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They don’t know how to manage!

Hello Dr. Mac,

I need your help and I need it fast. Let me explain the situation.

I’m a college student who works part-time for a governmental centre for young people. We’re a small team of 14 people, plus the Team Leader.

A couple of months ago, the Team Leader was promoted to an interim higher position, and therefore needed a new Team Leader. Before leaving, he appointed the 2 full-time “project managers” having the most experience to each assume the Team Leader role for a month at a time each. To this day, one of them was team leader for 2 months, and the other one is up for a 3rd month.

Let me tell you there is no comparison between the real Team Leader we initially had and the new interim team leaders.

Most of my coworkers and I are not agreeing with most of their actions and ways of doing things. Given they are always in the office, we have too much supervision and we get picked on way too often. Sometimes, what they come up with is absolutely ridiculous.

Our initial Team Leader is in touch with our current interim team leaders every week, but he has no idea of what exactly is going on because all he gets is their feedback, not ours.

We are no longer satisfied with our jobs. And we want to do something about it! Yet we do not know what to do. Can you help?

-Abigail

Hi Abigail.

Once a full-time replacement is hired for the Team Leader position, your problem should resolve itself, assuming it is not one of these two clowns, right?

With that said, I see three options:

1) As a group, ask for a staff meeting to talk about creating a win-win working relationship between the acting team leaders and the front-line employees. At that meeting, discuss what you, the front-line employees, need “more of” from the team leaders in order to do your job better. By focusing on the “more of” you keep the conversation on the constructive side as opposed to complaining about what’s “not working.” Why does this matter? Because if you want these pseudo-team leaders to listen and to want to make improvements, you cannot come at them with criticism. That would only force their hand to squish you even more. In return, ask the team leaders what they need “more of” from you (the front-liners) and agree to do just that.

2) You could get word to the former Team Leader that a revolt is about to happen and ask him/her to intervene. This would lead to a meeting described in #1 above. But it would get everyone’s attention. The disadvantage with this option is it is a power play on your end, since you are calling in the big cheese. Your team leaders may not trust you for a while after the intervention ends. Maybe that doesn’t matter.

3) Do nothing and wait it out. The disadvantage is you won’t know how long to wait it out and one of these acting team leads could end up becoming the team leader. Yikes. Then, you’ll already have established a dysfunctional work pattern with this person. Not good.

Abigail, I’d go with #1 above. If you don’t feel safe with the two team leaders, then go to #2.

There are also people like me who come into organizations to help facilitate my first suggestion. We are viewed as neutral, making it easier to trust. I guess that’s another option.

Hope this helped a little.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 10:02 am and is filed under Problems with a Manager. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

They don’t know how to manage!

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