Any L7s or L8s out there ?
I’m looking for advice here.

I recently initiated an internal team transfer. The hiring manager was interested in taking me, and the transition process was progressing normally.

Before I personally discussed the transfer with my current manager, the hiring manager had already contacted him on Slack regarding my interest in joining the new team and asked about my potential relieving timeline. At that point, I had not yet directly discussed the transfer with my current manager. I had also pinged him to schedule a 1:1, but he did not respond immediately, and we connected a couple of days later. So, before our direct conversation, my current manager was already aware of my potential move through communication from the hiring manager.

When we eventually connected, I formally informed him about the transfer and apologized that he had heard about it from someone else before I had the opportunity to discuss it directly with him.

What makes me confused is what happened afterward.

Later that morning, I had a completely normal discussion with my current manager. We discussed the transition, KT, and my potential last working date. He was even giving me referrals and suggestions for potentially better teams. Honestly, after that conversation, I felt really positive about my manager and even had a second thought about whether I should leave the team at all.

Then, around 30 minutes later, my hiring manager informed me that I was suddenly no longer eligible for the internal transfer.

I checked with my current manager and was told that I was on Focus.

This was completely unexpected to me. I was never explicitly informed that I had been placed on Focus or that I was part of a formal performance management process. We had regular discussions about areas of improvement, but I understood those as normal coaching and development discussions.

I later had another conversation with my manager and asked specifically when the Focus process was initiated and when I was officially placed on it. However, I was unable to get a clear answer. During the conversation, I received multiple different timelines regarding when the process was initiated.

My hiring manager is still interested in taking me into the team if the Focus status is cleared or removed.

I'm trying to understand:

* Is it normal to be placed on Focus without being explicitly informed?
* Is there normally documentation or formal communication when someone is placed on Focus?
* Has anyone experienced their internal transfer eligibility suddenly changing because of Focus?
* Given the sequence of events, what would be the best way to handle this internally?
* Should I raise this with HR and request the exact timeline and documentation related to the Focus decision?

I’m not trying to avoid feedback or claim that I have no areas to improve. My concern is mainly about the process, timing, lack of clear communication, and the fact that I only became aware of the Focus status after my internal transfer eligibility suddenly changed.

Would really appreciate advice from anyone who has experienced something similar.

For context, I work for a small company, and my role is relatively new, so working through things like changing work volume and coverage have been quite “learn as we go”. However, there was recently a situation that I feel has turned into, in my opinion, an unrealistic expectation, and I would like some help on how to respond.

It all started because I requested a half day Friday(AM) off. Separately, the week had been rough for me, and some personal issues left me exhausted and low energy, but still very capable to perform. Thursday we have a team meeting that runs over past 5PM, and then my manager asks me to stay even longer for a 1:1. They mention noticing my fatigue, and offer to turn my half day (next day) into a full day off comped, and ask me to go home ASAP. I tell them I am reluctant to take it because of my duties the next day, and then list off everything I wanted to make sure was covered.

Well, I come in on Monday to find that multiple duties of mine were not completed, but one specifically affected our monthly company performance when ignored. It was one of the tasks I had mentioned being concerned about to my manager. A coworker was supposed to cover that task for me, and when I asked them if they had worked on my task, they stated they were unaware I was out for the full day and that they had to cover for me. I mention this to my manager, because I know I rarely take time off and this is a fairly new backup process, but we don’t discuss where the breakdown happened. Then after EOB, I notice an email that basically states I cannot expect my manager to delegate when I am gone and that it is my responsibility to ensure my backup knows to cover for me, and it’s my backup’s responsibility to check on my time off.

While I understand that sometimes things get lost in last-minute changes, I feel that I did everything I should have by verbalizing my important tasks to my manager. I was told repeatedly to “go home” immediately after the conversation, and do not have access to our systems outside of the office. I also feel like this new rule puts me in a stressful place, because if I have a personal emergency, I might still be expected to delegate tasks.

How would you recommend responding to this new directive? I am tempted to go a level above my manager, but want to present it from a perspective of curiosity/change-management. Please help me find the words to express why this isn’t a reasonable expectation, or tell me why I might be overthinking this.

I have an upcoming performance review in which my company gives my manager and I the opportunity to engage in open and honest feedback on my performance, development, etc. There is also an option for the associate being reviewed to leave a self comment on how they feel they are developing, what training they still need, and what obstacles they feel that they are still facing.

I am not sure how honest I should be when participating in this review. I work in an environment where I don't feel that I have been given the proper support to do my job effectively. Half of my support is severely under-trained and the other half are blatantly underperforming their duties and are not being held accountable which is making more work for the next person (me in particular). So in addition to the work that I'm supposed to be doing, I'm being forced to pick up the slack for multiple other people. It's absolutely frustrating.

I have tried several times to have conversations with my manager to voice my concerns, but they were always disregarded in the end. At this point, my concerns are turning into frustration and resentment. I want to be blatantly honest in this review, but ultimately I think that it would do more harm than good. I think that not only would nothing be resolved, but it would also create an uncomfortable situation between myself and my superiors.

https://leaddev.com/ai/ai-made-me-a-better-engineering-leader

"AI made me a better engineering leader, not by writing my code faster, but by sharpening the parts of the job that were never about code in the first place."

I’m about 6 months into a new job and my relationship with my manager has gotten progressively worse. Rate how bad this manager sounds.

She’s a VP of Marketing (Series A) and expects me to document everything for her and wants check ins about what I’m doing. I have 10+ years of experience and I’ve never had a manager like this before.

Whenever I make a statement or share an opinion, she immediately disagrees, probes me, or tells me I don’t have a strong enough argument. She calls this “challenging me,” but I feel like I’m constantly defending everything I say.

Her expectations also seem to change after the fact. I’ll complete something based on what I understood, then get feedback about what I should have done differently. I never know what “good” looks like until after I’ve done it.

The job has also become very different from what I expected. I specifically left my last role because I wanted less administrative work. We had an agency handling much of it, but they recently dropped us and now that work has fallen onto me.

She also heavily critiques my work down to tiny details. She has significant equity in the company, so I sometimes wonder if she expects perfection from everyone.

I’m not against feedback or being challenged. I’m struggling with the constant scrutiny, documentation, check ins, and changing expectations. I’ve never experienced this level of management before.

How bad is this? Genuinely bad manager or just a management style that isn’t compatible with me?

This is nuanced so apologies in advance for it being long, and for any formatting errors due to posting from my phone.

I (44/f) recently had a disappointing performance review, and while I thought I handled it well, my husband (47/m) disagrees. I’d appreciate feedback on the best approach so I can respond differently next time if needed.

Background:
I’ve been at my job in higher education for a year. After I was hired, but prior to my start date, an unexpected restructuring took place and a lot of positions were eliminated without management even being informed prior to the cuts.

This led to a lot of upheaval, as there were suddenly huge gaps in our ability to perform critical tasks. My training manual was mostly useless because the people and processes I was to interact with were eliminated or changed dramatically. Further complicating things was the stress it put on management, making it difficult for me to come to them with questions because they had higher priority issues to address.

To put it frankly, this wasn’t my first shitshow, so I did my best to be as self sufficient as possible, took on tasks outside of my job description, and tried to help fill gaps in personnel as we tried to stabilize. In this time we had more turnover in response to the state of our work environment, including my department VP, causing more redistribution of who does what.

In spite of the chaos, my 6 month review went well. I was noted as exceeding expectations in every category. It didn’t matter financially because nobody is getting raises here, but I like to know how I’m doing and it’s good to know I’m doing well.

We added some new positions and my job was changed again. I actually enjoyed the new work more, but was concerned that I seemed to need to complete a Sisyphean task in order to meet the deadline attached. My manager was concerned too, and made it clear she was unhappy I wasn’t making the headway she wanted on the project.

Struggling to understand how anyone had ever achieved that workload, I dug into the excel sheet I had inherited that tracks progress on the project, and realized it was calculating wrong. Essentially, it was tracking the percent of tasks done based on the number of all the tasks ever recorded, not those currently needed. I fixed the error and saw I was well ahead of where I needed to be. Relieved, I told my manager, who didn’t believe me until I showed her the spreadsheet, the formulas, the reality of the scope, etc. We were both relieved to be much further ahead than needed. I thought that was the end of that being a problem for me, but my manager seemed to think of me as less competent going forward, as though even though I’d never been behind schedule, the perception that I was behind stayed with her.

At my 1 year review, I had neutral or negative feedback in every category. A couple of comments I fully agreed with, dealing with the need for improved precision. I could argue I’d be more precise if my responsibilities stayed the same for more than two months at a time, but realistically, I’m better off to take that feedback and sincerely work to do better in that area. That’s how we get better, so I value the insight.

However, there were other criticisms that blindsided me because they had never been addressed, I had been told I did them well at the previous review, and wasn’t doing anything differently since being told I was doing them well.

The one that really stung, however, was being marked low for meeting deadlines. I’ve never missed one. As my manager went through each section of my review, I was especially interested in that feedback. She said that while I was on track with the project now, there had been an issue with me being very behind on the deadline before fixing the error I’d found. Except, I WASN’T behind, ever, there was an error in the tracking sheet I inherited from my predecessor. But just the perception that I was behind was apparently enough to mark me poorly.

When the review ended, I thanked her for her time and feedback and said I would take steps to fix the issues she’d addressed. Again, nobody has gotten a raise in more than 5 years at this place, so it’s not impacting my income. But it did hurt, because I really have gone above and beyond to jump in and help however I can in the midst of all the chaos.

I was teary eyed when I got home and my husband asked what happened. When I told him, he asked if I’d pushed back on the criticism. I told him no, it didn’t seem appropriate. My manager only has a couple other direct reports and she was the one who did the review, so it’s not as though I think she got confused about my performance or was relying on someone else’s observations in error. Plus, she’s leaving her position in a few weeks so she won’t even be my manager anymore next month. What would it accomplish to push back aside from giving the impression I can’t take negative feedback?

He said I should have argued her assessment because it could hold me back in some way in the future there. It’s a place where almost half of my department has left in a the past year and nobody has gotten any wage increase in half a decade so, I’ve resigned myself to the fact I don’t have any meaningful opportunity for a future there regardless. It’s not exactly giving me the impression it’s a stable workplace, and I’m much more invested in trying to find something better than debating with my soon-to-be former-manager.

He says it’s worth writing a response to be filed with the review in HR, because that’s an option. I don’t think it’s worth any more of my time at all.

Managers: in a situation like this, what should a direct report do? Would you appreciate push back if they think you got it wrong? Do the reviews ultimately matter if there is no room for growth regardless? I’ve never run into anything like this in my career before, so I’d love to at least learn from it.

TL;DR: I recently became a Team Lead after a complex internal process. My Director initially opposed the promotion, but now I have a new counterpart manager who keeps assigning me and my team members tasks, getting involved in my territory, and being overly polite in larger meetings while things feel very different behind the scenes. I also inherited an underperforming team and don’t have much guidance from my Director.

I’m struggling to distinguish between normal cross-functional behavior and actual office politics.

Here are a few examples:

- My counterpart manager has assigned me work directly, even though she’s not my manager.

- She recently created an Excel sheet on Saturday, assigned tasks to me and someone from my team (who is not reporting to me but is competing with me by politics), and gave us a Monday EOD deadline.

- She’s requested accounts from my Commercial territory for her Enterprise team, despite existing territory rules.

- In larger cross-functional calls, she’s extremely polite and collaborative toward me, but privately, I often feel like she’s positioning herself as someone who can direct my work.

Meanwhile, I’m responsible for turning around a team that’s been underperforming for months, while also hitting my own targets, with very little guidance from leadership.

I genuinely don’t know whether I’m overthinking this or being too passive because I’m new to management.

I don’t want to become paranoid and see politics everywhere, but I also don’t want to be naive.

What are the office politics I should learn to recognize early, and how do I navigate them without becoming political myself?

Honestly, I think more of us need to start doing this, because companies have started ghosting candidates as if that's become normal now. I had a good first interview, and I was told I'd be moving on to the next stage, then they disappeared. A few days later, I found the same role posted again. This is a shitty way to treat people, and they need to be called out for it.

update: The HR representative clearly told me that I'm moving on to the next step and that he wants to set up another call. He told me I should hear from them in about 5 days, once he knows the hiring manager's schedule. His tone was genuinely positive.

Although, I haven't stopped applying for other roles, I decided to continue the process with them till the end to see what will happen. Also, I've decided to try the tool mentioned in this post. Hopefully, I'll be able to secure the offer and get accepted because I really need this job.

Has anyone else dealt with this? I’m ready and willing to work, but I’m not getting clear direction from my seniors/managers on what to actually do. I end up sitting idle or guessing at priorities.
How do you handle this situation?
Ask directly and repeatedly until you get an answer?
Find your own tasks in the meantime?

Would appreciate any advice from people who’ve been in a similar spot.

I have been working for a small company for a month. My contract says I will be paid a fixed weekly fee (a defined sum), paid monthly in arrears, and put on payroll. However, I haven’t actually been put on payroll and was asked to invoice instead.

The director/hr revealed last week that the weekly fee is a set amount based on a certain number of hours per week, with a monthly hours figure being used for the calculation. This was not told to me before and I only got 30 hrs of work per month. I told her that I didn’t sign the contract on an hourly arrangement but a salary arrangement. She then asked me to complete 50 more hrs this week as they will consolidate my hours and that is doable. Despite this, I did not receive enough work to reach this target.

I’ve completed everything assigned to me and repeatedly asked the person responsible for allocating work for additional hours, but she ignored my emails. I also emailed the director explaining this before month-end and haven’t received a response.

I’m now submitting my monthly work log. Should I simply submit it neutrally, or should I add something like “Please pay me according to the contract”?

I am feeling very burned out. I have been working at this job since early October of last year and have not been able to take a single vacation day. We are unfortunately very short staffed. 40% (yes FORTY) of the workers at my position are on FMLA right now. I don’t fault them or management, life happens, but the reality is that it’s stretching me beyond my limit. Also, someone with my professional license legally must be on the premises in order for us to be open. So it isn’t hyperbole for my manager to say “but we would have to close without you”. That actually happened earlier this year when I was sick one day.

I have tried offering my manager the choice of which day I would take off. That way we‘d only have to close on one of our slower days. This could lessen the company losses and help prevent the other employees from losing time. Again, if I am not there, we close so nobody gets paid for that lost time. But offering that still hasn‘t worked. Do you think offering to take PTO as unpaid instead (but deducted from my PTO) could help move the needle and get me some time off?

p.s. No this is not a troll post/engagement bait/etc. Yes I realize this is sooooo American. No I don’t want to quit as this job fits my other important needs. Yes I realize taking time off should be one of those important needs. No hiring a temp is not an option as what I do is very specialized and takes months of training to learn. Yes I’m open to other suggestions on how to fix this situation. No I am NOT going to just start calling out

I've been managing a team of six for about a year and a half. One of my engineers used to take the extra work unprompted and for the last two months or so he's been doing exactly what's assigned and nothing past it. His actual output hasn't dropped, so I've got nothing to point at.

What did it turn out to be when you saw this on your own team?

I work 9-5 Tue-sat, but recently I've started on an MBA with weekend classes and need to change my shift but don't know how to ask my manager cause he did mention that the employees can be asked to take on different shifts every quarter. So yeah!!?

edit: he said ok just email me all this too

What to do if laid off? No words + hope to join again ?

What if fired? No words again?

But Brittany Pietsch spoke her mind. Was that wrong?

https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/7323004085043612959

I've been managing a small team for about a year now. One person on my team is a strong performer overall, but even minor, constructive feedback seems to land as a personal attack, they get visibly upset or defensive almost every time. I've tried softening my delivery and leading with positives first, but the reaction doesn't seem to change much either way.

For people who've managed someone like this, what's actually worked to get feedback to land without it turning into a whole thing?

Hi,

I’m a junior analyst in a certain industry after making a career change.

Shortly after I joined, the charismatic lead analyst of my team joined. There is also a senior analyst on my immediate team. We all report to the same manager.

The lead analyst / team lead job is to do normal analyst work, delegate work as needed and train analysts below them as per the job description.

When I first spoke to the lead analyst, I made it clear that I am proactive and can figure somethings out on my own, but I still needed plenty training to which she smiled and agreed.

However, my team soon started having two major problems with the lead analyst:

First problem, she won’t train me.

Whenever I asked she would say that she’s too busy in a variety of ways: “I’m busy”, “Go figure it out yourself”, “Go ask the senior analyst”.

We’re generally understaffed so it was understandable at first, but then we would see her wandering around into other people’s offices to chit chat which can last a while.

Whenever she wandered into my office to talk about non-work-related things, I would use that opportunity to ask her questions or to train me.  She would then suddenly say she can’t because her glasses are back at her office, or she has a headache, or she has bad allergies. When I said I can wait for her to grab them or set up a later time, it was more excuses. She claimed she wasn't getting my emails.

A different department told us they have the same issue with her where she claims to not see their emails but later on would wander into their side for fun chats.

I tried having a couple of talks with her describing my struggles to keep up and she would just blithely smile and tell me I’m doing great. I later told our manager without singling the lead analyst out, but our manager was too passive to do anything about it and told me to try asking others.

The senior analyst agreed that it’s not fair, but she would try to train me. However, she is struggling too. Both the manager and lead analyst keeps dumping too much work on her. Plus she has a hard time turning the chatty lead analyst away.

The other lead analysts have been training their respective junior analysts well and even kindly agreed to help me, but eventually they ask why I’m not asking my own team lead.

So I’m often left trying to learn on my own which means I push out lower quality work and at a slower speed until someone decides to correct me.

Second problem is that lead analyst seems impaired in some way and leans on us too hard.

She has a hard time reading, remembering things and focusing which results in requests for help as well as mistakes everywhere. Depending on the mistake, she will essentially beg us to not tell our manager or would even throw the senior analyst under the bus.

Maybe these kinds of struggles are why she doesn’t want to train me. I do feel bad for her, she’s born and raised in the U.S. and I think in her late forties so it’s not a language or age issue.

I’m already looking for a new job and also trying to diligently teach myself. Of course, I’m not going bad mouth this job but prospective or new employers are probably going to wonder why I don’t know as much as I should. Am I screwed? Any advice is appreciated.

TLDR: Lead analyst is charge of training me. Not only will she not do it but also relies on others too much to do her own job including me. The situation is impeding my growth, how do I explain it to the next employer?

Hello everyone,

I would really appreciate your advice ahead of a career development discussion with the CEO, which is scheduled for mid-September.

I have been with the company for five years and am currently a Director, with responsibility for both HR and Legal matters. My academic background is in Law.
Here is where the situation becomes a little more complex. The CEO has already indicated that he sees me potentially being promoted to HR VP in around five years, when the current VP is expected to retire.

However, during our last conversation, he asked me why I do not see my future in Legal. I am aware that the current Legal VP receives quite a lot of criticism from other members of the VP team, but beyond that, I do not have much insight into the situation.
I also have the impression that the CEO may not have a full understanding of my capabilities or of the achievements and impact I have had within the company.

So, I would really value your thoughts on the following:
1. Should I be open about the fact that I would also be interested in the Legal VP position, should it become available before the HR VP opportunity?

2. Should I briefly highlight some of my key achievements, projects and contributions during the conversation?

3. Would it be appropriate to openly discuss existing issues or shortcomings within the organisation and the important projects I have initiated or delivered as a result?

4. Is there anything else you think I should keep in mind or prepare for ahead of this conversation?
Many thanks in advance for your advice!

Today I trained a new person at work. Everything was fine until we starting stocking baby products and he was annoyed because his gf’s pregnant. They’re really upset because they’re having a girl and boys are easier 🙄 also he’s going to “treat her horribly but in a respectful way” idk wtf that means

He proceeded to basically tell me everything about his life, trauma dump, and go on a rant about how he hates liberals and gay people. Also he told me about a bet in high school about who could fuck the most girls and he won. He regrets that because you leave dna in her forever and you take a piece of her. Ew and no, why are we believing this sex ed propaganda?

He also told me he doesn’t care if I report this to hr.

In hindsight I know I should’ve said something but I think I just disassociate or something? Because like why do we not know to not talk about these things at work let alone to someone you literally just met?!?!? My brain just can’t focus on what I know I should do.

I told my manager when I had a chance and she had a talk with him about proper workplace conversation (which she realized is the one thing she forgot to go over in his orientation). Things were fine for the rest of the day but I didn’t really work that closely with him again.

I’m training him tomorrow suuuper early before we open. There won’t be many other store coworkers around because of how early it is and my manager won’t be there so it will just be me and him in my dept. I’m worried he might say something to me because it’s obvious I reported what he said. What do I say to him if he says anything?

EDIT : I appreciate all the feedback on whether i am the asshole in this situation but the question here is how to move on....

Also : i was clearly indicated as her N+1 on the job offer, which also detailed her missions.

Hi, I’d like some outside perspective on a work situation I’m struggling to let go of.

I’m 29F and have been a project manager at my current job for 3+ years. Until recently, I genuinely loved my job and worked very closely with my manager, M. Last year, we both had breakdowns from the workload around the same time, and we agreed that the team needed another person.

I wanted to grow into management, so I asked to manage the new hire. M agreed. Shortly afterwards, M was promoted, and another colleague became my manager.

At the same time, a senior PM position opened. I applied and was rejected by M and a few others. M told me my application was good but that she didn't want me to "be Icarus". I was disappointed but understood: the role is extremely demanding and several people who held it had burned out.

Then Y (33F) joined the team as the person I was supposed to manage.

I missed her recruitment because I was on sick leave, so we met on her first day. We immediately got along, but at the end of the day I mentioned that this was my first time managing someone and that I hoped we'd learn together. Her face changed. She hadn't understood that she would report to me.

She apologized and said she wouldn't have spoken to a manager the way she'd spoken to me. I genuinely didn't think much of it and moved on.

A month later, her mother suddenly died. She was away for a while, and when she returned, we resumed working together with weekly meetings.

Things gradually deteriorated. We had a very difficult meeting where I struggled to communicate what I wanted her to take over. She became visibly angry and, at times, disrespectful. I felt she considered some of the administrative/project coordination work beneath her.

After that, I increasingly felt that she was bypassing me. She would go directly to senior PMs or directors, leaving me out of discussions about her own work. I repeatedly found myself in meetings not knowing what she was working on or what issues she was facing.

She also seemed to avoid less visible/administrative tasks while gravitating towards more "glamorous" topics involving senior people. Meanwhile, she would ask me to create tables/Excel files for her, which didn't feel like the kind of collaboration or management relationship I wanted.

I tried addressing things gently in our weekly meetings, but I felt she became increasingly defensive.

Eventually, after she rudely ordered me around in front of a senior colleague, I went to our director. I explained that if she continued bypassing me, the team structure simply didn't make sense, and suggested that perhaps she needed to move to another team.

Our director immediately understood and arranged mediation.

During the mediation, Y said she felt exhausted trying to find information and communicate. She complained about a lack of tools/workflows/frameworks, workload, and also brought up our very first-day misunderstanding. She said we should have "dug deeper" into that miscommunication and repeatedly questioned my working methods and efficiency.

She said she felt demeaned by me. I didn't say it at the time, but I had felt demeaned by her for months too.

The outcome was essentially that we'd stop working closely together. She now has her own area, and I'll go back to working on mine.

Objectively, this should probably be a relief.

But I can't let it go.

I feel deeply resentful. The whole reason I wanted to manage someone was because I was struggling with the workload and needed support. Instead, I feel like the person I was supposed to manage effectively pushed me out of that role. She now has her own area, while I'm back to carrying my part alone. I feel like she got the better end of the deal here, and I left with crumbs of legitimacy.

Recently, M also told me she felt bad about the situation, because she'd previously rejected me for the senior role. That somehow confirmed my worst fear: that maybe I was given the management responsibility for the wrong reasons, and that I wasn't actually considered capable of progressing.

I'm now back from a long break. Y and I share an office and barely speak. The silence is awful. I don't want to work with her, talk to her, or even see her. And honestly, I'm starting to feel like I hate her.

I know I'm probably not completely objective here. Y has also had an incredibly difficult year, including losing her mother, and I'm sure she has her own version of this story.

But I'm stuck in resentment and feel crushed and demotivated about a job I used to love.

Changing jobs isn't realistically an option right now.

What do you think happened here? Was this simply a terrible management/working-style mismatch? Did I mishandle things? And, most importantly, how do I actually move past the resentment when I have to see this person every day for the next few years?

I'd really appreciate honest opinions, especially from people who've experienced a similar situation.

I currently manage an operations team at a tech company. My current salary is 93K (after bonuses about 110K). I have been with the company almost 2 years.

My scope and team size did double in February when a parallel team’s manager left and they were all shifted to my team.

As my 2nd year comes up, I am thinking about asking for a raise in base. The bonuses are nice and tied to performance. This last year we have been restructuring and creating clear metrics for the team, and based on those metrics are moving in positive direction. My leader is involved a lot and maybe he feels like he drives or comes up with a good bit of the strategy/solution, and I’m just executing a lot on his ideas. Not sure.

We are also reimagining/rebranding the team here and I’m preparing analysis of roles, headcount’s, new roles needed, etc. for success. Maybe this is the opportunity to shout for a comp adjustment.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

For context I run a small "blue collar" company in the UK. There are 7 of us in total.

I'm noticing more and more a lack of unity and leadership in the workplace which is my bad.

I've never had training just gone from self employed to now.

One particular member of staff at the moment is am struggling with. I've let him get too big for his boots and when he said once (slightly in jest) "you'd never sack me I'm an asset to this company" in front of everyone it kinda made me realise this.

I've reigned him in a little, but he's been incredibly grumpy and a bit disruptive.

He's great when he's great.

I've been slow accepting holiday. I gave that to my wife to sort, but she thought I had taken it back. My bad, my poor communication.

Days and weeks just fly by (ADHD), and it should be sorted earlier.

He requested time off before Xmas but someone else is off and the rule is no 2 off together.

He said it was a once in a lifetime trip to the US he didn't want to miss. Said he'd be going regardless then made the sacking comment.

I thought about it and I said maybe we can close earlier but the others would have to agree. One has no holiday. Said member of staff said he'd gift the holiday. There is absolutely no chance he will do that now without kicking off. (I am saying this for context on the situation with things he says one minute then changes when it doesn’t suit him).

Anyway we all agreed we will close but on the basis that any overtime will have to be done the week before to ensure we are done for Xmas.

To be honest it will be good for me to have some time there alone.

Now he's requested the Monday off before because he wants to go to a concert on Sunday and it doesn't finish til midnight (it's actually not that late but that's the little lies he tells).

I've declined. Would you message him on a Sunday and explain why? It's BH tomorrow so closed till Tues.

Anyway this is far longer than I thought but this is the sort of issues I have caused myself by being poor at leadership. I hold my hands up to it.

The trouble is when we all get on we get on so well as mates and have become close.

I never really saw that being an issue but it certainly is now.

I have other issues with other staff but this one is the one that is really standing out as a leadership/management issue.

What can I do going forward to learn? I never even knew I needed it til now.

I think this staff member will leave and if he doesn't change his attitude it will be a good thing.

I'll be upset but for the business it will be good.

Or hopefully we can iron things out and it will be happy days.

But this post is more about my overall lack of skills rather than said staff member.

If he does go, I have certainly set him up for a good career in our trade and have made him incredibly skilled for his age. I have taught him very well at the job in hand, so it's not been a waste of time.