Middle Management Kinda Sucks

Relationships Boundaries & Self-Care
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Hello everyone!

I mostly need an outlet to vent but if anyone has has any practical advice feel free to chime in!

I am a team lead and I’m in charge of three people. I report to my dept head. Generally, I like my job but everything that say about middle management being a stressful position is true! I like my boss as a person but she is an objectively bad manager. She is the owner of the company so she doesn’t respond well to criticism and is very scatter-brained in general.

Anyways, she has a tendency to dump huge projects on my team and she is unaware of how complex they are. She will also forget stuff that she previously assigned to us and dump more work on us. She generally just has “oh you guys have time right? you’re such ROCKSTARS” approach that I think is meant to be friendly but I know comes across to my team members as phony. One of my team members is understandably frustrated and starting to push back. However, her way of handling it is not great either. She has some valid concerns, but it also feels like she’s built up so much resentment that she doesn’t want to do ANYTHING for our boss, even when the requests are reasonable.

So I’m stuck in the middle. I’m trying to make my manager more aware of how she’s coming across to people, and trying to get her to really grasp what she is asking my team to do with these big projects and help my team member understand that the way she is acting is going to create more issues for her long term and sabotage any chances we have of improving the situation. Generally, I’m frustrated with both of them. Also, HR can’t be trusted in this situation. There’s not a lot of trust there.

So here I am. It felt good to share that just to get it out. I know I’ve done everything in my power to try and create some balance here. Mostly looking for any tips on how to cope with the feeling of frustration and inability to get two grown adults to magically become self-aware and work together.

2 Hearts
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Hi! Here is me, I work in HR and have been doing so for over 10 years. As with many things here it is a bit hard to give a definitive answer without knowing all of the components. I have worked with managers for most of my career. It is only recently that I switched to a more technical side of HR (Working with systems, data and AI). However I think my experience is valid here.

Usually, working for the owner of a company is a bit tricky. These companies tend to be managed in a way that is is not always ideal and if the owner is not willing to listen to the people they hire, then it is a recipe for things not going to well. For you I can say that you should be able to have open conversations with your manager. I do not know how many people reporting to her she has, but everyone reporting to her should be trusted to handle things in the best way possible and open up when needed.

The second element, is that it is your job to protect your direct report. When you tell me that one of your employees is pushing back, it tells me 2 things that I cannot know for certain:

  • Team does not trust you have their back. So this person feels they have to do something herself.
  • This person just does not respect authority and is pushing back directly to your manager instead of speaking about her concerns with you.

You need to honestly answer these questions and see what you can do. Your direct report should not be necessarily pushing back herself, you should be doing it if it is necessary. If you do not push back, then there must be a reason for it and you need to be able to convey that to your team and they should understand. A manager needs to be able to say no to tasks to protect their team and their people, but at the same time the work needs to be done.

The second thing I want to say is regarding HR. I believe, for the most part, I have been a well trusted HR person in the companies I worked for. I had people come to me asking for advice on how to approach a situation. I’ve coached thousands of people on this. 95% of the times someone comes to HR with a complaint, it is something that can and should be resolved by themselves. Literally, over half of the situations could get resolved with a coffee. Ask the person to have a coffee with you and express how you feel. Coached them in how to express things and bam, situation got resolved. HR in the room can mean escalation and make things more tense. Even if you HR can be trusted, I do not think this is a situation for them to get involved, but you should be able to get advice from them. It is sad you do not.

I think you need to assess whether or not you want to continue in that company. I think you are someone that has the right mindset, but if your manager (company owner) does not open for valid criticism, then it might not be the best place to be.

There are plenty of factors affecting my advice from your geographical location, to knowing the people involved, but these are my very generic comments on how to handle stuff. If you are afraid in your role then something is wrong: you are in the wrong place, or you need to work on you, or you are reporting to the wrong people.

Always try to focus on the things you can control!