A reader writes:

About a year and a half ago, I hired a person (Catelyn) with more than seven years of management experience to manage a long-standing team. I was aware that the transition had been rocky in parts, and I believe that I’ve been clear with everyone involved that Catelyn has authority to define process and policy for the team and that she has my full support. She’s very good at the regular part of her work, she prioritizes the right things, and I get positive feedback about her from our customer base.

However, the team members have begun coming to me privately to say that they feel micromanaged and even bullied by her. Some of the things I’ve heard:
– She’ll say belittling things about customers, coworkers, and even team members (her own reports!) behind their backs.
– She will have 1:1s that go on for an hour or more which are entirely her ranting at the employee about everything she doesn’t like about the team and the organization.
– She’s inconsistent in her directions and expectations with the team, giving different members different instructions on how to do the same task.

But none of this happens when I’m around! I haven’t observed any of these behaviors at all, other than early on she seemed to skew surprisingly negative on her initial impression of most coworkers across our organization, but after I showed mild surprise to her experience, that stopped. And the team says that she is different when I’m present. (My office is in another building but I drop by when I can.)

On Catelyn’s part, she says that the team doesn’t respect her, that they resist anything she proposes just because it comes from her, and that the team spends all of their time talking instead of doing work … but that none of this happens when I’m around either! When I’ve tried to gently probe regarding some of the comments that I’ve been told about, she responds with shock and that she would never say such a thing. One team member did go to HR directly and it ended in a vague place of telling Catelyn, “Well, if you did say something like this, never ever do it again.”

If what the team members tell me is true, it’s appalling behavior and I want to deal with it ASAP. I have worked closely with some of them for years and I can’t imagine that they would cook up a concerted campaign of lies. On the other hand, I’m not sure I can or should discipline someone over literal hearsay, and I don’t think Catelyn is subtle enough to be this bad around her staff without me noticing something in our interactions. How can I resolve this?

I strongly suspect the problem is Catelyn and here’s why:

– It’s unlikely that a group of people who you’ve known and worked with for years, and who (I’m assuming) you know to have good judgment and integrity, would all conspire to start lying about someone.

– Catelyn started out “surprisingly negative” about people when she talked to you but stopped when she saw your reaction. That tells you something. It’s not just the original negative takes, but also her modifications when she saw you were reacting poorly, which indicates she deliberately censors what she lets you see. (If this were the only thing that had happened, I wouldn’t put as much weight on it — but taken with everything else, it’s significant.)

– At least one of Catelyn’s complaints about the team reflects directly on her as a manager and she doesn’t seem to realize that, which is telling: her complaint about the team spending all their time talking instead of doing work. If that’s true, Catelyn’s job is to actively manage that situation, not just throw up her hands. That’s not a tough problem for a decent manager to solve, and it doesn’t sound like she’s managing that the way a skilled manager would. That doesn’t make her a liar, but it does mean she’s not a very good manager, and it’s another thing that points toward her being the problem. And her belief that the opposite is true is yet another data point not in her favor. And if it’s not true but she’s saying it anyway … well, case closed. Can you tell from the team’s output which it is?

– Catelyn doesn’t sound particularly concerned by what’s happening. A good manager whose team had these problems would be actively looking for solutions. Catelyn doesn’t sound like she’s doing that; she’s just reacting with “no, that didn’t happen” when you come to her with questions. Why isn’t she more concerned? Why isn’t she more curious about where these reports are coming from, and actively trying to improve her relationships with the people she manages?

I know you’re not seeing the problems firsthand, but it’s absolutely possible for a manager to be horrible with their staff and hide it when their own manager is around. As one example, I once worked with a director who was awful to his team for years and had them all too terrified to tell anyone about it. They worked in a different location from everyone else so it was easy to hide — and when people visited their site, he changed his behavior for the outsiders’ benefit.

Ultimately, though, you don’t need to solve this beyond a reasonable doubt. Frame it to yourself, and to Catelyn, this way: You need a manager for this team who is able to effectively manage them. A requirement of Catelyn’s job is to gain the respect of her staff and manage them in a way where they feel expectations are clear, not regularly changing, and where morale is good. No matter what’s behind it, it sounds like everyone agrees right now that that’s not happening. Lay out for Catelyn the outcomes you need to see from her as a manager — like that her team agrees they receive clear and consistent expectations, that they feel respected and treated well, and that they report receiving a level of support appropriate to their roles.

You can offer her coaching to help her achieve those things, which might include you sitting in on some of her meetings with her team and debriefing afterwards, letting her watch you run meetings with your own team and debriefing those afterwards, and coaching her through specific challenges that come up … but ultimately you need a manager who can effectively manage the team and gain their trust. If she can’t do that, she’s not the right person to lead them.

Also, act with real urgency here. You you need to see pretty quickly whether she can turn things around and be that person, because the longer this goes on, the more damage it will do to that team’s culture (something that can last even if she eventually leaves) and the more chance you’ll lose good people over it.