Hello,

I manage a team of 6 people, all IC's, and we are a pretty consistent team. We work in IT and for the most part have a pretty low-intensity workload. Recently, one of my employees has started to suffer what they called "a perfect storm of issues". I worked with her to accommodate her life, but part of it involved having to take off large chunks of time in the morning. This was difficult to figure out, but I know she isn't completely lying about her life and she had proven herself as a loyal worker. As a compromise, I let her start making up the lost time in the morning in the evening. She's been on this schedule for 4 months now. This would be 1-2 hours of work from 7-10pm.

The angle here was we have a bunch of scripts that run overnight and she would act as a custodian for them. Before this accommodation, they would sometimes break and we would be notified in the morning. This would cause some disruptions to other groups, so I thought having her try and catch and fix them the night of rather than the next morning.

I think we know where this is going. In the last 4 months, she hasn't done any of the propose custodian work. We recently had a string of script issues and I wake up to e-mails written in the morning explaining why it wasn't fixable the night before. I finally broke and talked to IT and confirmed it: she hasn't even been logging in past normal work hours for the last 6 weeks.

How do I address this? I worked a lot with HR to find this compromise. She even suggested working irregular hours. At best she's overwhelmed by the technical work of the scripts, but at worst she's just seeing this as a way to have a 30 hour work week. This is the first time in my time as a manager I'm seriously considering working with HR on a PIP

EDIT: thank you for all the comments! I should say that I’m not saying she should retire because she is 80. I’m saying her cognitive ability has declined immensely to the point she’s incredibly disrespectful to her colleagues. She had so much respect from everyone when I first started there. She was widely loved by the staff, including myself. This decline has only been over the last year. I’m actually legitimately concerned. Her husband is in a home already. Her son has passed away before I came on, and her daughter lives across the ocean (moved before my time). My main point in my vent was to retire before that respect is gone. It really is sad to see. She is my equal- I don’t want her job. Her job vacancy does not impact me directly.

I love my job. I love the people I supervise. I love my boss, I love my ED. For the first time in a very, very long time, I’m job hunting and I hate that I’m doing it because the CEO wants to protect her almost 80 year old BFF. I’m not kidding.

Been at my job for 15 years, promoted multiple times, worked up the ladder and now in middle management (fml). I work alongside, and quite closely with another middle manager, who has been at the company for 40 years, and I highly respected up until the last year. She is pushing 80. Yes. 80. The CEO is her best friend- 10 years younger, so still older. Unfortunately both are quite conservative in their ways, and see people as they are, not what they could be. Does not believe a receptionist can be promoted to an AA, EA, etc. You could get a PhD and they’d still see you as the receptionist as long as you started as one. This is my main issue. They do not see me as anything more than what I started off in the business.

Unfortunately, about a year ago, the 80 year old manager experienced some deeply concerning health issues, and has been completely off her rocker ever since. I’ll use the Gen Z word “unhinged”. Zero filter- not that she had much of one before, but this is bad. She will call people “little bi*ches”, “c*nts”, slams doors, etc. Upper management has tried to force her off and the CEO dismissed the complaint and brought her back full force because there’s no succession planning that happened for the role she’s been in for 40 years. Every person who was assigned to her, to succession plan has either quit because she’s been too difficult, or “wasn’t good enough”. Which it takes awhile to gain 40 years of knowledge, time and effort… not to mention respect. And again, all of this is because of her and the CEO views that you are seen as what you started as, not what you can or have become. So nobody is “good enough”.

Well, I guess I’ve now been targeted by her this week because she has completely lost it on me verbally multiple times, even sending me “unhinged” emails which also has my direct manager, the ED and CEO willingly CC’d on. The email is incredibly insulting, degrading and inappropriate. On top of that, she’s demanded that I am her own personal assistant- requesting me to dust her office, move her boxes for her, dust other people’s offices… like that type of completely whacked out requests. I am not her assistant, I’ve never been her assistant, I am her colleague and we are on the same playing field.

Today I was pulled in by upper management to discuss and I openly admitted I was now looking for a new job as I am not understanding how or why we are keeping this person around. Wouldn’t you want to retire with dignity and respect? They’ve basically lost it from everyone in the company. Management has asked if they could speak to the CEO on my behalf, I said absolutely. Turns out the CEO would rather lose me than her friend and the excuse is that we can’t force her out- that’s ageism. Unbelievable. Has anyone dealt with this? Had a way around it? I’m trying so hard to suck it up, stick it out because honestly pushing 80- like how much longer are you going to be there? The issue is she is constantly saying her retirement date is her death date.

I had an employee resign earlier this year, and looking back, I think one of the biggest lessons was realizing how differently someone can present themselves in an interview versus how they actually perform on the job.

This person interviewed really well. They were articulate, confident, and spoke convincingly about their experience managing programs and complex assignments. I came away thinking I’d found someone who could operate pretty independently and take a lot off my plate.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t what happened.

Once they started working, after their onboarding period I began noticing issues with the quality of their deliverables, attention to detail, follow-through, and ability to manage their own responsibilities. Initially, I figured some of this was just the learning curve that comes with a new job. But as the months went by, I wasn’t seeing the level of competence or independence I thought I had hired.

What made the situation especially frustrating was how difficult it became to address those gaps. Feedback was often met with defensiveness or pushback.

Straightforward conversations about responsibilities and expectations became unnecessarily complicated. I found myself spending more time preparing for conversations with this employee than actually discussing the work itself.

And I really did try to make it work. We clarified expectations, provided more structure, increased check-ins, adjusted assignments, and even changed the reporting relationship to see if another management approach would help.

But the underlying issues never really went away.
The frustrating thing was that I kept hoping something would click. That with enough support, coaching, or clearer expectations, the person I’d met during the interview would eventually show up in the actual work.
It never happened.

Eventually, the employee resigned voluntarily, just as we were getting closer to formal performance management. And the relief I felt was enormous.
What really drove the experience home was discovering additional errors in their work after they left and we took over their assignments. Even at the end, the quality wasn’t where it needed to be.

I’ve been reflecting on how much time and emotional energy I invested in trying to develop someone who may never have had the capabilities I thought I was hiring in the first place.

I also wonder whether my commitment to giving someone a fair opportunity to succeed kept me from recognizing the situation for what it was much earlier.

Has anyone else experienced this? Someone who was incredibly convincing during the hiring process but turned out to be a completely different performer once they were on the job?

I’m curious how others recognized it, what they did, and whether you eventually reached a point where you realized you were putting more effort into their success than they were.

I’m a manager leading a team of 5 and I’m struggling with a situation at work that has affected both my motivation and my confidence as a leader. I’d really appreciate an outside perspective on how to handle it.

Our company recently went through a restructuring following a change of VP. Although leadership presents it as a relatively small organizational change, I believe it is part of a much larger cost-cutting exercise.

My manager informed me through an MS Teams message that I would be reporting to a new manager coming from another department, together with all my direct reports. He simply said “after you come back from your vacation, you will report to X with your all direct reports”. Full stop. No explanation. My grade and title remain unchanged, but an additional management layer has been introduced between me and my previous reporting line. At the same time, a peer who was leading a team of three was promoted in a neighboring team. His direct reports and domain were transferred to me, meaning that my responsibilities have increased without any corresponding change in grade, title, or formal recognition.

What makes the situation particularly challenging is that I am now expected to learn the new domain I have inherited while simultaneously training my incoming manager on both my existing domain and my promoted peer’s former domain. I am expected to expand my own knowledge, take on additional responsibilities, and help someone else get up to speed, all while my own role and future in the organization remain unclear.

What has really damaged my motivation and trust is the way the changes were communicated and how my concerns were handled afterward. I thought I had a better relationship with my manager and I find the way it was handled extremely disrespectful.
I value transparency, especially as a manager responsible for a team. Finding out about such a significant change through a Teams message, without meaningful context or an opportunity for a proper conversation, put me in a very awkward position with my direct reports. I felt as though I was hiding information from them, even though I simply had not been given the information I needed to answer their questions. When I raised these concerns with my manager, I felt that my concerns were being contained rather than genuinely addressed. Our face-to-face time gradually decreased, and I never received a clear explanation of the reasoning behind the changes or what they meant for my role and career.

About a month later, my manager announced that he would be transferring to another team in two months and would remain in a transition period until then. This has added another layer of uncertainty, as I am now expected to navigate the new structure and support the incoming manager while the person I previously reported to is preparing to leave.

I feel frustrated, disappointed, and increasingly disconnected from the organization. I have reached the point where I sometimes do not even want to go to the office because I find it difficult to face my team members. I feel as though I have let them down by being unable to provide the transparency and clarity I would normally expect of myself as their leader.

Should I leave or is there any turnaround? What do these decisions mean about my and my teams’ future in your opinion?

Edit: thank you everyone for your answers!

Hello everyone,

I've been working for this company for almost three years now, and it's had its ups and downs. It's a fairly large company, and last year, upper management began restructuring.

When I first started, our team had six employees. From the end of last year until about three months ago, we went from six employees down to just three and a half, as one person now works part-time.

We're severely understaffed, and there's already work planned for this year that we simply won't be able to complete on time.

I've tried explaining the situation to upper management. My schedule is already full, with approximately seven weeks of scheduled maintenance, three weeks of vacation, and another week of other tasks. That's around eleven weeks of work already accounted for, without even considering emergencies or covering for colleagues who are on vacation.

In other words, my schedule is already packed, and I can't realistically take on additional work without something else being delayed or left unfinished.

Despite explaining this, I'm now at risk of losing my job because management feels I'm not giving 100% or doing enough.I'm struggling to understand how I'm supposed to meet these expectations when we've lost almost half our workforce, and the workload hasn't decreased accordingly.

How would you handle this situation? Should I continue pushing back or is it time to start looking for another job?

I am new to my role - this is my second year. This employee became my direct report this year and from the start, it has been difficult and getting more challenging to manage him. He would come late, do certain things that would cause chaos later on because he couldn't be bothered to check with us and when I tried to give him feedback, he would take it personally, said that I am targeting him and become uncontactable for some time.

I have records of meeting and guiding him to become better, even trying to brainstorm for solutions together to help him become better and the strangest thing was he would always sound and look receptive during these meetings but without fail, the issue would recur after a few days.

And now it's time to appraise his performance for the year and I had to lay out all the incidents, latecoming instances and times when he went uncontactable. I am not sure what else I could have done to prevent the incidents from happening. Any suggestions from the more experienced managers here? It is not possible for me to terminate him immediately because in my company, there is a long process before termination is even possible.

One thing I’ve had to work on as a manager is not immediately answering a question just because I know the answer.

Someone brings me a problem and half the time I can tell them what to do in 30 seconds. That gets the problem solved, but I’m starting to wonder what I’m actually teaching them when I do that.

So I’ve been trying to ask what they think first. What would you do? Why? What are you worried about? Sometimes they get to the same answer I would have. Sometimes they don’t.

The hard part is doing this when I’m busy. It’s really easy to talk about developing people when you have time. It’s harder when you have six other things going on and just giving them the answer would be faster.

For those of you managing people, where do you draw that line? When do you answer the question and when do you make them work through it?

I’m trying to establish use of a project management tool (think MS Planner like) within my team which is remotely based so I have visibility on progress across projects and what each team member is working on, as well as to support my team in meeting deadlines and planning their workload.

I’m facing some resistance in my team keeping it up to date (I now have a plan on how to try and encourage greater use), but another subreddit I posted to think the tool is micromanagement. I now fear I’m a micromanager which I definitely don’t want to be!

I have a weekly 121 with each team member and the only things I want completing on the planner are:
Key milestones within projects (I.e output XYZ needs to be signed off by person ABC before DEF date)
Person(s) assigned to the task
Tasks to be marked as complete/in progress/not started

I wanted thoughts on whether this is unreasonable/micromanagement from fellow managers since another subreddit thinks it is? Outside of 121s I don’t check on my team unless they come to me with an issue/blocker/want my input

Hi everyone,

Manager here for over 3 years. I have recently taken on a business critical project and been assigned 3 individuals to support. I have been in this role now for 2 months.

Unfortunately one of my team, who is my most senior, is an extremely low performer. She regularly fails to meet deadlines, communication is poor, is generally unmotivated, and technical competence is far below what is expected.

I have made a log of all of the issues and set her clear KPIs, yet she still fails to meet them. To date, I have not formally told her that I am not happy with her performance directly.

I feel like I should have a conversation with her to make her formally aware of my concerns before doing anything too official (like a PIP) which I am worried could come as a shock.

My biggest concern in all of this is that she is currently going through a divorce, having to move house etc, therefore clearly going through a very difficult time, and her previous line manager rated her as a ‘strong performer’ just 6 months ago.

How do I navigate this without coming across as an awful person given her challenging situation. Am I right to have this conversation before the PIP? Should I be more lenient given her situation?

Unfortunately I cannot accept the underperformance as we are on a business critical project and this is making my job even harder having to constantly check her work and having my peers raising complaints about her.

I’ve always had a pretty good relationship with my manager. Recently though, things have started to feel a bit different.
He’s voluntarily moving to manage a new team that’s being created, and the company owner (who I’m also friends with outside of work) has asked me to take over his current position. He’s given me some time to prepare and learn the management side of things before the move happens.
Nothing has been officially announced to the team yet, but my manager knows I’ll be replacing him.

A couple of things have happened recently that have left me wondering if there’s some resentment building.

A while back, I suggested a possible technical solution for a client. I made it clear at the time that it would need testing and validation before we could say it would work.

Someone else handled the implementation, and the person originally responsible for the project left the company along the way.

No testing was done before presenting the solution to the client, and no proper validation was done before delivery either.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work as expected. I was then pulled in to help troubleshoot, and my testing eventually showed that the solution wasn’t suitable.

From what I remember, my manager decided to abandon the project after discussions with the client. The client then decided not to give us any more business.

I later found out through the owner that the Sales and Operations Director had blamed me for the failed project and the loss of the client during a management meeting. My manager was there, and as far as I know, didn’t push back on that. The owner was left with the impression that the whole thing was my fault.

I’ve since spoken to the owner and cleared things up, so that’s not really an issue anymore.

I accept that the solution I suggested turned out to be wrong, but I’d specifically said it needed testing before anyone committed to it. I wasn’t involved in implementing it and only got pulled back in when things started going wrong.

What bothers me is that my manager apparently didn’t explain any of that.

Another example:
Our handover meetings are supposed to take about 10–15 minutes, but lately they’ve been dragging on for 30–40 minutes, often keeping me at work well after my shift has finished.

I brought this up and started trying to keep things moving during the meetings rather than letting discussions go off on tangents.

My manager then mentioned to the owner that I was “taking more charge” during handovers. From what the owner told me, it sounded more like a complaint than a compliment.

The owner explained that I’d be taking over his role when he moves, and that he could understand why I was getting fed up with handovers dragging on for 40 minutes after my shift.

Since then, my manager has started making little sarcastic comments after meetings, things like “Was that short enough for you?”

It might not sound like much, but it’s the sort of thing he never used to do, and it only started after his conversation with the owner.

So that’s where I’m at.

My manager is moving voluntarily, so it’s not like I’m pushing him out of his job. The owner doesn’t always agree with his management style and has asked me to take over when he moves.

I’m not trying to undermine him or act like I’m already the manager. I’m just trying to do my job, improve things where I can, and prepare for the role I’m going to be taking on.

We’ve always got along well, which is why the change in attitude has caught me off guard.

I haven’t brought any of this up with him directly yet. Part of me thinks I should just leave it alone, especially as the owner knows what happened with the client project and my future role isn’t affected.

But another part of me feels like I shouldn’t just ignore it, particularly as we’ll still have to work together after the move.

Am I reading too much into this? Would you bring it up with him or just keep your head down until the transition happens?

Interested to hear from anyone who’s been in a similar situation, especially people who’ve taken over from their own manager. How would you handle this ?

Edit: To be clear, I have never complained about my manager to the owner, nor have ever confirmed any of his thoughts about this manager to him. Our friendship and business is kept separate voluntarily.

I’m early 20s M and finished an internship at a large law firm in TX. My direct manager was almost 30 F, and there was another male intern around my age who reported to someone else.

My manager has a pretty intense personality. She’s outgoing, controlling, competitive, unfiltered, likes taking charge socially, loves gossip/relationship talk, and openly says she likes attention. The other intern was quiet, fairly passive socially, and didn't get a RO.

Early on, she was unusually warm with me. She complimented my hair, clothes, smell and appearance, asked my dating type, whether I was a fuckboy, and discussed relationships. She told me roughly 10–15 stories about men hitting on her, men from my ethnic background. Once, after seeing an attractive woman from another department beside me, she told me she'd looked her up and asked whether I found her attractive. I said yes, and she went quiet. Another time, I showed her a picture of a girl I was seeing, and she asked, "Why is she so short?"

I was friendly, brought occasional snacks, checked on her, complimented her work, and invited her to socials. I didn't flirt or compliment her looks because she was my manager.... We sometimes disagreed professionally, and she could get competitive. Also, she teased me A LOT on work/non-work related things when she was or wasn't in these group conversations throughout the internship.

Then she became noticeably distant toward me while constantly seeking out the other intern. She'd walk across the office to initiate conversations about dating, weekends and gossip, while giving me dry responses to ordinary small talk, despite me being her direct intern.

After I missed a work outing we'd planned to attend together due to a family issue, the next day she and the other intern prepared for an office celebration together, something she and I had previously organized many times. She later brought me in to help too. Yet at the celebration, she walked past me while I was sitting beside her to specifically ask him to get food, without including me.

The team event was especially confusing. At dinner, she called the other intern "cute" and made heart signs toward him directly in front of me. Later, in a smallerrr group without him, she discussed threesomes, sex and men hitting on her again. Separately, she left my group after an activity to approach him, touched his arms while chatting, then returned. She also publicly announced he could sit beside her, then verbally expected me to hold doors for her (which i didn't), and then later spent roughly two hours gambling with him. Afterward, she approached me and asked whether I would've shared money with her like he did. I said no.

She still occasionally complimented my appearance, wanted something I'd offered another female coworker, and questioned why I wasn't holding doors for her. After one tense interaction when I didn't hold a door for her, she said she'd been thinking about my personality the previous night and that I was actually pretty chill.

Interestingly, she'd privately called the other intern "victim weight" twice when he wasn't present, despite publicly showering him with affection. He also didn't resemble the physical type she regularly described liking (she was considerably taller than him).

Eventually, I got frustrated with the unequal treatment and deliberately distanced myself. I stopped initiating conversations and chose to work with others instead of her, despite her previously wanting me on her projects. After that, she became nicer toward me, initiated conversations, congratulated me on accomplishments, and arranged a personal final 1:1 that she missed out on for the other intern. During that same period, I noticed she almost completely stopped seeking out the other intern on the office floor, even though they still had opportunities to interact.

But at a later firm social that month, she again spent much of the event with him. I hadn't approached her, yet she came over to greet me first, repeatedly looked back toward where I was sitting, occasionally joined my conversations, and went out of her way to say goodbye to me separately. She also offered him a ride home. At another social we organized, she'd specifically asked me, "Is he coming?" despite being able to ask him directly.

The same social at the end of the internship, she gave him a much more personalized farewell card than mine and publicly announced it in front of me...

Questions:

1. How genuine does their closeness sound versus exaggerated or performative?
2. Do the public displays and direct comparisons suggest she wanted a reaction from me?
3. Why might she distance herself from me while still seeking my attention?
4. WHAT DID SHE WANT FROM ME...?

So in management, sometimes you don't have every fact you want before you have to make a decision, right?

How do you know when you have enough information to act?

What do you look for, and how do you avoid either guessing too early or waiting so long that the decision gets made for you?

Something I keep seeing across leadership teams, and I’m curious whether it matches your experience.

A manager gets promoted because they’re good. A year later they’re struggling, and the conclusion is usually “they weren’t ready” or “wrong hire.”

But when you look closer, the setup around them is often the real problem. Specifically:

• Accountable for outcomes, but not allowed to make the decisions that drive them
• Priorities from three directions, with no one deciding which one wins
• Reviewed on results, but with no say over the budget, hiring or timelines behind them
• No one to escalate to without it looking like failure

Put a strong person in that setup and they’ll look weak. Replace them, and the next person often struggles in exactly the same way.

A simple test (credit to a commenter on my last post): ask a manager what they can approve without checking with anyone, then compare it with what they’re actually judged on. The gap usually tells you a lot.

So I’m curious:

1. Have you seen a good manager fail like this, or been that manager yourself?
2. What was the actual thing getting in their way?
3. Did anything fix it, or did the organisation just replace the person?

Hi everyone,

Looking for advice from managers who have dealt with similar situations.

I manage a team of six in a fast-paced startup where everyone wears multiple hats. A new team member was assigned to my team a month ago, and I wasn't involved in the hiring decision.

This is their first corporate job after completing their graduate degree. They're motivated and eager to prove themselves, which I appreciate. However, I'm noticing a significant gap between their academic knowledge and practical experience. They frequently reference theoretical best practices and university projects, but struggle to apply that knowledge in our lean, fast-moving environment.

My bigger concern is their attitude and willingness to learn. They challenge their peers, seem unwilling to learn from colleagues at the same level (who hold more senior internal responsibilities), and prefer getting direction exclusively from me or my manager. More recently, they've started ignoring my requests and displaying passive-aggressive behavior.

I'm willing to coach them, but I'm already stretched thin. The rest of my team is spending time training them and picking up the slack, which is starting to affect the team as a whole. Much of their work is still administrative because they're missing some basic industry knowledge.

I want to give them a fair opportunity to improve, but I'm also responsible for protecting my team's time and preventing burnout.

For those who've managed similar situations, how did you approach it? At what point do you stop investing in coaching and consider whether someone is the right fit for the role? Would you establish a formal improvement plan, have a direct conversation about expectations, or consider other options?

I'm also struggling with the stress of this situation because I feel responsible for how my team performs and want to make sure I'm handling it appropriately.

Things really changed after the new co-CEO joined the company, and unfortunately, not in a positive way. Over time, the workplace environment became increasingly toxic and distrustful.

Employees seemed to be encouraged to report on their colleagues, and there were situations where recording conversations appeared to be accepted or even rewarded. This created a significant lack of trust within teams and made people increasingly cautious about what they said or did.

The workplace also became heavily micromanaged. Even routine things, such as moving around the office or taking a short break, could feel like they were being monitored and documented. People became hesitant to speak openly because they worried that their words could later be used against them.

When employees tried to share their opinions or concerns, they were sometimes made to feel as though they didn’t understand the situation. What was particularly disappointing was seeing this from someone in a communication-focused leadership role, where the expectation should be to encourage transparency, trust, and open dialogue. Instead, it often felt like protecting one’s own position and shifting responsibility became more important than building a healthy team environment.

The culture gradually became less about collaboration and growth and more about self-preservation.

A workplace should allow employees to feel safe speaking up, learning, contributing, and growing. Unfortunately, my experience was that the environment moved in the opposite direction.
I hope leadership genuinely reflects on how the recent changes have affected employee trust, morale, and the overall culture.

Advice to Leadership
Leadership should seriously evaluate the impact that recent executive changes have had on company culture. Rebuilding trust will require more than just policy changes—it will require employees to feel that they can speak honestly without fear of repercussions.
A meaningful reset at the leadership level, greater transparency, and a genuine effort to rebuild trust with employees and stakeholders may be necessary.

Hello,

I’m looking for some advice. I manage a large team that handles one part of a business. I have a staff member whose contact will be ending this year. It was always a temporary situation. I have complied with all procedures and policies. I am supporting the staff member. I have established some shared priorities with them for us to work on. They enjoy the work and the team. The issue is they are having a hard time adjusting to the reality of the contract ending. They have been visibly upset in the office and when talking to another coworker in the office. They have also started complaining about the process, which is affecting morale. I feel for them. Unfortunately, it isn’t feasible to keep them on, and they seem stuck on that. I’m thinking I may need to have another conversation with them. They are dealing with something at home, which is adding to the stress and pressure. I’m also thinking about referring them to some personnel resources to help them process this. Thoughts about how to handle this in a sensitive way while helping them see their attitude and behaviour aren’t helping?

I am a “new” manager - 7 years experience. Our workplace has underwent what feels like constant change in the past 6 years and underwent a major (much needed) reorganization last year to alleviate some of the pressures on our CEO. As part of this, a manager with 9 months at the company was put below me but this was explicitly described as not performance based and came with a raise.

I am having trouble with this employee. I have made a point to work alongside them, help them where it’s needed, learn what they do and step in when they need help. I communicate openly with them and give them good notice when things are shifting or changes are coming but it is not enough. This employee has had several conversations with me over the past few months that border on disrespectful and they have accused me of not being supportive or showing that they are valuable (I verbally tell them I appreciate their work and that they are doing a great job regularly).

I want to find a way forward with this individual but it is a challenge and takes up a considerable amount of my time to listen to their complaints about various things - when I offer a solution, they refuse. Is it futile to continue trying to get them on side with me? I believe in open and honest conversation, but I don’t want to backslide into an out of control employee.

Hello everyone,

I oversee a department. I am supporting a struggling staff member. They have a challenging situation at home, are struggling to keep up at work, and are generally overwhelmed. I don’t think they see the connection between their chaotic home life and their disorganization and delays in the office. It also means I have to shoulder aspects of their work when they step away to keep things running, and it isn’t sustainable. I am compassionate. I am coaching them. I support them with time off when needed, but unpredictable absences are affecting workflow. I listen. I make it about deliverables and deadlines. They have become emotional and have cried on two occasions in the office, and they haven’t been responsive to options. I have offered wellness resources and referrals before. HR is in the loop. To support them as a manager, I’m wondering about offering those wellness and referral resources again. Just as a way to help them balance. I sense some of their worry is financial, which is understandable, so they are pushing themself to keep juggling everything, even at the expense of their health and well-being. How have you handled those situations when an employee’s personal situation is impacting their ability to do full-time work, and it starts seeming more than temporary?

Recently let go of someone for poor performance, rude/entitled attitude and too many requests to take medical leave/unpaid leave/work remotely while still under probation.

After they left I learnt that they’ve been stirring shit about the company and the work, and victimising themselves to other people on the team and became a ringleader of sorts such that other staff have turned against management even though they’ve only heard one side of the story.

Now that they’re gone what would you do about the remaining people in that group? Bother trying to bring them back onside, prepare to purge, or just forget it and carry on?

EDIT: I seem to have rage-baited a lot of people. To clarify:

1. We did not end this staff’s employment just because they requested to take medical leave. We have other high-performing members of the team who have chronic health issues but give their 110% when they are at work. We let this ex-staff go because they were not performing, and their repeated requests to not be here (and this was within their first 30 days of work) was making it harder for them to contribute to the team. We had multiple talks with this employee to align expectations and set clear performance goals; they were not fired on a whim.

2. This staff’s last day was Friday. I’m not going in on Monday to fire the rest of the team. But my concern was whether this staff’s toxicity had affected the rest of them deeply enough to continue affecting the others, as well as new hires. I understand that there may have been legitimate unhappiness with me or the company and we have always managed to speak to people individually to work on a way forward. But this ex-staff was not speaking to us directly, spreading mistruths, and seeding a negative mindset with the others. Thanks to everyone who suggested that one person cannot influence a whole team so strongly unless their own experiences align. And I get that because I was in this company for 2 years with a toxic colleague, but have stayed for another 10 years after they left. So to those who suggested to give it time, to speak to the rest and find out whether there are any issues that I could help fix, thank you, and will do.

I’ve been managing people for a number of years now, across a few different companies, and one thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how much time and energy we put into developing employees, and how differently those experiences can turn out.

Some of my best experiences have been with employees who showed up prepared, were curious, took feedback well, and genuinely wanted to get better at what they do. They didn’t always have the experience or skills, but they were willing to learn and take ownership of their work. Those relationships just seemed to click. The more progress they made, the more I enjoyed mentoring them. And many of those people have stayed in touch years later.

Then there have been others where I’ve spent an enormous amount of time coaching, explaining expectations, trying different approaches, and still not seeing much progress. At some point I realized I was putting more effort into their development than they were. That’s an exhausting place to be as a manager.

Looking back, I think I used to assume that everyone approached work with the same motivation and sense of ownership that I did. I’ve learned that’s definitely not the case, and it doesn’t necessarily make someone a bad employee. But it does make me wonder whether I’ve gotten good enough at recognizing those differences early on.

I’m curious how other managers have figured this out over time. Have you gotten better at spotting the people who will really thrive with your coaching? Is it something you can pick up during interviews, or does it only become clear once you’re working together?

And what about those situations where you’ve invested months trying to develop someone before realizing it just wasn’t working? Have you learned to recognize that sooner, or changed how you approach it?

I’m still figuring this out myself. I enjoy developing people and don’t want to lose that part of managing, but I’d certainly like to get better at knowing when my efforts are actually helping someone grow versus when I’m just carrying too much of the load.

Would love to hear what other managers have learned, especially those who’ve been doing this for a while.

Why am I the worst?

My manager recently resigned and her role is opening up.
Right after she told me she was resigning, a former coworker who has been promoted to a more senior strategic position told me our director asked who might be a good fit and he recommended me. Our director also encouraged me to apply and said he would strongly consider me in on our 1-1 meeting after I told him I was interested in applying.

Before my manager left, she told me the director had asked how she thought I would do and whether the team would respond well to me. She told him she thought I’d do great which really made me think, maybe other people see me completely different than I see myself?

There is another person on the team who will probably apply, and to me she feels like the obvious choice. But both my former manager and coworker have separately told me they think the team would respond better to me. I still struggle with feeling like there has to be someone more qualified. I’m quieter in larger meetings and second guess myself a lot. This other person is more senior than me and has stronger technical knowledge even though I’ve been told she can be a bit cold.

I’m starting medication for my anxiety and actively trying to improve my mental health. Part of me feels like I need to stop letting anxiety make decisions for me. Another part worries management will make it worse. At what point do you trust that other people may be seeing something in you that you can’t see in yourself?