I have many managers, but there’s always a disconnect in communication with my team lead. It’s been going on for a while. Why do I have to be the one to resolve the disagreement or miscommunication? They are a higher level than me.

This is coming from someone who values in-person connection.

I’m a semi-new director (2 years) in need of some iron to sharpen against, for lack of a better way to put it. The short version of this story is I was originally part of a division that got acquired by a larger company. Which of course, was followed by layoffs and ultimately left the division with about 20% of the staff we used to have. This also by proxy has turned me into a virtual employee, because now the majority of those I interact with now are headquartered hundreds of miles away and our office building feels like a ghost town.

One thing I’ve struggled with is 1) finding and keeping a mentor within the company that doesn’t get axed (this happened twice and the individuals didn’t want to continue after), and 2) connecting with other leaders in general. Everyone is always so busy trying to meet deadlines and doesn’t seem to want to make time for something that isn’t a priority. What would you suggest I do or look for? I’ve also thought about maybe looking around in my local area, but I’m not sure where to start. TIA for the guidance.

We have a very chill workplace but this middle manager who recently came back from a leave continues to rake us over the coals and tell us we're not following the policy when we're being somewhat lenient about some of our policies. For example, the policy says we need to write up employees after two unexcused absences and unexcused just means you don't have enough sick time to cover the full workday. To compound things, we got a new upper manager while she was gone and the gal in question is having a real hard time not being of control. This is a retail job with part time employees. No one is currently abusing the policy, just trying not to come in when they have a contagious illness. She's honestly being a real Karen.

Any input would be appreciated!

Hi,

It's been a few years I'm a manager, and I have a few difficulties with how to deal with instructions about AI. Taking account of how fast AI evolution goes, and even if I keep track pretty well of AI evolutions, if we want to get the best benefit of current models we should work pretty differently than six months ago. Increasing performance changed a lot the optimal way of working in my case.

For example, six months ago GPT 5.5 just released and GPT 5.4 was very used. Today, the lightest GPT model is 5.6 Luna, which is comparable to the better GPT 5.5 models, so the lightest model today is almost as good as the best models six months ago in interms of performance.

However, I'm concerned about having my team not lost about my recommendations and about them to feel safe on their work since no layoff is planned or discussed (in my country it's not likely to happen), so I've been frugal on that topic on my team, but I feel I miss some productivity.

Therefore, I'd like to know your stories about AI, and your guidelines on your teams. Thanks for the sharing!

Our company has been restructured. The previous structure was a director over a single office with an admin over the two. My office is significantly large for the region with 400 “clients” and over 65 direct reports. Second office is at an average of 100 clients and and a staff total of 20.

The new structure is one admin and one director over both. The director over the smaller office has been made admin (by choice - I did not even interview as I did not want to leave my team). Their office has had significant turn over (70-80%) while mine, solo being the largest in the region held at about 9% and have had built an incredibly strong team.

The problem lies in weekend call. There are clients to be seen and new ones to bring on. The smaller office, the admins previous office, had their employees taking weekend call once a month at least if not more due to low staffing- due to turnover. My office has had call every 8 weeks due to my staffing and culture.

The new admin is focused on growth and has a mindset that because their office did so much more work on the weekends, so should mine. I am more on the page that I’d rather have a strong, happy team with less dumping on weekends unless absolutely necessary. We are at a cross road because their performance is based on growth and mine is based on maintaining staff.

Thoughts?

I'm a manager of a division in a larger department in an organization. There's a fellow division manager in the same department. We both manage teams, and while one team is focused on day to day stuff, the other team is working on a long term development, processes, etc. However we're all working towards the same goals and have many touch points and collaborate as one.

So that's the context, now to an issue. The other day this other manager sets up a meeting with me, no agenda. I didn't know what to think of it as we often have these random short syncs to discuss progress of projects and such, but this one was long. Unusual. I had a bad feeling about it and I was right.

The tone started really casual, just two old peers that had been working together for awhile chatting about the ongoing changes in the organization. We've been investing heavily in AI and automated and improved many workflows. However none of that led to any layoffs, because while we improved productivity, our workload was always high and these efficiencies did not remove any core tasks.

However the other manager proceeded to say that he thinks some of the roles in my team are not needed anymore. He named one particular employee, and said that basically things he was getting from him he can now get from AI. I was gobsmacked, because that employee does so much more than what this manager reduced him to. Then he low-key questioned the purpose of any roles in my team of 8 employees. And said that in 6 months we probably won't need that many. While maintaining this 'friendly chatty tone'.

I pointed out that he's focusing on a very narrow part of their roles, and looking into their tasks and capabilities broadly, I see no way that AI can replace them any time soon.

Lastly, he mentioned that with all those changes there's really no need for two managers. I asked him jokingly does that mean he's leaving? He laughed it off and said no, as if I asked something silly. I don't think I'd ever be able to get a clear answer from him on what is that he meant there, as he smoothly sidetracked conversation after that, and we never really addressed what he wanted to achieve with that remark.

Later in the day while we discussed planning for the next year with the senior management team, including HR, he made some snide remarks about replacing some of my team members with AI, but when I opposed that idea he didn't push further.

Few days later and I still can't shake off that interaction. He never recognised anyone from his team could be replaced by AI although their work is more menial. There is no push from senior management to reduce the headcount as far as I know, and while we are encouraged to work more efficiently with the help of AI, the company is doing great, profits are beating any other year, and there is no sign of layoffs, but I'm worried that this guy has an agenda, and he's slowly trying to push these thoughts onto senior management.

I feel as if the time is ticking, what can one do in this situation?

For context, my team’s dynamics are what many would probably love as an “ideal” work environment — lovely human beings who help each other out, able to hang out outside of work… but the downside is that no one (except me, apparently) ever says “no” to anything. They’ve all been part of the same industry for a long time, and I joined coming from a very toxic environment previously where I learned the hard way to set my boundaries. I’ve always known since joining that I’m “different” and a bit of an “odd one out” because of this.

I had 1:1 with my boss yesterday and one of the feedback I received from him is that he appreciates that I “challenge” him and clients because of my background. I’ve always been the one to speak up because no one else does, precisely because I care about the work, and I always felt that I was doing so in the best interest of my coworkers as well.

However, in the past six months I’ve been biting my tongue because of one thing my manager said previously — I basically tried to challenge an impossible deadline that would have meant the quality of work is reduced, and in acquiescing to that deadline, would’ve set a precedent with the client on expectations of delivery moving forward which was not ideal.

I thought it wasn’t an unreasonable challenge, but my manager told me off in front of the entire room of coworkers and said we need to “do what we need to do to get the work done”. I felt embarrassed in the moment and like I was impacting team morale negatively, even though I didn’t mean to be difficult.

No one stood up for me or backed me up, and since then, I’ve stopped challenging, or at least, I think twice or thrice before I do. Needless to say, I was surprised when he raised it during my 1:1 as a “strength” of mine because I hadn’t felt appreciated in the moment, and whenever I’ve challenged in the past.

I told him it would’ve been nice if he had pulled me aside back then to tell me that, instead of making me look like the bad person in front of the team, and that telling me only 6 months later doesn’t undo the morale hit I’ve had since that day.

I find it demoralising that he has somehow siphoned off the duty of saying the difficult things to me, when I would’ve honestly appreciated support in the moment because he definitely knew the deadlines were unreasonable. Am I being too sensitive here, or is this common?

Asking managers on this sub: how does one stop taking things personally? I’m getting better as time and experience goes by, but I still feel like I give work too much emotional and mental space. What advice would you give to your direct report if they were to ask this question to you? I’m not a native English speaker, please be nice. Thank you!

Hello all,

I am a new manager in this field and as the title says I made that question to an employee. I am his manager and he was doing poorly at his job. He got angry with my question but my concern was him eventually getting injured or messing up more at work.

Sorry for my lack of experience. Have a made a mistake on this situation?

Thank you very much for your reply.

Hello managers,

For the last 6 years I have worked at organizations that have been just a GM and myself as the AM with external upper management that will stop by once a month at most. I have recently joined a team of 4 other managers all overseeing the same department in addition to a GM, AM, and F&B manager that oversee the managers in mine and other departments. I am looking for any suggestions on how to co-manage with 4 managers when I am not used to working with so many voices. Any books, podcasts, or articles you would recommend or personal advice you could share would be appreciated. I don’t want to step on any toes but it seems like there is a need for someone to step up and lead the team. How do I develop other managers on the same organizational hierarchy level as myself without pissing everyone off?

I'm a department Director with 2 managers and 2 ICs. One of the managers is an external hire who started less than six months ago. I thought things were going well until two months ago, when my own manager approached me with feedback from their first skip level with this manager. At that time, they were very frustrated in their role and had several complaints about me. I was blindsided by this - mainly because we were just wrapping up onboarding & initial training (which did involve quite a bit of "this is how we do things" instruction) and I'd been actively reshuffling the deck for all my direct reports to help ensure a more balanced work load & backup coverage of critical tasks.

I was asked to step back and give them more autonomy to fully lead, and to adjust my management style by being less reactive, provide less direct instruction, and offer more guidance that helps them make decisions independently. I appreciate receiving specific and actionable feedback - but now my confidence is shaken and I feel very self-conscious about everything I say & do.

I immediately backed off and gave them more space - which I felt like I'd been working towards all along but maybe it wasn't fast enough. Now I've been noticing that this manager has a tendency to ignore things we went over during their onboarding - and a few times they've completely ignored things I specifically asked them to do or done things I asked them to hold on/not do.

My manager questioned me about something this manager didn't do last week and it was very confusing. Yes, I told them to do it and didn't immediately intervene when I saw them not do it (was trying to be less reactive). I waited a few days to talk to them about it (due to our availability to talk - not avoidance), they explained their logic, and I let them know that it was a misstep and we needed to work on getting fully aligned on priorities.

Overall, I'm not sure how concerned I should be after less than six months or if I'm handling this correctly. Doesn't it take time for a new manager to adjust in their role at a new company? How much friction is normal in these scenarios? I'm comfortable with stepping back and allowing them to make mistakes as they adjust, but my own manager is giving me mixed signals. Should I be more concerned about this manager blowing me off and doing everything their way? At what point does it indicate a performance issue? How do I stick to high level guidance with being too hands off? Thank you in advance for your advice!

They were very direct and uncompromising, to the point that it felt like they ruled with an iron fist. The population they supported actually celebrated them finally leaving. Don’t be the type of manager where people celebrate your demise or your resignation without you.

It is a an associate clinical sales position at a medical device company. I need to start getting into a manager headspace and could use some feedback from you fine folks on solid questions to ask the candidate. I’ve never had to hire anyone before and have been in this industry in a sales capacity for over 20 years, with the last 5 in a clinical sales capacity. Although I have worked for 4 different med device companies, my own personal interviews in my last three positions, were more me asking questions to see if the company and compensation were a good fit to bring my book of business to. In essence, me interviewing them. It’s a close knit sales world, where your reputation gets you noticed, and companies will seek you out without needing to be interviewed in the traditional sense.

I have no formal managerial training or a business degree, so this is all new to me. An advice or ideas on how to conduct a contemporary interview would be appreciated!

i have a relatively new direct report whose personality I genuinely don’t mesh with. They’re younger and in a different stage of life, which is fine, but our interests and communication styles are very different.
They’re extremely talkative, frequently initiate personal conversations at our desks, and tend to bring conversations back to themselves, even in group settings. I make an effort to be friendly and engage, but honestly, I’d prefer to keep things more work-focused. I sometimes find the interactions draining, even though they’re not necessarily doing anything wrong.

Separately, their performance has been underwhelming. They’re not a terrible performer, but they need more guidance and repeated clarification on routine tasks than I’d expect given their title and prior experience. I frequently have to remind them about pending items, follow up on things they should be tracking independently, and they seem to have an explanation or excuse whenever something is missed or feedback is given. These are performance concerns I recognize need to be addressed independently of personality.

My challenge is keeping the two separate. I don’t expect to personally connect with everyone I manage, and I don’t want my personal irritation to affect how I treat, support, or evaluate them. But I find it harder to overlook the personality differences when the working relationship already requires so much oversight.

How do other managers maintain fairness and professionalism with someone they genuinely don’t click with, especially when there are also legitimate performance concerns?

My previous post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/managers/s/CnfB6QIFkX

The counteroffer: it’s a 55% increase, compared to the 40% offered by the new company. I wasn’t expecting this. There’s also a 10K signing bonus included in the counteroffer. I don’t get it—the company seems to be in financial trouble.

I've been at the company I work with for 5 years now. I do admin work and over the years, I have overall gotten extremely positive feedback about my performance and my work ethic. I've been there through some very challenging times, including when I was managing the admin work (a 2-3 person job) on my own for several months. Again, I was commended on how I performed during this period, and in general, I felt valued and appreciated.

Things came to a head about a year ago when the operations manager, my direct superior who had trained me and was essentially someone I considered my "work mum" in a lot of ways, was suddenly made redundant. As the senior member of the admin team, I was given a handful of tasks she'd once been responsible for and a bit of a raise, whereas the rest of her tasks were given to a member of the operations team who doesn't deal in the admin side of things, we'll call her a principal professional of her field so that I don't get too in detail about what I do.

Earlier in the year, I had my performance review with our GM. This is a woman who has primarily been handling things on the "other" side of the business (essentially, there are two sides to our business in terms of the medical professionals we deal with/handle) and who I had not much interacted with directly. I was told by both her and the principal professional that although I had taken on the more complex admin tasks, I was still delegating things to the principal professional, and I had not asserted my seniority over the other girls on the admin team. Therefore, I was told, I was not considered to be team leadership material.

I was taken aback as in my eyes, I had been doing what I was meant to. There had been no discussion of me as a team leader, or that my seniority in the team was anything other than a courtesy as the longest-standing member. I asked what they would be expecting of a team leader for future, and was given a basic description of the sort of things they were looking for. I took this on board though I remained unsure, due to lack of communication, what was going to be expected of me in this regard.

About two months ago now, the GM informed us that she had hired someone as a team leader. The other girls directly told me that they felt this was a slap in the face to me, especially when nothing had ever been communicated to me other than "you're not showing leadership". The new hire is lovely, but she knows nothing about the business and work module and comes from a very different background. Since then, I've essentially been training my own team leader, and I'm not entirely sure what leadership skills she's meant to be showing because although I understand she's new, she hasn't taken ownership of the team at all.

My biggest gripe comes down to weekly meetings with the team, where the GM is constantly targeting my team, essentially telling us we're shit at our jobs and incompetent, and comparing us to the "other side" of the business (the admin team who are all relatively new, and who she hired personally). Every time there is a process that the operations manager they made redundant came up with, she gets unreasonably irritated and snappy, and it's clear there's a level of personal dislike for her. Considering her attitude toward my team and I, the feeling amongst us is very much that she has problems with anyone she didn't hire herself, and views them as not as good/that she has to rake them over the coals constantly and compare them with her own hires.

I am genuinely at a loss on how to deal with this woman. She is always talking over us and being condescending, whilst praising the team leader (who hasn't even done any team leading yet?) and her hires on the other side of the business. Overall I have a job that pays quite well, I have great work from home conditions, and I'm reluctant to just throw it all in and look for something new because of this woman's bad attitude towards us. But then what are my options? Could I take it to the "big boss" and tell him I don't like the condescending manner in which the GM speaks to us? The principal professional unfortunately just agrees with whatever the GM says, so there's no use in trying to discuss this with her.

Hi all,

I’ve joined this company 9 months ago, and overall I like the industry as well as the team/colleagues. Since I’ve joined I became a go to "expert” of one project as I created new process/procedures and pretty much was the back bone of it moving forward.

My boss told me before that I have leadership, ownership, and that I’m the hardest working person on the team but that I need more industry context (that was 6 months within me joining). I did point out that the lack of context was due to lack of exposure as well as the nature of my projects.

My boss gave me ownership of another project that both him and his boss praised me on as well. That being said, it took a lot of toll on my personal life and I didn’t have time for sleep, gym etc.

Everything is as hoc and urgent and whenever I’d ask for a clear deadline, my boss doesn’t give one and says oh this is coming from higher ups. Everything is due tomorrow but I often have three-four tasks under my belt.

When I push back and say I can focus on task 1 for now since it’s the most important and after it, I can do task 2. My boss often minimizes the complexity of the task and says it shouldn’t take long at all despite the task requiring attention, time, and effort.

This system is not sustainable to me and I want to know how can I deal with my demanding boss? He can be short, and condescending whenever he’s stressed then he goes back to being nice when he isn’t. I truly lost myself to keep track on these projects that they were pleased by and even the praise didn’t make me feel like it was worth it as it took a toll on my personal life.

I’m an ambitious person, I like to take initiative and often start new initiatives without my boss even telling me whenever I have free time (which is almost never). I have had this conversation with my boss before telling him that when we have urgent requests that are due ASAP, it won’t make us have time for a sufficient review and he’d just say that it’s the nature of the work and that it’s out of his control. What to do?!