Re:A conflict with a manager ended with me being disallowed ...
by watwut on Monday June 20, 2022 @10:46AM
(#31810959)
While I think OP was in the wrong (or that at least there are many red flags), I think that the approach you describes enables bad managers. It is a system that has literally zero accountability for them.
> As a manager of managers, it’s not that hard to see when a manager’s own team doesn’t like them. Getting multiple requests from people on a team who want to escape it is a huge warning sign that warrants further investigation.
This means that situation was very bad and escalated for months. This means that the team is well beyond the "own team doesn’t like them" situation. This is why it is impossible to change or fix bad managers before the team is decomposed and people suffered. If your only feedback about leadership quality and attitudes is "multiple people are escaping", then it means you are not checking on leadership quality at all.
> However, if I instead get reports that a team member is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn, I have to approach it as interpersonal conflict. If the situation as written is accurate and honest, I’d be moving toward heavy mentorship for both parties involved but they’d both be up for removal if they couldn’t improve.
This enables bully managers big time. This could be unclear competences, this could be professional disagreement, this could be manager picking on employee, mismatch of ideas about roles and it could be employee being entirely in the wrong. You start assuming interpersonal conflict, which means that if there actual causes for issues wont ever get fixed.
> if the situation as written is accurate and honest
Gotta love this assumption given that especially middle management selects for people who are neither accurate nor honest. Now, engineers are not better people in principle, but when engineers lie, it is faster to find out. Meanwhile, your rules have no "check whether the manager is telling the truth" moment.
> As a manager of managers, it’s not that hard to see when a manager’s own team doesn’t like them. Getting multiple requests from people on a team who want to escape it is a huge warning sign that warrants further investigation.
This means that situation was very bad and escalated for months. This means that the team is well beyond the "own team doesn’t like them" situation. This is why it is impossible to change or fix bad managers before the team is decomposed and people suffered. If your only feedback about leadership quality and attitudes is "multiple people are escaping", then it means you are not checking on leadership quality at all.
> However, if I instead get reports that a team member is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn, I have to approach it as interpersonal conflict. If the situation as written is accurate and honest, I’d be moving toward heavy mentorship for both parties involved but they’d both be up for removal if they couldn’t improve.
This enables bully managers big time. This could be unclear competences, this could be professional disagreement, this could be manager picking on employee, mismatch of ideas about roles and it could be employee being entirely in the wrong. You start assuming interpersonal conflict, which means that if there actual causes for issues wont ever get fixed.
> if the situation as written is accurate and honest
Gotta love this assumption given that especially middle management selects for people who are neither accurate nor honest. Now, engineers are not better people in principle, but when engineers lie, it is faster to find out. Meanwhile, your rules have no "check whether the manager is telling the truth" moment.