for me whether I stay and push for work or just leave depends on getting to the bottom of that.

I was wondering if your manager feels threatened by your experience too.

But I've employed incredibly good and experienced people before and I actively made the most of it. It's fab being able to delegate to people and know the work will be done. I don't want to take her job, I just want to be well occupied doing mine.

It can be 2 or 3, even if you’re better at the job than your manager.

2 is a reflection of your managers knowledge of and confidence in your skills. If they’ve not seen you consistently demonstrate them (which sounds like they’ve not had capacity to see) then that capability is quite possibly unproven to them. You’ve probably come across people with excellent sounding CVs who’ve failed to live up to them.

3 is a reflection of your managers approach to responsibility. No reflection of your skills. But their approach to how they handle accountability. If they’re responsible for a task, they may not have the confidence to be able to delegate that without fully checking it.

We've worked closely for 20 years , on the other side of transactions from each other ,I was hired for my reputation not my "on paper" skills though

I genuinely like and respect her, but if someone doesn't delegate enough of the decent quality work to their staff I don't know why they would expect them to stick around. I now have a lurking suspicion that's why my predecessor left.

Yeah. You are sort of showing us why you would be better at her job than she is. I think you said that you didn’t want to ‘manage up’ but it’s either that or you find something else.

it’s exactly why it’s just not so easy for very good very experienced people to take a drop in responsibility. Who recruited you? Could you ask them for some advice in what is a tricky situation.

knowing whether the best level up are hoping that you can address a situation they must already know about might help you decide on a strategy.

all the best. It won’t be easy but it would be very satisfying to get the situation resolved while keeping everyone on side.

more likely , they leave and you take over. What can you do to prepare yourself for that eventuality?

Next level up I meant.

I don't want them to leave and me take over, they are a decent person and I want to just be a good part of their team. The location of the job is very important to me for now and if I was getting decent work I would be quite happy.

But watching someone keep all the juicy work while they drown with pressure is demotivating. I am more motivated by interesting work than by salary if that makes sense.

I was in this position once. I did all the things the very sensible first response you got suggested. And then I looked for a new job.

In the process I realised all the staff at my level were in the same position. Everyone pretending to be busy!

My so busy manager then left about a week after me, and went to the other side of the world to do something completely different.

Happy people don't behave like this, and well run organisations don't let them!

sorry @Coldsoupif my messsge sounded a bit kill or be killed. I really didn’t mean it to come over like that.

im just not brilliant at an oblique softly softly messsge. I’m guessing that if your current manager had the skills required to delegate and celebrate the success of their team, they would already be doing so.

i think you might indeed have the skills to manage from behind, you might just need to make your peace with that being what is required. I get the impression you are wondering why your manager is not stepping up with skills which for you are easily within your skill set so that you are reluctant to imagine someone not having that capability ( in spite of the evidence). Getting them to realise what they should be doing and acting on it is imo one of the few things would would be even more difficult than getting yourself in a position to help them step up

thats why I would be looking for support or at least tacit acknowledgement that something needs to change from their management to help you get started.

I know I’m projecting here. I once in a similar position put together a slide pack which I spaced over for ages only for ‘the next level up’ manager to say why had it taken so long and that solving this problem is why we offered you the job.

would have saved me six months of angst to know that from the start.

Hope it goes well with you.

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