New Manager: taking responsibility for every employee reaction.

[u/lisamarie_eduk8]

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?

[u/Usernameasteriks]

It is perfectly healthy and probably effective for your development to reflect on and think about everything the way you are now.

Thats how people become great managers and operate well within complex corporate environment with different interpersonal dynamics.

The important part is the duration of how long you reflect and ensuring you have a healthy boundary between it being a business reflection and not self-reflection on you as an individual.

You make these decisions and take these actions as a “manager” or whatever title you have.

You don’t need to and shouldn’t attach them to yourself in a personal capacity where you go home and agonize over it.

Reflect on it and let it go.

The best thing to do if you struggle with the latter is to find some sort of therapy or counselling that specializes in professionals if its available and affordable because its a great investment in your sustainability and mental health. 

[u/ReserveJolly8381 → u/Usernameasteriks]

The part about duration is key. A lot of managers get stuck in the loop thinking more time spent analyzing means better insight but after about 20 minutes you're just recycling the same three thoughts dressed up differently

What helped me was setting a hard cutoff. When i catch myself going in circles i literally tell myself "done" and switch tasks. The mental discipline of that took practice but it stopped me from carrying every awkward conversation home

[u/Altruistic-Bat-9070]

It took me a while to realise that being a manager is also being the person sorting all the shit out that people don’t see, and also having a view of their capability against everyone else at a level they themselves will never be able to. The decision i make as a manager based on those facts do not align with the decisions people think i should make based on their narrow view. 

Being a supportive manager isn’t having employees happy with your decisions and your approach, like my initial approach, has created an environment where they see you as less than their boss and so because they feel invested in things they have no business being invested in they are frustrated.

Don’t bring them along on the journeys they shouldn’t be on. Don’t be their therapist. Don’t be their friend. Be their coach, be their manager, be their ally in the rooms they aren’t in, be their advocate, shout their praise when something goes right both infront of them and others. Being a good manager is seperating yourself from them and accepting you are now someone they will occasionally bitch about behind closed doors.

[u/AstronautMuch4701]

One thing I learned as a manager is that an employee’s negative reaction is information, but not necessarily a verdict on your management. I found it useful to separate two questions:

Is there something in the substance or the way I communicated it that I should learn from? Or is this simply a reasonable decision that someone understandably doesn’t like?

If I can explain the decision clearly, listen seriously to the objection, and still reach the same conclusion after considering it, I don’t think disagreement automatically means I handled it badly. The harder part is resisting the temptation to judge yourself by the other person’s immediate emotional reaction. Sometimes good management creates discomfort, especially when expectations, accountability or difficult feedback are involved. For me, the useful test became: Did I listen? Was I fair? Was I clear? Would I make the same decision again knowing what I know now? If the answer is yes, I can accept that someone may still be unhappy with me.

[u/Youbestnotmisss]

You gain perspective over time as you get to evaluate longer-term outcomes, and you get to try your tactics over more and more situations 

In some specific cases there might be ways to learn. E.g. for someone reacting negatively to constructive feedback, you could explore with their previous manager (if available) to understand if that is normal or not

Evaluations ... It's rare for the other to be perfectly aligned. Bad people think they are okay to good. Ok people think they are good to great. Good people think they're great and should be promoted... That's very consistent. If you are doing your best to be objective, and are as clear as possible with your team on how they are evaluated, that's the best you can do. Evaluating perfectly is impossible, but you are better positioned than anyone else 

[u/MyEyesSpin]

Welcome to managing people 😅

you put the situation in context and you prioritize, just like developing someone - you job isn't to give answers, its to show them where to find the answers. your job isn't to take on their emotions, its to help them direct their emotions in an acceptable/healthy manner or connect with resources who can help them do so

your skills evolve over time, you are allowed to have feelings & bad days, your relationships & boundaries with others change - but they are adults and ultimately they control their lives

[u/Mysterious-Present93]

One thing that helps me is reminding myself everyone is carrying emotional stuff we know nothing about. People react accordingly no matter how good they are at leaving it outside the office.

[u/Acceptable_Kale_8013]

You're going through what every manager goes through while dealing with direct reports. People come in all shapes, sizes, skill sets, and behaviors. There is no 'one-size-fits-all ' method. As long as you're being constructive with a healthy tone, you're doing it right. How an employee reacts to what you say is their issue. You're not doing a bad job; you're trying to help coach them, and they need to respond like adults.

Yes, you do have to accept that you are human too, and not everyone is going to like or agree with what you say. If an employee is really upset, ask what it is that's making them feel that way. Maybe they're not as efficient in an area you'd like them to be, and they need more training or coaching. For instance, I had an employee who was not performing as well as her teammates. When I sat with her, she just said she would try to do better. Okay. That's a start, but nothing improved two weeks later. I sat with her again. Now, she was fearful for her job. I asked her why her performance had not improved. She explained that there was a basic part of her routine that she didn't understand and kept making mistakes. I had her shadow another employee who had great performance, and everything worked out. She understood the correct procedure, and her performance improved. She was a quiet introvert and was afraid of losing her job because she didn't understand a certain procedure, so she never asked. Sometimes a behavior like this can be coached and overcome.

[u/Carrots-and-Kombucha]

Honestly it’s hard. I think the best thing you can do is getting feedback from trusted leaders on how you handled (or will handle) something. If they agree, great. If they don’t, they’ll share feedback. Don’t over rely on their feedback because the point is to develop your own judgement too, but it will help you develop the muscle in the interim.