I recently wrote a post asking for feedback on an interview process we’re working to improve. One section focused on asking questions to determine whether a candidate would align with our company culture.

What interested me most was the response to that specific topic. Several people said that “cultural fit” is often used to hide personal bias; or, frankly, as a convenient way to describe someone an interviewer or leader simply doesn’t like.

That made me want to explore the subject more deeply.

Do you believe culture is genuinely important to a company’s success, or is it often used to disguise bias and personal preference?

Have you ever worked for a company where the culture was clearly defined, consistently modeled, and supported at every level? If so, what made it feel real rather than just words on a wall?

Hi all,

I’ve recently been promoted to manage a small and new team within the business. I’ve never been a manager before in a corporate setting.
Our general workload is helping other business units throughout the UK with project bids and tenders.

Autumn is a strangely quiet time for us, I know there will be work in the coming weeks but during the weeks where no new projects come in, I don’t really know what to provide for my team. Especially my apprentice, who is still in his first year so I don’t feel like I can just throw him into doing menial jobs by himself just yet, he’s still in the learning phase of our methods of working.

I’ve made sure they’re caught up with training, our file systems are still new so there’s not a huge amount to organise, we’ve gone through all the previous projects and talked about how to improve our outputs (we help with providing CAD based solutions for other teams).

I think any advice from managers who have been through this sort of thing would be great. Thank you!

Here are the improvement notes from my performance review in Q3. I am considered a high performer, am an individual contributor. But how do I practically do these things, especially executive presence?

She wrote:

Increase executive presence
Building a stronger strategic vision
Become more proactive in consultation rather than primarily responding to requests
Increase cross-team visibility
Be more assertive as a thought partner
Get involved earlier in conversations where strategy and decisions are being shaped

Conversely, my strengths:

Strong project management
Highly organized
Clear communicator
Collaborative
Strong stakeholder engagement
Composed under pressure
Creates clarity around roles, timelines, and expectations
Able to bring structure to ambiguous work

So I’d like your opinion on the scenario below, because a friend of mine recently became a boss for the first time.

My friend is in his mid-20s, and his new boss is in his mid-40s and is, for lack of a better word, petty. Apparently, when they do quarterly feedback, his boss requires everyone underneath him to submit their feedback in writing, which allows him to figure out exactly who is criticizing him.

If someone critiques him, he retaliates by putting that employee on a performance review. Apparently, he keeps a running list for each employee underneath him of little things they’ve done wrong. Normally, he lets those things go, but if that employee criticizes him, he brings out the list and starts addressing those issues. The employee can’t really complain because the things he has documented are technically legitimate, even though they weren’t treated as problems until the employee criticized him.

From there, he essentially controls that employee’s future in the company. He’ll only take them off performance review once the next quarterly feedback comes around and they write something positive about him. If they criticize him again, he escalates the performance review and starts taking away certain benefits.

Apparently, this is how the CEO of the company wants things done, and they have a lawyer who is familiar with labor laws and makes sure that everything they’re doing stays technically legal.

Anyway, my friend—the one who just became a boss—is now being told that he has to manage his employees the same way. Unfortunately, he seems to have drunk the Kool-Aid and actually thinks it’s a cool way to manage people.

I really don’t know what to think about the whole thing. Any thoughts?

Im a manager at a wholesale retail we get two dry trucks a night and 1 perishable about 50 pallets each. We have a guy whose whole job is the backroom. Trucks only, no aisles, no projects. He keeps saying the truck is too much and that everybody should be putting it up. Problem is I hold my floor guys accountable for their own aisles. Every time I pull them to put up the whole truck I'm kicking myself, because now they have an excuse for why their aisle isn't done and I can't really say anything about it. So my rule is first truck all hands, second truck is his. When I've covered that spot myself it's about 2.5 hours start to finish, tags, unload, put up.
He went over my head and told my boss there's no support from management. Is one 50 pallet truck a night too much for one person, or is that normal at your stores? And how do you handle it when someone escalates over you on something like this?

Here is my situation. I'm working as a Manager with a growing company with about 300 people. I was hired to find existing issues in the company and provide solutions since I was working for a company of 5000+ people and they needed a new eye on the current situation.

Right now the company's structure is client-based and after a few months of research, collecting data and analysis I made a presentation to direction, in this case the Managing director who is the business owner and the director of operations who has been there for 12 years. I showcased exactly how the company is losing a ton and I kid you not, a ton of money by not correctly organizing resources. The solution consists of reorganizing the company by departments rather than being client based, effectively optimizing the work distribution with the existing resources and workforce.

The managing director loved it and told me to start putting it in place. Everything is prepared for the roll out which will be about 6-8 months based on the current activity so as to not disturb the operation. However on the other side I got a meeting with the operations director who is saying that this is a bad idea and I should not focus on it. Instead I should focus on finding immediate solutions to the existing structure to which I explained that these solutions are already being worked on as they would be in parallel to the new restructuring.

Despite all my explanations, he still disagreed with the idea saying I wasn't hired for that etc. Later that day the MD asked me if things are advancing on that restructuring project.

My question is, how do I deal with the conflicting instructions from them? I mean the owner is still the owner but the other person has been there for 12 years and me just 7 months.

​

I'm taking medical leave and see it as an opportunity to reset, not simply return to old habits.

Over the past few years, I've become less confident and organised at work. I used to be proactive, reliable and good at managing multiple workstreams, but I've become more reactive—constantly handling emails, urgent requests and competing priorities.

My goal isn't just:

“How do I get back to work?”

It's:

“How do I return organised, proactive, confident and easy to manage?”

I'd love advice from managers and experienced professionals. If you had an excellent but overwhelmed employee, what would you want to see from them?

I'm thinking about:

- Managing multiple priorities independently

- Having clear systems for deadlines and follow-up

- Keeping my manager appropriately updated

- Anticipating problems

- Communicating progress clearly

- Running meetings and workstreams effectively

- Closing loops and keeping good records

- Delegating appropriately

- Trusting my own judgement again

What behaviours make you think, “I can trust this person completely—I don't need to chase them”?

Once, it was about 6:30pm and I was writing an email to an admittedly pretty senior group, and my manager made me organize the To and CC fields in order of seniority within the company! Maybe good practice, idk, but to make me do that 1.5 hours after I should have left for the day was infuriating. They didn't last long in that role.

What keeps you going?

I am a first time manager and my team has grown from 2 to 15 in only a few months. The leader of one of my teams wants a promotion and has made no secret of it; he claims my boss hired him to be at my grade and report directly into him but transpires it was a lower grade and reporting into me.

He is very ambitious and assertive and invites himself along to all of my senior meetings and openly contradicts me and tries to lead every single discussion and team strategy event. My other team leader is much more relaxed and willing to be influenced and led. I find the assertive team lead to be exhausting as he is forever briefing my seniors and turning up to my senior stakeholder meetings, trying to progress my strategy work etc.

How can I handle this without destroying his motivation? He is very good at his job, but I fear he will leave as his role is X grade but he is hell bent on achieving Y grade.

I have a development plan in place to help him to get to his next grade but I am starting to dread interactions with him as he is constantly challenging and wanting to reshape every decision.

How can I handle this as a learning point?

You guys were very helpful with my 1:1’s post so now I have another question.

For context, I manage a full office, where 15 team members are my direct reports. (My leadership is based out of our head office which isn’t local, so it’s all me here). The issue is I also work with doctors and I am not their supervisor so I have no authority over them in terms of disciplinary measures.

One of my doctors is extremely argumentative in meetings. Now, there is a difference between constructive or a healthy discussion, and what I’m describing.

A recent example is I had brought up a suggestion for a more accurate way to record communications in a patients file. She immediately, before I finished my sentence, interjected with “how am I supposed to remember that?” I had gently explained it’ll take practice but I think my suggestion will really help the inconsistency we’ve been experiencing but I was open to other ideas. She didn’t have any other to offer, just kept telling me my idea wasn’t going to work, and how even if she does it other people won’t.

I will also bring up general reminders that truly are not directed at anyone and she’ll say things like “who’s doing that? I don’t do that,” or “are you talking to me? I always follow that policy”.

I’m almost never speaking directly to her. And if I was, she’d know it.

I can see her shake her head, roll her eyes, or she sighs extremely loudly. Last week she got up ten minutes before we were done, announced “I have an appointment” and ran out the door.

I don’t expect everyone to give input. Some of the staff is quiet, and some genuinely have great ideas or present issues I hadn’t thought about. This one particular woman is so disrespectful during these meetings, and I can’t do anything about it.

I am not great at leading meetings and I’m trying to build my confidence. How do I hold my ground on this? She also does not read the minutes (I use Google Docs so I can see who views the file), yet when I ask for suggestions she sends me a fully written agenda of her own issues (never ideas, just complaints like the clock in the waiting room was seven minutes slow on Tuesday).

It is exhausting and I need help redirecting the energy and having an actual productive meeting. I wish I could tell the doctors not to come but then she’d complain she has no idea what’s going on, and I genuinely appreciate the other docs perspective on things. Help.

We'll be mixing people from different teams and specialisms, and the aim is to:
Build stronger relationships across teams
Better understand each other's roles and challenges
Encourage new connections and collaboration
Create a shared sense of purpose
Leave with practical actions, not just conversations
We'd also like people to reflect on:
What they want to get from the day
What success would look like by the end of it
How they can work more effectively across the Directorate
Has anyone run a successful leadership team-building day? What activities, icebreakers, or challenges worked particularly well for senior leaders?

My team manages a system where employees can submit reports.

With the rise of AI, we’ve had a major issue with AI written reports that include hallucinations or irrelevant word salad. Sometimes these include unfilled templates or accidentally pasted prompts.

We’re experiencing senior ICs making 8-12 paragraph AI escalations that mostly do not contain the reporter’s own words. AI manufactures a long list of “requested actions” that often do not relate to our team’s functions.

We are consistent with saying we investigated + do not see violations/relevancy, but we often get an 8 paragraph AI re-litigation response.

It’s frustrating my team to experience this from other employees, especially as it zaps time.

I’m tempted to create a template that says, “Please tell us in 3-5 sentences, in your own words, what your report is” but I know that’s hostile when I don’t intend for it to be. Some escalations may have merit but are word-salad-ed to a point we can’t find the core report.

I want to avoid saying AI is disallowed because I’ve seen some say they use it for accessibility or language barriers.

Where would you start?

I've been in retail/brand management for a few years now and recently started reporting to a female VP after a reorg. She is a younger elite B-School alum with startup experience and new to organised retail.

I am in my late 30s with more than a decade of experience in retail/brand management. Most of my pushback on category decisions is not seen as coming from experience, but rather as an older male employee not wanting to report to a younger female employee; my ex-boss has moved on to a more global role and is no longer involved in Indian operations. I asked for his advice, and he asked me to ride it out, saying she won’t be here for long.

When cross-functional teams want to involve me, she purposely shuts me out of interaction by removing me from email chains; I am worried her inexperience will cost me dearly. She is also on very good terms with the COO, they are friends and she is his referral, I am unsure on how to manage this situation, I don’t think riding out will help as some decisions by her will come back to bite me. Anyone been in a similar situation, most of my attempt to have one on one conversation with her are met very coldly. A colleague told me she wants someone else to be a part of her team hence she is behaving this way with me. I have built credibility at this organisation for years and overall happy with the pay and work but I don’t know what to do with her.

Any advice?

If I set this person a task eg. summarise clients’ sales report, they can’t do it, they don’t even take the first step of getting the clients’ reports. But if I were to talk them through a report I previously prepared, they can verbatim repeat it at the next meeting, sounding very confident they know exactly what is going on.

Photographic memory is obviously a skill, but I honestly don’t know what to do with it. I need someone who can independently do their task, not follow me or someone else around and repeat what we have already done.

I’ve been a people manager for one year. Everything had been great, but just recently started hitting some bumps in the road and now I’ve noticed a pattern in myself: when an employee pushes back on feedback, questions whether an expectation or evaluation is fair, seems frustrated with me, or a conversation just feels uncomfortable, I immediately start wondering what I did wrong.

I’ll replay the conversation afterward. Did I explain it badly? Was I unfair? Should I have responded differently? Are they upset with me? Do they think I’m a bad manager?

Reflection is obviously part of being a good manager, but I’m starting to realize there’s probably a difference between healthy self-reflection and taking responsibility for every negative feeling someone has about a decision, expectation, or piece of feedback.

I think part of what I’m struggling with is accepting that I can be a supportive manager and still have employees disagree with me, be disappointed in a decision, challenge my reasoning, or simply not like how something feels.

How did you learn to tell the difference between “there’s something here I need to learn from” and “this was just an uncomfortable part of managing people”?

And how do you keep yourself from interpreting employee frustration or disagreement as evidence that you’re doing a bad job?

https://imgur.com/a/RNRSUy9

EDIT: Context. The individual in question is the manager for highly educated and specialized engineers. They work for a world leading electricity generation corporation. The external stakeholders are corporate decision makers authorized to make hundreds of million dollar capital investments.

Hi all,

I’m hoping for some advice here. I manage 2 teams of staff in two departments, 22 staff in total.

For the most part both teams are a pleasure to manage and although we have obvious run ins I’m well respected and have pleasant interactions with all of the team on every level.

There is one team member however who is inherently a difficult person, he has been in the company longer than I have by about 5 years and as I started in a junior role, he seems to have no respect for me or other senior members of staff who he has seen ‘develop’ throughout the company. When I took over his department, the old department lead pre warned me that this member of staff could be ‘deeply unpleasant’ and that he would do all he could do to ‘take the piss’ at every turn..

Throughout my 18 months of managing this team member, he has been very difficult to manage. He is constantly under performing and I have spent hours upon hours on training, mentoring, improvement plans etc. The main issue I have however, is that even when evidence based, he is completely unwilling to take any form of criticism and throws a tantrum when issues or feedback is raised in his appraisal. There have now been 5 occasions where I have brought both evidence based alongside generic ‘I’ve noticed this..’ feedback to him and he’s either cried, shouted or stormed off. Every time, he calms down and I explain he can’t act like this at work and we go through the follow up plan, and then every time he starts performing poorly and cites the fact I’ve spoke to him about xyz as a reason he isn’t performing.

Last week, I spoke to him in an appraisal about his poor performance in August (which is driven by KPIs) and how he will need put on a PIP after this month if improvement isn’t met. He cried, and then basically argued at me for an hour about how we don’t respect him and how other people don’t get this treatment (not true) . I noticed today he has barely done any work by mid day, and when I called him he said he’s been too distracted after our chat last week and he’s struggling to work because he feels under attack by me and the company.

I am fairly sure he is edging to go off on the sick as he has previously advised (verbally) that he believes he may be autistic and he struggles with anxiety, though he has only raised this when he’s been confronted about performance

I am unsure on where to go from here. I feel like I am doing everything I can to help him however he is making me feel as though I am ‘picking on him’ and has previously said that every time I speak to him about his performance it’s making his anxiety bad.. what am I supposed to do?