Manager gone cold/distant on me- should I ask for a chat?

[IDontHateRainbows]

Manager and I used to get on really well - been there 18 months she's been managing me half that time but worked together before that, all good. In the past few months I've noticed an increasing sense of distance although she is friendly enough to my face. But re work stuff:

• I'm being brought in on things really late so unable to provide a proper input
• 1:1s are supposed to be monthly but most of the time cancelled and not put back in so I'm not clear on what I'm supposed to be doing. I've had two this year (actually 1.5 - one was a meeting about something else and I tagged on a catch up after but this was at my instigation.
• I was completely cut out of the loop on something that is essential to how I do my job and could have harmed my professional reputation.
• Communication has become more directive/micro-manage-y, so instead of asking what I think about x or do I have a view on x she's doing all the thinking and then telling me to execute something. Not a problem in some roles I know but it is different to how it was before. She even made me recall an email, with other people cc'd in, as it didn't say exactly what she thought it should despite her not telling me how to respond and me having authority to respond (ie I had no requirement to check it by her)
• I've sent a few emails clarifying some work tasks or asking for a chat on the issue above when I was cut out of the loop (framed nicely as 'can we have a chat about your expectations of my involvemnet in x) -radio silence.

Clearly something's up and it's fucking HORRIBLE to have someone you once got on with really well change like this.

What the flip do I do. I don't want to go above her head to her boss, he would expect me to have tried to resolve it first. I don't know whether to approach her, whether that would make it better or worse. How do I even say something to someone being like this?

When I came back after a short sickness she was as nice as pie, asking me if I was better and being friendly. Said we would have a chat once I'd settled back in - nothing happened.

I KNOW something is wrong and I'm not imagining it but I don't know what to do and it's stressing me out big time.

I would put a call in with my manager if I needed to discuss something with them. Or just call them.

Try proactively communicating with her, asking questions, seeking direction when you need it, giving feedback straight away when you’ve been cut out.

I've tried proactively asking questions such as she sent this project plan to the whole team and I had some questions, she just ignored me. It's hard to reach out to someone who is slamming the door in your face. But I don't think I can pretend this is not happening for much longer as it's affecting my mental health, motivation and ability to get on with my job as I'm upset and distracted.

Is she extremely busy? I know when my manager had got a lot of new reports I've seen and heard from her much less, and get shorter responses, but I generally take no news as good news on that front.

Well she sent an email at 11 pm last night (not directly to me, it was cancelling a meeting that a lot of people were cc'd on one of whom was me)

Aargh thinking now to just send her a text asking for a chat. Do I do it?

You need to request a one to one meeting with her and list your concerns.

Because I am afraid you need to start documenting everything from now on as there is a real possibility that this is the start of you being pushed out of your job and/or singled out as a scapegoat if the team is maybe struggling to meet its target.

No decent manager would fail to schedule regular catch up meetings with you or would deliberately ignore you and make your job difficult by falling to communicate adequately with you. Doing this is considered bullying and very unprofessional of her.

You are so right - I've been normalising /minimising /excusing this for months thinking she's busy, or she's parking it til X meeting or whatevs. Truth hurts but it's a bloody shitty way to treat someone.

If she’s the same with other team members and you previously had a good relationship I wouldn’t perceive it as bullying. It’s more likely she’s checked out, perhaps overwhelmed or disengaged due to work issues of her own or personal issues, stress or health related.

I’d keep your response work focused as it’s not your responsibility to manage any of that. So if you need to talk to her about the project plan then schedule a meeting with her. If she cancels it, re schedule. If she cancels again then raise it with her manager.

I didn’t understand when you said you’d text her to ask for a chat. Is your workplace quite behind in terms of tech, are you not able to schedule a teams meeting?

I texted her as she's more likely to respond to that than a teams invite. That's how bad its got!

Obviously can put in a teams, or physical mtg once broached.

God i HATE confrontation. I was bullied in a previous role and learned 'keep your mouth shut to survive' and it's never fully gone away

I hate confrontation too, that’s why I’d keep
any dialogue totally neutral and task focused. You need direction on x so just keep asking for it until you get it.

Your other option is to simply get on with things without her direction. I’ve actually really enjoyed roles in the past where my manager had no interest in my work, and I was able to just get on with it.

Happened to me and I was getting pushed out due to pressure from above. I think it might have raised it sooner in hindsight but I’m still not sure it would have made a difference.

So what would happen if you just sent her a meeting invite? Does she just not respond?

I had this recently from the managers perspective. Everytime I asked a team member to do something, it was constant arguments on why they had to do it in the first place, cc'ing my boss in to everything, even the back and forths.

I approached it from I notice things between us aren't smooth and I really want us to work well together. They deliver a huge amount of work and I'm really appreciative of everything they do. I did a lot of acknowledgement of their work instead of finger pointing at all the things that were frustrating me. I acknowledged my short comings, such as I know when things are urgent (on top of our usual flat out), I get more direct and my communications are shorter and were they misunderstanding my directness as a personal attack? I ended with I'd love to hear their thoughts on what's happening and how we can get back on track.

Obviously a conversation ensued. I owned the bits I could have handled better, even if I could have shown where I mostly did "it" exactly as they were saying they wanted. The point of the conversation wasn't point scoring, it was how can we deliver as a team.

Well, knock me over with a feather, post meeting there was an instant change. Things I'd been asking for ages not to happen stopped immediately without me saying anything. Argumentativeness disappeared. I'm floored.

So my advice is set up a 1 to 1 and work on your wording to express what you're feeling. You feel excluded from tasks and brought in at the last minute. You acknowledge manager is really busy and delegating can take time you don't feel you have, but it would then free them up to focus on other priorities. You really want to contribute positively to the team, support your manager and work well together. How can you get that back on track?

UPDATE - so I plucked up the courage to ask for a meeting and now it is ALL SORTED! She was really open to all my points, it's not me, it's her - she's been really busy and some of the work is not ready to pass down yet but when it is she wants me to own it. I think some of this is likely backtrack, think she realised I'd been left out of things a bit, but I don't think it's personal just very busy schedule and things slipping. Have agreed more regular catch ups and other stuff like development.

I'm really glad I had the chat as I was imagining all sorts of nasty things about being fired or iced out, looking back I don't know why it seemed so scary but I guess it's easy to say that when it's gone well and I've had other workplaces in the past where it has not been safe to raise things, but I thought better raise it and resolve it than suffer in silence.

So glad to hear that @IDontHateRainbows! I think it is best to take this approach and give the person a chance to sort it out. I had to do this recently with my manager over a couple of things (mainly that he was verging on micromanagement). He was totally gratefully and appreciative of the feedback as he’d started to pick up that I was a bit pissed off, he wanted to fix it and we agreed how we’d work together and actually it strengthened our working relationship.

Well done OP. What a relief. I'm in a slightly similar situation in a volunteering role - repeatedly getting left out and forgotten- and I'm thinking the same, it is obviously bad practice but due to the. Managers head being too full, not trying to get rid of me.

Thank you. The probelm is that some managers can weaponise this kind of thing - I've seen that myself in previous roles - eg you say you want more frequent 1:1s they say yeah sure but are thinking who the hell are you telling me what to do and they don't follow through. Obviously this is bad managers/toxic environments, but it only takes 1 or 2 experiences of that to think 'don't rock the boat'

I am confident this manager won't be like that. I know she was quite proactive in wanting me to join her team. I think it's literally just a case of things slipping and she needed a nudge.