new manager’s team hates her — but she says they’re the problem

by Alison Green on October 23, 2024

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.

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{ 261 comments }

{ 261 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. Annie2*

    Pedantic lawyer here – this isn’t hearsay anyways. Hearsay is repeating something someone else told you for the truth of its contents. Catelyn’s team telling you about their direct experiences with her is perfectly admissible evidence :)

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    1. Peanut Hamper*

      I noticed this too. OP seems to be dismissing the evidence a long-standing team is bringing her. I’m especially concerned that one of her team went to HR with this. They’re not just telling you.

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      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yeah, going to HR means this is a really big problem for the team, or at least for that employee. Unless that employee is constantly going to HR for minor issues, I’d think that their going to HR was a last resort that they used because Catelyn’s boss (aka OP) is not listening to what the team says about Catelyn. A last resort, that is, before they start looking for employment elsewhere.

        I agree with AAM’s last paragraph, but I honestly don’t see how Catelyn possibly could turn this around. Especially since one of her flaws is talking smack about people behind their backs, at this point it’s hard to imagine her ever gaining the trust of her team.

        OP, I bet that although you haven’t seen any of these things in person, there are probably some other behaviors that you could notice that you wouldn’t think are very good. Like, does she thank people when they hold doors for her, or in business meetings with you and other managers who are her peers, how does she act? Even if she knows now not to talk about people negatively, are there other not-great things she does in these meetings?

        Please send a follow-up – I’m dying to hear what happens!

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        1. tina turner*

          Yes. I bet if LW did see her in action it would be very CLEAR but LW seems resistant to picturing it. Maybe because this reflects on LW’s hiring the person?

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          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Yeah, I commented in another thread how in so many of these cases the higher ups refuse to see what the team is reporting about their manager because the higher ups don’t want to admit they made the wrong hiring decision. Which is super frustrating for those of us with bad managers that need to be gone.

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        2. Web of Pies*

          “I honestly don’t see how Catelyn possibly could turn this around. Especially since one of her flaws is talking smack about people behind their backs, at this point it’s hard to imagine her ever gaining the trust of her team.”

          100 zillion% this. I would not EVER trust a manager who ranted to me about my coworkers. If their behavior abruptly changed to being perfectly professional, I’d assume they were griping about me to others now instead.

          If OP comes down hard, like sends Cat to management training, and is seen by the team visibly managing her on this, you can *maybe* get the team to function more peaceably, but I think that trust is gone forever. Plus, Cat clearly believes her team sucks, so what could you possibly coach to make her stop believing that?

          Move her out of management into something customer-facing, it sounds like that’s what she’s good at.

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          1. Reality.Bites*

            OP needs to consider the cost of losing that team, either to internal positions as they come up, or to another company entirely.

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      2. Biff*

        If there was one piece of advice I could give every boss and have them follow, it would be “take HR bullying/harassment claims seriously even if HR doesn’t.” It has to meet a certain level of misconduct for HR to move in, but below that level it can absolutely destroy a team anyway. If long-term employees have been good employees for years and start saying “this person is awful”…. that person is very likely awful. In 17 years in an industry known for assholes, I’ve never seen it be the case that employees ganged up on a new manager (which is usually what the new manager claims.) Not once.

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        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Great advice! And hey, if it turns out that the bullying/harassment claim was unwarranted, it’s still something to take seriously. If the claimant is lying about it*, that’s something to take seriously and deal with individually with that person, and if it was just a misunderstanding then it’s good to clear that up.

          *Not that I want to open up that discussion about whether or not bullying/harassment survivors are lying, please let’s not derail on that topic.

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        2. My Useless Two Cents*

          All manager’s out there stop dismissing interpersonal conflict, it doesn’t have to be bullying/harassment. If two people on the team, in the group, in the office, in the company are not getting along it WILL cause rippling effects of disapproval, dislike and low-morale. Especially if most of the conflict is centered around a single person.
          Listen! To! Your! Employees!

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      3. MotherofaPickle*

        +1

        LW says that they have worked with the Team for years, right? So why is LW taking the Newbie Manager’s word over the Team’s?

        LW knows who the Complainer is, who’s the Luddite, who the Change-Challenger is, etc., so why are they dismissing the Team’s input?

        Find the People-Pleaser, get their input, and, above all, get eyes on the situation. You probably won’t know for real life what’s actually going on.

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        1. TWB*

          LW might be thinking back on other posts they’ve seen over the years where teams, or at least some members of a team, actively push back on the new manager because they liked the old one so much, are upset the old manager is gone (especially if the old one was let go/fired), and because “that’s not the way that old manager used to do things.”

          LW’s case seems entirely different. As Alison said, for the whole team to be “ganging up” on the manager is hard to believe. And the fact that someone has gone to HR is another level that LW should be seriously concerned about. It points to the team not trusting that their concerns are being heard and addressed, and it’s eroding trust and morale.

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          1. Heart&Vine*

            Exactly. OP mentioned they worked with some of these people for years. If those people don’t have a history of blowing things out of proportion or complaining about every little thing or seem to have a bone to pick with everyone who oversees them… why would they ALL suddenly start behaving that way now? If you hear hooves, think horses not zebras. If several sensible people are complaining about Catelyn, it’s more likely that Catelyn is the problem rather than it being a big conspiracy.

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            1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

              Totally agree. The information the LW has about these staff is relevant to her assessment of the situation. Or at least should be. If the people on the team have a history of being reasonable, having positive relationships with colleagues, and managing change generally well, that’s a strong sign that Catelyn is at least a large part of the problem. Things would be a lot murkier if the team had a history of weird nonsense or if several of them were new.

              Also worth noting that hearing the same kinds of issues from multiple staff members should carry some additional weight. It’s definitely not one “disgruntled” employee being unreasonable or causing trouble. Whatever is going on is much bigger than that. Obviously, that doesn’t automatically mean the team is right and Catelyn is lying. It’s just one factor to consider when assessing the situation.

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        2. Wilbur*

          The answer is in there. OP hired them. Catelyn gets good feedback from customers and all the right business things are getting done. Catelyn sounds like they have all the skills and experience to be a team member, just not a manager. It’d be easier to make a call if customers were having an issue or if the ball was being dropped somewhere.

          OP described it as a long standing team, but not necessarily a high performing team. They gave Catelyn full control over processes and policies, which sounds to me like the existing processes haven’t changed much or team performance could be improved. That’s not the most important thing right now, because whatever skills Catelyn offers, she doesn’t have the right temperament for the job.

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      4. English Teacher*

        Came here to say this too! All of them are giving you first-hand “testimony” about the situation. All the team member “witnesses” say the same thing, while the leader “witness,” who would benefit from something different being true, says something different. Pretty damning.

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    2. Consonance*

      That’s a great point. Taking it a step further, it’s like a judge refusing to convict because they weren’t personally present at the murder.

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      2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        This. This is not a court of law. OP you don’t have to personally witness the behavior to act on it. You do have to evaluate the information you get. But that is based on your knowledge of the people involved, not just what you personally observed.

        Which by the way, you have observed evidence of this behavior in the manager. You are just discounting it because you don’t personally see it now. Which just tells me she has learned to hide it when you are around.

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        1. Observer*

          This is not a court of law.

          Even in a court of law, the jury or judge (which is the position you are in!) must be able to convict and punish based on things they have heard. Because it’s just not possible to operate otherwise.

          And, as it happens, companies are far more likely to get in trouble in court for *not* acting when they have *reasonable* basis to act, than for acting under those circumstances.

          Now, there may not be any legal issues here, but the concept applies.

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        2. pocket microscope*

          “Which just tells me she has learned to hide it when you are around.”

          Yes! This seems totally transparent to me. LW witnessed the behaviour, reacted negatively to it, and now doesn’t see it any more but the team continue to report it. Ergo Catelyn stopped doing it in front of the person who has authority over her, but still does it to/around her subordinates. It wouldn’t take Poirot to get to the bottom of this, surely.

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      3. Observer*

        Taking it a step further, it’s like a judge refusing to convict because they weren’t personally present at the murder.

        Yes, exactly. Juries and judges always convict based on what they have heard. Otherwise the system could never work.

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        1. Lydia*

          I’m kind of tired of the idea that unless you personally witnessed a bad behavior, there’s a significant chance it didn’t happen. As you said, that’s not how the world works. You never saw someone be a good employee, so you wouldn’t be able to hire them. You have to take it on other people’s words. How is this any different?

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          1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

            Hard agree. And this benefit of the doubt tends to benefit those in power far more than those who aren’t (looking at you, Kavanaugh). The LW either has to believe/mostly believe the team or she has to believe/mostly believe Caitlyn. By not taking action against Caitlyn, she’s telling the team she doesn’t believe them

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            1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

              Yup, if I was on the team I’d eventually assume either that the LW didn’t believe us or that they thought the behaviour was OK.

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    4. JB (not in Houston)*

      I mean, to be more pedantic, if we’re going by the legal definition of hearsay, your definition is not quite accurate because even a witness’s own prior statements can be hearsay. But we’re not dealing with the legal definition, the OP was using the colloquial definition, which does fit. What her reports told her is not hearsay to them because they experienced it, but the OP did not, so it’s not her direct knowledge. I think that’s what she’s concerned about. She seems to think she can’t make a decision on anything she didn’t directly see or experience.

      But that gets to another issue where we can apply a legal analogy. The OP like a judge or jury who has to make a decision based on conflicting information, and she needs to decide who is more credible. Like you said, these people aren’t repeating something they heard, they are talking about their own experiences. Like Alison said, she’s worked with these people for years, and it’s multiple people all saying the same thing, and Catelyn has given the OP a reason to doubt her credibility. Sometimes as a manager, that’s the best you can get as far as evidence goes. By not doing anything, she’s basically siding with the manager.

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      1. Observer*

        ut we’re not dealing with the legal definition, the OP was using the colloquial definition, which does fit

        Disagree. Hearsay is gossip, which direct complaints to a supervisor are not. Hearsay, in this context, would be Jill coming to LW with something they heard Jane say about Caitlyn

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        1. Annie2*

          Exactly. We can all agree hearsay isn’t “here’s something that happened to me while you were out of the room.”

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          1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

            Boss: Hey Grumpy, what did you do this weekend?

            Me: I went for a bike ride and checked out an art show.

            Boss: That’s hearsay!

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        2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

          Exactly. Hearsay, colloquially, should mean repeating things that other people told you. If it includes reporting stuff that happened to you or that you directly witnessed, the term becomes meaningless.

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    5. Marcela*

      There seems to be a trend lately to label hearsay as inherently bad too. Ask any law student who has taken a class in evidence, and they’ll be able to list a ton of exceptions to the hearsay rule.

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      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        As a person outside the legal field I can think of an example off the top of my head: the Drew Peterson/Kathleen Savio case.

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      2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

        Interesting. I’m not a lawyer, but as I understand it, the issue with hearsay is that it’s unreliable – or not sufficiently reliable – for court, where someone’s liberty could be taken away and there are life-long consequences. Something being hearsay doesn’t mean it isn’t totally true. You just can’t evaluate it in the same way as if someone witnessed something and that’s not good enough in the court context.

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    7. Sparkles McFadden*

      Thank you. Odd misconceptions like this are why serious issues in many workplaces don’t get addressed. “I can’t just take your word for it, I have to see it happen” is not how being a manager works.

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      1. Spooky*

        Right?? if that were remotely, true, then it would be every higher up managers job to constantly monitor their reports’ every interaction, since apparently they can’t act on or believe anything that doesn’t happen while they’re witnessing it! That’s just not how adult society or jobs work. You’re allowed to act like a normal person and use your best judgment in the situation.

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      2. tina turner*

        What would be fun to secretly record on your phone would be her “ranting” in a 1:1 because that’s so vivid on tape. And it goes on for an hour? Really? That’s a long time to rant. Even if it’s not legal to tape w/o her consent in that state, offering to just show it to the boss as an “example” might b e effective. It captures the TONE.

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      3. Chirpy*

        People in authority who say “I can’t just take your word for it, I have to see it happen” are how a LOT of bullying and abuse are allowed to continue.

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    8. Rebekah*

      My husband was a witness in a criminal trial that garnered a ton of media attention as it was a political crime (not in US but similar legal structure). The bulk of the evidence came from the criminal bragging to a bunch of his colleagues about how he got away with election tampering. After the guilty verdict the media scrummed the defence lawyer and lobbed him the would-be-softball question of whether he could think of any other case where the defendant had been convicted entirely based on hearsay. Whereupon the defence lawyer had to awkwardly explain that his client had not in fact been convicted on hearsay and that the testimony against his client was, in fact, admissible.

      Reply ↓
  2. Czhorat*

    That Catelyn is an apparently less confrontational manager when LW isn’t there says a LOT; that the employees supposedly aren’t doing their jobs when LW isn’t around would be reflected in some other metrics if it were true.

    I came into this open to the idea that Catelyn was looking to shake up a team that had some ingrained habits which might not have been the best for the company’s goals, but the more I read the more it looks as if she’s just not a very good manager.

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    1. Turquoisecow*

      Yeah if the team really is just spending all their time talking, OP would notice their performance being down – not as many widgets produced, llamas being groomed, reports filled out, whatever. I bet if OP looks into it, they’ll find that’s not the case.

      I’ve definitely seen where someone outside of a team has the impression that team is always just talking, and maybe it’s the optics, maybe it’s just bad luck that every time they’re near that team there’s chatting. But a manager should be able to get a more accurate view by looking at those metrics, and if they can’t, maybe they need to come up with some.

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      1. RedinSC*

        A little devil’s advocate here. Say Catelyn was brought in to shake things up, change processes and make the team more productive…. It could be that the team has always sat around talking, so productivity wouldn’t go down by continuing that behavior. Has productivity gone up?

        I’ve seen teams completely reluctant to change. But I’ve also seen really bad managers. So I think telling Catelyn the expected outcomes is essential.

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        1. Lydia*

          That’s not playing devil’s advocate; that’s ignoring the ranting and the badmouthing on the slim chance Catelyn was brought in to shake things up. Maybe she was. Maybe the team was a too chatty and not getting a lot done. What does that have to do with the other things going on?

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      2. MigraineMonth*

        I will caution that if the team’s numbers are down, that doesn’t mean the manager is right. It could also mean that the team is mismanaged, and that’s affecting productivity.

        If I were on a team where the manager said we never worked, badmouthed the company, kept us hostage for her hour-long rants, changed directions unpredictably and made us scrap what we were working on, and my complaints to both her boss and HR were ignored for *a year and a half*, my numbers would be in the toilet.

        I’d also have stopped hiding that I was job searching.

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      1. Wendy the Spiffy*

        Yes. And, the team is always talking about what? How are they talking? This behavior can very often be a sign of a high-performing, trusting and collaborative team — making the most of time, not wasting it (and doing good relationship building along the way).

        The fact that members of the team trust you enough to raise this feedback to you is a good thing. Catelyn’s style, as described in this letter, reads to me like a command-and-control mindset using fear and divisiveness to maintain authority. If you don’t respond, you risk cutting off even that avenue of feedback and teaching the team to stay silent.

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      2. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Yeah, she might be good at the technical aspects of her job – coming up with processes and deadlines and such – but that’s only part of a manager’s job. Being able to help the people on your team succeed is a much larger part of a manager’s job and wow is she actively failing at that part of it.

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        1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

          If Catelyn claims she’s doing the right management thingies, OP can ask to see emails and other evidence.

          It doesn’t even have to be portrayed to OP as “I don’t trust you,”, rather it can be “I want to see how you’re approaching these problems with an eye towards coaching you.”

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          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Indeed!!! And Catelyn’s reaction to OP offering coaching will be telling as well. If Catelyn says, oh, sure, I’d love some coaching, then that’s great. If Catelyn goes on the defensive and says, why do I need coaching, I’m a terrific manager! that’s probably a sign that she needs to be terminated. (Maybe not necessarily just this response on its own, but combined with all the other things going on here.)

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    3. Busy Middle Manager*

      The reality is most likely way more nuanced. When I started managing a team, one issue was that people were technically working and meeting metrics, but many of the tasks were mindless and they were used to zoning out and going through clicking things and listening to podcasts. So they were technically working but not really doing that much. A lot of the stuff could’ve been automated, and they missed a lot of potential issues in the stuff they were clicking through that the previous manager never really pushed them to solve.

      I’m not sure why people are assuming Catelyn is saying these things because she just enjoys being mean and unliked, and just assuming she is wrong. It’s not easy to come into an environment like this every day. Way easier to manage a well functioning team that needs little support.

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      1. RotatingUsername*

        I think you’re looking past a number of yellow & red flags that both Alison and other commenters have highlighted.

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      2. MotherofaPickle*

        My gut feeling is that is a culture/management style/Changes issue. And with LW, the Grandboss, being offsite, they are not intimately familiar with all the nuances.

        My bet is on a lot of coaching/babysitting until everybody clicks and things start running more smoothly again.

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      3. Andromeda*

        If they were meeting metrics, though, that sounds less like “not really working” and more like “doing their job as it was originally defined”. Which isn’t to say that a new manager can’t change what their team is accountable for, and push them to think harder as they do their work — but that doesn’t sound like what’s happening here.

        Catelyn is reporting that her reports *aren’t doing their job*, full stop, and her reports are apparently quoting nasty things that she’s said about other teammates. LW also says that the team has always been perfectly fine at their jobs before. This suggests a conflict that goes deeper than “resistance to a manager who’s demanding more of them than they expected”.

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      4. Peanut Hamper*

        Well, the team is saying Catelyn is behaving terribly around/to them, and Catelyn is denying it when asked about it. There doesn’t seem to a history of issues with the team itself (if weren’t well functioning, I’m assuming LW would have mentioned that) so it seems like Catelyn is lying outright to LW, and that is not the main problem, but it is a huge problem.

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      5. Irish Teacher.*

        But we have no reason to think this isn’t a well functioning team that needs little support. It’s possible that it’s not, but it’s equally possible that it is.

        People are assuming that Catelyn is more likely to be wrong because it is her word against that of 7 people. The alternative is that they are all lying about her because they enjoy being mean and unkind, which is possible but it’s not the most likely explanation here.

        There is no reason at all to assume this team is anything like the one you managed. It could be but the odds are against it because for one thing, the LW or the previous manager would likely have noticed before Catelyn came if that were the cases and for another…well, there’s just nothing to suggest it.

        It is possible that the situation is the one you describe and that is why the LW is reluctant to act because she wants to be sure that isn’t the case, but…it’s really not the most likely option here.

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        1. Busy Middle Manager*

          “There is no reason at all to assume” – I’ve been around the block in corporate America a couple of times. I wouldn’t assume anything I wrote to be an “assumption,” I would actually be surprised if there was a 100% super-uper-duper productive team with perfect everything and perfect customers and there was nothing to fix. That’s not even the issue. If everything was perfect, the role Catelyn was hired into wouldn’t even exist. The question isn’t this, the question is how Catelyn is handling her role

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          1. Lydia*

            Nobody said they are a super-duper team that is 100% on all the time. And even a super-duper team that’s on all the time needs someone to manage the workflow and make decisions. I think you’re ignoring the 7 people giving consistent feedback because you once had a team you thought was not working up to their potential.

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          2. Kevin Sours*

            Nobody said the team was perfect. But you are assuming the team is dysfunctional to the point where heavy handed management is necessary to fix it. Which is not in the least supported by the account OP is giving. The way it’s presented is Catelyn is handling her role badly or the team is straight up lying about her.

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          3. Irish Teacher.*

            Well, no team is 100% perfect but it is quite likely they are a generally well-functioning team and that there are no major problems to fix. Manager’s roles exist even in good teams and the odds are she was just hired to replace somebody who left, not to fix any specific problems.

            The fact that the team needs a manager doesn’t mean that they were necessarily underperforming or not doing much work under the previous manager and there is nothing at all in the letter to indicate that that was the case.

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      6. Lydia*

        Was your issue with them listening to podcasts while doing mindless work, or that they just did the thing they were paid to do and not more? Because they were doing what they were there paid to do. That might be a you problem, not a them problem.

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      7. Kevin Sours*

        The line “If what the team members tell me is true, it’s appalling behavior” doesn’t leave a lot of room for nuance.

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      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        In fact, I have had a manager who had glowing reviews from her last workplace. Found out later they were trying to get rid of her. (She was fired a couple months after I left the job.)

        This actually made me think of my worst manager. Leadership loved her, because she was able to charm them and our team was high functioning (despite her, not because of her). She also was dishonest, manipulative, credit-grabbing, and willing to throw anyone under the bus.

        If this manager is young enough, I think there might be hope for her to change. If she isn’t, I recommend that OP watch her back.

        Reply ↓
        1. Nicosloanicota*

          I actually think it’s quite common for bullies to be very savvy about how their behavior is viewed by people senior to them. I don’t think OP should put much stock in not having detected the bullying. OP might have to put aside their ego a bit there and focus on the bigger picture.

          Reply ↓
          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            Yep. Anyone who’s ever been a child should know that bullies are very good at hiding their bullying from authority.

            Reply ↓
          2. Alicent*

            I’m a vet and have worked at two practices where the owner have been absolutely horrific people to their staff, micromanaging, encouraging bullying, etc, but to clients they were the nicest guys in the whole world and what a dream to work there! I agree that just because someone can charm a person who can affect their livelihood doesn’t mean they’re actually a good or kind person. At least at my last job after half the vets quit at once clients started noticing things were getting weird (despite him making up reasons we quit) and then the turnover during the next few years was undeniable. Eventually it catches up on you.

            Reply ↓
    5. Venus*

      She’s beyond a bad manager. Bad managers have the same bad behaviors with both senior managers and their staff. They can be trained and helped.

      Catelyn is clearly very aware of her bad behavior and knows that she needs to be nice to senior managers. I’m not sure if this is fixable, because Catelyn will likely just hide her problems more rather than fix them. Though that’s an opinion based on cynicism from similar situations where senior management did try to help and it never worked! Thankfully in my most recent situation they believed us and after a year of working with our-Catelyn they got rid of her. A previous Catelyn got away with it for years until a senior manager’s EA happened to be visiting unannounced and overheard what was happening, and that manager was asked to retire.

      I think it’s fair to give Catelyn a second chance, but definitely not needed. Trust the team, not the manager.

      Reply ↓
      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        This! I have known individuals who were pot-stirrers and would complain about anything, especially when they were the problem in a workplace. I have never known of an entire team to all go to management with these kinds of complaints unless it’s serious. The danger of blowback or not being taken seriously is too great, so they all had to really think about it before going to the OP.

        Reply ↓
      2. Ama*

        Yeah Catelyn is giving me vibes of a couple of notorious middle managers at an old employer. *Everyone* below them hated them — they were rude and dismissive to staff, thought they had way more authority than they did (one was a budget manager who would put your department’s money where *she* wanted to put it, not where you told her it should go, the other told my boss “people should be grateful they have jobs” when my boss was trying to fight budget cuts to essential items we needed to do our jobs), and also played nice and sucked up to their bosses and senior staff so no one would listen to the complaints from below.

        Both of them did end up getting their comeuppance — but in both cases it was only because a senior manager finally got suspicious about the discrepancy in how the middle manager described their work and how many junior staff seemed to hate working with them and started actually listening to the junior staff.

        Reply ↓
    6. Rex Libris*

      Yeah, the specifics described between her and her team makes me suspect that she’s just a poor manager who thinks she’s a rock star.

      Reply ↓
    7. Myrin*

      Yeah, I’d be more inclined to believe Catelyn if OP had said that the team consist of low performers and/or troublemakers and that Catelyn was brought in to get them into shape but if that was the case, OP at least didn’t mention it.
      Also, that negativity from the get-go is a big red flag and a good overall indicator for Catelyn’s behaviour and attitude.

      Reply ↓
    1. Peanut Hamper*

      Well, it’s not great for the people involved (except maybe Catelyn who probably enjoys drama) so I’m not sure what your definition of “good” is.

      But I am hoping for a good update from OP.

      Reply ↓
  4. Dust Bunny*

    You don’t say that this team’s work output is below where it would be expected to be, which suggests that they are not, in fact, spending all of their time talking (or they wouldn’t be working).

    That her initial immediate reaction was so negative is a big red flag for me–she didn’t even know these people yet! Who starts a new job off on a negative foot?

    Reply ↓
    1. Dust Bunny*

      Also, it’s weird that she would be negative about almost anybody. If everyone around you is a jerk/loser, you are the common denominator. Sure, I have coworkers I don’t particularly like but it’s only a couple of them here and there, not my whole organization.

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        Also, OP says the negativity stopped when they acted surprised, but it sounds to me as if Catelyn has just found new ways to badmouth the team she manages:

        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…

        OP, that looks like direct, personally observable evidence that Catelyn says negative things about her reports behind their backs. She’s been managing the team for a year and a half now; if these things were actually true about all seven of her reports, she should have coached them, moved them onto PIPs, fired them and replaced them by now.

        Reply ↓
    2. Crepe Myrtle*

      Right?!? A previous boss did this, from the first day- she was full of negativity. Like before working with anyone, she knew we were incompetent and also trying to undermine her. Her negative impression of everyone underpinned everything she did. How does someone live like that?

      Reply ↓
    3. MsM*

      Yeah, I’m confused that OP says she hasn’t seen evidence of Catelyn behaving the way the rest of the team is describing – she’s saying negative things about them and how the team operates behind their backs! The only reason she’s not still doing it beyond responding to the accusations is because OP didn’t encourage her, and she actually cares about maintaining OP’s good opinion.

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        Such a good point! OP *has* seen Catelyn badmouthing her team–she claims they all sit around talking and don’t do any work. Presumably someone would have noticed if team hadn’t produced any work in the last year and a half?

        Reply ↓
    4. Eldritch Office Worker*

      As someone who works with a focus in organizational change, 75% of my first month on a job is actively looking for red flags and pain points – and I’m not even this negative. I observe, I gather context, I ask questions, but even when I’m pointing out problems I don’t rant about it (usually, there are always those cases). How on earth do you expect your employees to respect you or want to work with you when you come in spewing vitriol immediately.

      Reply ↓
      1. Annony*

        Yeah. I may think some negative things if someone really rubs me the wrong way, but I’m definitely not saying anything unless they really cross the line.

        Reply ↓
    5. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      “That her initial immediate reaction was so negative is a big red flag for me–she didn’t even know these people yet! Who starts a new job off on a negative foot?”

      Right. Soooo what did OP say to Catelyn when she was hired? Concerns, objectives, etc? Did OP do anything to set this situation up?

      Reply ↓
    6. not nice, don't care*

      My long-suffering partner is being afflicted by a Catelyn and her boss right now. It’s so awful that 67% of her unit have left an otherwise decent job in a shitty job market, in just a few months. No amount of individual or group conversations, with documentation, have made a difference to the director. The takeaway is that badmin just want affected employees to shut up and go away.

      So they are.

      Reply ↓
    7. Bunny Watson*

      I’d also consider that productivity may in fact be down due to poor management. One of the things that someone complained about was being told conflicting information on the same process which would not doubt slow things down. Which could also lead to more talking about it to try to reach consensus among the group. Just pointing out the lower productivity might not point to laziness on the part of the employees.

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        She’s also holding people hostage while she rants at them for an hour or more. I would have a lot of trouble focusing on productive work if I was worried I’d be used as my manager’s emotional outlet at any moment.

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  5. Antilles*

    Which is more likely:
    a.) That an entire team of 7 people are conniving and manipulative enough to create a coordinated campaign of lies over a period of many months.
    b.) That one person is conniving and manipulative enough to clean up her act for the occasional and short periods of time you happen to be in the building.
    My vote is (B), it’s Catelyn, she’s the problem.

    Reply ↓
    1. Peanut Hamper*

      Correlation does not imply causation, but OP doesn’t mention any problems with this team before Catelyn came aboard. And all of the problems they are describing are about Catelyn.

      Yeah, I vote that the problem is Catelyn as well. It’s odd that OP is having trouble seeing this clearly.

      Reply ↓
        2. Saturday*

          OP wrote in for advice about the situation but definitely hasn’t concluded Catelyn is the problem, “I don’t think Catelyn is subtle enough to be this bad around her staff without me noticing something in our interactions.”

          Reply ↓
  6. Isashani*

    I had this issue. Manager who undermined her reports when talking to me (always in a super polite “I have this problem I’m working on solving way) and who, I discovered, badmouthed me to her reports (as in “Isashani doesn’t care or respect you and is thrilled to exploit you”). It took a few months to realize she was horridly toxic and coasting on work she had outsourced to some of her reports to “give them more experience”. We ended up firing her and promoting the direct report who had been doing most of her job. overall morale shot up as soon as she was gone and I still kick myself for not noticing it earlier.

    Reply ↓
    1. Madame Desmortes*

      “A few months” doesn’t sound that bad to me, honestly. I worked one place where this went on for years and nobody cared.

      You did the right thing when you found out — that’s worth a lot, I think.

      Reply ↓
      1. Meep*

        Same. I had a Catelyn for nearly 5 years. (And based on the timeline, this could actually be her since she was fired 2 years ago.) I was diagnosed with c-PSTD as a result.

        I am glad Isashani was on the ball, though! Sometimes it takes forever for others to see the light of day.

        Reply ↓
        1. Madame Desmortes*

          Oh, I’m well aware. I lasted four years under my Catelyn, somehow.

          That doesn’t erase the truth that many Catelyns are good at hiding their behavior, and many workplaces and managers don’t get rid of them nearly soon enough after finding out.

          Reply ↓
    2. AthenaC*

      It’s impossible to see this stuff right away for all but the most incompetent manipulators because you’re not supposed to know. Part of the whole point is specifically concealing from you.

      Ordinarily, we all by default engage with each other at work in good faith, and we assume others are engaging with us in good faith. This is essential for a healthy work environment but the flipside is it allows toxic behavior by manipulators to go undetected for at least a moderate amount of time.

      Ask me how this applies to family and romantic relationships!

      Reply ↓
    3. ughCatelyn*

      You acted when you saw it, and that’s what matters. As someone who is still suffering the after-effects of their own Catelyn, thank you for being a leader! Our CEO stuck his head in the sand and just waited it out – and vocally laments the loss! She made herself sound great and outsourced all of her work, not just to the team but to contractors, so there was financial expense as well!

      Reply ↓
    4. Thank you!*

      You acted when you saw it, and that’s what matters. As someone who is still suffering the after-effects of their own Catelyn, thank you for being a leader! Our CEO stuck his head in the sand and just waited it out – and vocally laments the loss! She made herself sound great and outsourced all of her work, not just to the team but to contractors, so there was financial expense as well!

      Reply ↓
  7. Peanut Hamper*

    You need to get this under control, OP, or you are very likely going to end up having to replace this entire team when they find jobs elsewhere so they don’t have to deal with Catelyn.

    Reply ↓
    1. Southern Ladybug*

      Agree – this is the warning. They are coming to you directly. They will leave if they don’t see any progress to addressing this. Best case – they are waiting to see how you react before actively applying elsewhere. But that’s unlikely- they probably are now.

      Reply ↓
      1. aebhel*

        Yeah, exactly. I had a director like this for a few years at my library: she was very good at ‘managing up’ and ingratiating herself to the board, and was actively abusive to staff. Naturally, she never did this when any of the board members where there to see, and when staff tried to take their concerns to the board, they were dismissed if not reprimanded. Out of thirteen staff, five quit within two years rather than deal with her, and another started planning her early retirement. As far as I’m aware, to this day my former director considers herself a tough but effective manager who was unfairly hated by her staff.

        If multiple people are complaining to you about the same manager, you should take it extremely seriously, or you will start losing people – and the best employees are generally the ones who have more options to leave.

        Reply ↓
        1. BatManDan*

          I read somewhere that your best employees are your canary in the coal mine. They make it tolerable for the mid-performers to work there. Once they go, your mid-performers will be right behind them. Then you are left with the low-performers.

          Reply ↓
          1. CommanderBanana*

            ^^ This. Your best employees will leave because they’ll have options. Your turnover will go through the roof and you’ll be left with low performers, a constant churn employees, and your toxic manager.

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    2. K Smith*

      YES YES YES – OP, Catelyn’s direct reports are highly likely to start leaving the company because of this situation. They’re telling you that Catelyn sucks, and people regularly leave jobs over sucky managers. Especially if they bring up valid concerns to leadership and leadership still doesn’t address the sucky manager.

      Reply ↓
  8. Anon for this*

    From my own experience, OP…99% chance that Caitlyn is the problem. We went through this in my former organization, and 8 people resigned or were forced out by our Caitlyn (including me) which was…75% of our team. HR didn’t really care, even when presented with receipts, and senior leadership thought our Caitlyn was great because their technical skills were top notch, and they never, ever revealed their true nature to anyone who was a higher up.

    Our Caitlyn ended up getting fired about a year after I left. A year and a half after the firing, my old company is still dealing with the fallout.

    Reply ↓
    1. A Significant Tree*

      Similar situation – you’d think the multiple substantiated (!) HR reports and the fact that several people refused to meet with our Caitlin without a union rep present might be a big clue that this person is a Real Problem. Unfortunately upper management was a rotating slate and no one stayed long enough to care. So it lasted years and wrecked the department in a significant way, and the only real consequence was that the person wasn’t officially promoted to the position they were acting (and causing all the damage) in. They’re gone now, but that department is still climbing out of the hole three years later.

      Reply ↓
    2. AthenaC*

      I agree with this – to be fair I have seen situations where mediocre teams who thought they were “good enough” chafed under actual management and threw toddler-like temper tantrums … but I think the big clue here is Caitlyn felt perfectly comfortable leading with negativity and learned to censor herself around OP.

      Reply ↓
      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        I’ve seen this, too, but their complaints are generally along the lines of, “Nobody could be expected to meet (insert reasonable goal/requirement here)!”

        Reply ↓
      2. Kevin Sours*

        There is chafing and their is straight up lying in a coordinated fashion. It sounds like the things OP is hearing are much more specific than “Catelyn is mean” or “Things are changing and I don’t like it”.

        “If what the team members tell me is true, it’s appalling behavior” does not sound like standard kvetching because standards were raised.

        Reply ↓
    3. Jay (no, the other one)*

      I retired at least a year earlier than I otherwise would have because of my boss. I could never figure out if he was deliberately telling us one thing and his boss another or he was too dumb to remember what he’d said. He also managed to completely misunderstand various EMails and announcements and get them precisely backwards. After I left, two other people at my level and the regional manager also left.

      Reply ↓
  9. Was Caitlyn my old manager?*

    All the Caitlyn-isms the OP sited sound exactly like my previous supervisor…who left about a year and half ago.

    Reply ↓
        1. Dawn*

          Workplace bullies are everywhere, and they frequently find their way to management, having mastered the art of – pardon me – brown-nosing.

          Reply ↓
          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            I honestly thought briefly that it could have been the Caitlyn at my old job but a) it was all remote, no office building for OP to drop in on and b) I am 100% sure that OldJob Caitlyn’s boss would never write in here.

            Reply ↓
  10. Crepe Myrtle*

    This is so like my old job- a new manager came in, and within a month she insulted staff, customers, etc. and accused trusted staff of deliberately undermining her. (Knowing the staff, there is no way anything was done intentionally.) Several of us reported it to her boss, who said she didn’t want to step on new boss’s toes. New boss started acting appropriately in front of the higher ups, and denied ever saying the insulting things. She continued making derogatory comments about staff and people applying for jobs- but never in front of the higher ups. Within a year or two, the entire team left. She is still there, I assume making everyone below her miserable.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bossy*

      Yeah when this dynamic shows up it’s time to exit because waiting for powers that be to catch on is a no go for me cuz all the ones I’ve worked for were…not swift. And of course they have figure it out because heaven knows they can’t take the word of the people experiencing it because clearly they’re just some low level worker…this LW has like 7 people she’s worked with for years telling her the same thing and she can’t trust them? I’d be lose all respect.

      Reply ↓
      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Agreed. And of course often TPTB are the ones who made the bad hire and don’t want to admit that they did wrong so they tell themselves that the person is great and the underlings don’t know what they’re doing even with all evidence to the contrary. It’s super frustrating.

        Reply ↓
        1. CommanderBanana*

          ^^ This. It took four years for my horrible, toxic, lying, weasel of a grandboss at my last job to fire the horrible manager he had hired, then he turned around and hired someone else we knew would be a bad fit.

          The entire team quit, and in the less than two years since I’ve been gone, they have burned through 4 more people on a 5 person team. It’s truly disgusting.

          Reply ↓
          1. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Yeah, I left a job earlier this year b/c of a toxic manager who thank goodness was not my manager, but even working with her occasionally on projects was awful. And she was trying to weasel her way into being my manager and shoving to the side my excellent and fantastic manager. But I left for greener pastures and a much higher salary and while I miss my wonderful manager there, I am not at all sad that I don’t work there any longer. At least my old manager and I keep in touch and text each other once in awhile. And yes, toxic manager is still there, alas.

            Reply ↓
  11. JustKnope*

    If the timelines matched better, I would say Catelyn was my former manager! She was an external hire brought on to manage an existing, relatively well performing team. Her behaviors were identical to how your staff describes Catelyn: shockingly negative about everyone she met at the company (she would leave 1:1s and then rant to us, her employees, about that person being incompetent); micromanager; no idea how to actually get the work done at our company; and insulting/belittling to us. I talked to our grandboss several times, being very honest, and he basically believed her lies that we were all just resistant to change. I told him I was *pro* change as long as I believed my Catelyn had a solid from—>to plan and the capability to get it done at our company. None ever materialized. I escaped ASAP when I realized our grandboss was just letting Catelyn bulldoze everyone in her path. Almost 3 years later nothing has changed, her team is miserable and her business partners don’t trust her. I’m still mad that my grandboss didn’t trust me or take my concerns seriously, even after I had worked for him for 3 years with an excellent track record. And then he panicked when he saw that I was serious about leaving and tried to prevent my internal transfer. Luckily a good leader intervened and let me go but man it was demoralizing.

    Reply ↓
    1. Cascadia*

      Yep, my coworker and her team are in the exact same situation! It is very very possible that a manager is horrible to people except when their boss is around.

      Reply ↓
  12. Lynn*

    There is a manager where I work at who is like this

    4 employees left her team, and one of the employees who remained there told me that anyone new to her team does not stay there that long

    Reply ↓
  13. RunShaker*

    I worked with a department head like this. He managed up very well but couldn’t manage his team. He ignored blatant issues such as team bullies, saying one thing to you but do exact opposite, had unreasonable expectations and wouldn’t provide guidance or inconsistent guidance (I could go on but won’t). The whole team (client facing and back office) had no respect for him. But upper management loved him and couldn’t understand why team had so many complaints and low morale. And this went on for years. The company ended up closing down our department and I was eventually laid off (it was niche area that company decided to get out of). We all blamed him for the closing of our department. I found a new position and finally get to see true leadership.

    Reply ↓
    1. RunShaker*

      oh and over last few years before closing, we had 6-7 employees leave which concerned upper management but still listened to our department head. Due to our size, that was considered high turnover.

      Reply ↓
  14. Dawn*

    Ugh, LW, I’m sorry but I’ve been through this whole “well we asked her if she was being a bully and she said no so case closed” thing before and it is the worst thing to be on the other side of. Of course she told you no; she’d give you the same answer if you asked if she’d shot someone or robbed a bank because she’s clearly not entirely stupid.

    If you ask someone if they’ve done something wrong and they say no, all you know now is that they’re probably willing to lie to save their own hide. Believe the seven (!!!) people you’ve known longer than her and presumably trust who are telling you that things aren’t as they seem.

    Reply ↓
  15. duinath*

    See my first instinct was get a fake mustache and undercover boss this, but Alison brings the sane well reasoned read once again.

    It is very telling that Catelyn seems to have tried to start a gossip session about her reports with you. It is, as all the commenters have noted, telling that you don’t mention any other indications that the team is slacking, beyond Catelyn’s word.

    It is telling that a new manager came in and suddenly people you’ve known for years apparently completely changed, and the only person who’s noticed their new behaviour is the new manager.

    If you do want to do a fake mustache situation, maybe try contacting someone Catelyn has managed in the past? But I don’t know that I would recommend it. You seem to have plenty to go on already.

    Reply ↓
    1. President Pospoise*

      Honestly, I think undercover bossing is not a bad call. Show up super early at the office, or quietly arrive in the middle of a known staff meeting and stand outside the door listening. Heck, hide under an unused desk and pop out dramatically pointing and shouting ‘a-HA!’ when she’s treating her team badly – it’ll help with the team’s morale. (One of many downsides of that last one is if she’s not doing bad stuff or doesn’t come in that day, you’re stuck under a desk feeling silly instead of doing actual work. I wouldn’t really suggest it but it would be funny.)

      She can’t put on a performance for you if she doesn’t know you’re coming.

      Reply ↓
      1. Cardboard Marmalade*

        I was thinking this, but just slightly more stealth, like asking one of the employees to surreptitiously have their phone on speakerphone with the LW on the line and just “forgetting” to hang up the call so that LW can listen in.

        That said, I think if LW just trusted this group of employees like many other commenters have suggested, that would be better than any cloak & dagger. I do think it’s worth LW meditating on what steps they would take if the reports were of something more legally actionable than this. If an entire team of people were reporting sexual harassment, would LW’s bar be so high for witnessing it first-hand before believing it?

        Reply ↓
    2. MassMatt*

      I think the issue is the LW is in another building. We see so many letters where someone complains that a coworker or supervisor is awful but “the manager is never there”.

      Maybe she has several reports, most in another building, but is there a way to either reconfigure teams or where your office is (at least temporarily) so you can get more hands-on with the team?

      Reply ↓
  16. Decidedly Me*

    I had a new hire once (IC, not manager) who was immediately negative about the teams she’d be interacting with (they’d do work that then got passed to her and her teammates). In her first few days, she’d say that she should do their part of the workflow because “who knows if the other team will even do it right?”. There wasn’t even a problem that prompted this! The team she was referencing was well-established and known for high performance, too. This is just one example that occurred. Immediately being negative about the people you work with is a really bad sign. I ended up having to exit this person pretty early as the issues did not resolve.

    Reply ↓
  17. frenchblue*

    This could totally be my old manager. She came in to our high-performing team and immediately started micromanaging, nitpicking, and speaking condescendingly to us. When she was given to the choice to leave or be fired, over a year later, we found out that she had been saying those exact things to upper management: that we all just didn’t respect her, that we purposefully hated anything she implemented, and that we didn’t work together well (this was the biggest lie – we were one of the most collaborative teams I’ve ever worked on). It took a LONG time for management to believe us, so coming from someone who’s been under a very similar manager: do everything you can to solve this problem, fast. The team will respect you and work even harder for you when they see that you listened to their concerns and took action on their problem.

    Reply ↓
  18. CubeFarmer*

    Do you know how much risk the team members took in coming to you to speak about these problems? Plus, what you’re hearing seems to be consistent from team member to team member. You got an inkling of it when Catelyn expressed negativity about others in the company, but she was smart enough to change her attitude when you didn’t react how she expected.

    I would be curious to know how Alison’s situation with the off-site director was finally addressed, that might inform LW about how to address this issue.

    Reply ↓
  19. Successful Birthday Rememberer*

    This was frustrating to read. Why would 7 normal people suddenly start lying and being difficult? Come on, OP.
    Catelyn is very, very clearly the problem and I hope OP will take Alison’s advice and act quickly. My experience is that when people like Catelyn are held accountable, they tend to leave on their own fairly quickly. If she doesn’t do that, this is very fireable behavior.

    Reply ↓
    1. Dust Bunny*

      Yeah, this.

      One, it’s a problem that the OP doesn’t say that this team was a bunch of problem personalities before but apparently their word can’t be trusted enough?

      Two, the OP has already observed at least one major red-flag incident (the knee-jerk negative reaction) but is acting like s/he can’t act because s/he hasn’t seen Catelyn with her team. As thought Catelyn is going to let her see it??

      This is textbook “how to get a team to quit suddenly en masse”.

      Reply ↓
    2. Wendy the Spiffy*

      Fireable, and not typically coachable. To me this is a character thing — someone willing to mischaracterize if not outright lie about what she’s doing and why.

      Reply ↓
      1. Elbe*

        Initially, I thought that she may be intentionally being negative and bullying the existing team because the end game is to bring in people that she knows.

        It’s not uncommon for some (very bad) managers to come into an org and immediately start laying the ground work that will result in them being able to fire the current team and hire their friends.

        Or she could just be a negative person and a bad manager.

        Reply ↓
  20. Tom R*

    Catelyn is 100% the problem and as the letter goes on we learn that she is a classic two-faced liar. Of course you don’t see the problem up close because Catelyn is playing you and if this isn’t fixed then you will start loosing members of the team. I’ve had a manager like that and I couldn’t wait to get out of there, even though the Director couldn’t understand why (as boss was always on her best behaviour when director was around).

    Reply ↓
    1. MigraineMonth*

      Yeah, my mouth almost dropped open when I read “I don’t think Catelyn is subtle enough to be this bad around her staff without me noticing something in our interactions.” OP, I would NOT trust that you would be able to pick up on how Catelyn treats her reports by how she acts around you.

      Most people find it *very easy* to act differently around their boss, or at least to adjust their behavior based on their boss’ signals. It doesn’t take great acting chops to reign in criticism of the company or to replace rudeness with fawning behavior when one’s livelihood is on the line. Acting the same way with one’s superiors and reports is actually pretty rare.

      Reply ↓
  21. VP of Monitoring Employees’ LinkedIn and Indeed Profiles*

    She’s inconsistent in her directions and expectations with the team, giving different members different instructions on how to do the same task.

    In the interest of documentation, each team member should clarify such instructions with Catelyn in writing, with copy to OP (and maybe the rest of the team).

    Reply ↓
    1. AthenaC*

      This – I had a toxic manager who wouldn’t put anything in writing because I think she knew she couldn’t get away with contradicting herself and blaming me. I would reach out in writing to confirm my understanding of something we spoke about and she would respond by calling me (grrr). So of course there was always plausible deniability.

      Reply ↓
      1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

        Even with plausible deniability, it’s creating a documentation record. A record that can be bolstered when multiple employees document the same behavior.

        In their shoes, I’d also be sending emails like “It is Aaron’s understanding that the process is now this while Blake says you told her that the process goes like that. Please reconcile.” and cc-ing OP on both that email and the resulting “My understanding from our conversation just now is that…” email.

        Spoken words don’t seem to be enough for OP – or HR!! – so it’s time to document, document, document.

        Reply ↓
  22. LisaD*

    The most important point here is the one Alison makes towards the end: OP *does* have direct evidence that Catelyn is a bad manager, because she has continued to complain about the same problems with the team for an extended period and hasn’t done anything meaningful to resolve them. That alone is sufficient to tell you she isn’t up to this job. A solid manager would not be repeatedly complaining to their own manager about the same issues with their team without presenting a plan to fix the problem and requesting support to implement that plan.

    Reply ↓
    2. aebhel*

      Yeah, exactly. So far, she has proven herself to be an ineffective manager in this one very important capacity, which suggests that she’s probably ineffective in other areas too.

      Reply ↓
  23. RotatingUsername*

    OP: I have worked with multiple people who presented entirely different faces to their superiors on the one hand, and their inferiors on the other. Sugar-faced to authority, toxic and/or negligent terrors to their peers/reports. In one case, the offender pulled it off in a situation where everyone worked at the same site.

    I would assume that Catelyn is a person who is capable of pulling the wool over your eyes and proceed accordingly.

    Reply ↓
  24. Dreadful manager syndrome*

    I was someone on a team where we all hated our new manager. We all reported her terrible behaviour countless times, and we were all brushed off. When the entire team quit, the company acted shocked… and only after the fact did they finally take action and fire the awful manager.

    We were a total powerhouse of a team until she came along with her micromanaging, nasty comments and compulsive need to throw us under the bus to make herself look good. If they’d taken our complaints seriously and dealt with that manager, we’d probably all still be there now.

    Reply ↓
  25. Friday Hopeful*

    Did the person who went to HR do it as a last resort, because they came to you and nothing was accomplished? No one goes to HR for no reason, especially when you have been hearing from the rest of the employees.

    Reply ↓
  26. Busy Middle Manager*

    I started off rocky in MGT sort of like Catelyn. It can be overwhelming to start somewhere and keep finding out that there were some bad hires, that some people do very little, that some tasks are pointless, that important work isn’t getting done – all of that. OP doesn’t really delve into any of the content that Catelyn discusses in the letter, I think they’re too focused on the immediate situation of shutting up Catelyn but they eventually do need to deal with the actual issues.

    First triage is to get Catelyn to be quiet. It can be tempting to talk about problems you find. You have to learn how to document, bottle it up, and save for later. It’s a muscle you exercise and build over time. You eventually learn how it benefits you as the manager to keep all of the nonsense you see filed away and pull it out, but only when necessary. Catelyn needs to develop this muscle and not go for the cheap dopamine hit of venting.

    You also need more 1-on-1s to discuss all of the issues. Are you making yourself available? Set boundaries around each issue. For example, maybe it’s common knowledge that so and so customer is horrible to deal with, but can you please not discuss it constantly.

    I’d also push back on some of the other comments that are basically “Catelyn bad.” They aren’t helpful and Catelyn is obviously talking about something, so OP needs to find what the nugget of truth is there.

    Reply ↓
    1. LL*

      I don’t think we’re reading the same letter. There are plenty of signs that Catelyn is the problem here. Stop projecting your past issues onto this situation.

      Reply ↓
    2. MigraineMonth*

      If Catelyn were identifying problems with a couple of reports, processes or customers, this would be a very different situation. However, she seems to think her entire team of reports–seven people who LW didn’t indicate had any issues before Catelyn came in–are disrespectful, obstructive and don’t do their jobs. I think LW would have mentioned if the entire team weren’t working at all.

      Also, if reports of her behavior are credible (and they seem so to me), her complaints also include all the customers, most of her coworkers, and at least an hour’s worth of rant about the company itself. If *everyone you meet* is a jerk, it probably means you’re the real jerk.

      *If* LW had written that Catelyn had been brought in to shake things up on a failing team and reported that the team was very resistant to her implementation of higher standards, I think that your take would be correct. However, there’s no indication that the team was struggling before Catelyn was brought in and many indications that it’s struggling *because* Catelyn was brought in.

      Reply ↓
    3. PayRaven*

      I don’t know how you came out of this letter with “Catelyn is obviously talking about something” but NOT “the other 7 members of the team are obviously talking about something.” I could see it being BOTH, but entirely ignoring the entire team?

      Reply ↓
  27. Hedgehug*

    Are there cameras with audio you can check?
    Can you do surprise visits, but be stealth about it to try to catch her?
    I feel like your reputation is also at risk here, those employees of hers are trusting in you to protect them.

    Reply ↓
    1. DataGirl*

      OPs reputation is already gone, the employees already surely believe she doesn’t have theirs backs and doesn’t care about their workng conditions.

      If OP deals with the situation quickly, she might get some trust back but if I were on her team I’d already feel very unsafe with her in charge.

      Reply ↓
  28. bamcheeks*

    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

    Even without the comments from other team members, I’d want to dig into this a lot more. What’s her plan for dealing with this? Where does she think this resistance is coming from? Does she respect them? What does she see as the team’s strengths, as a group and as individuals?

    You can be a manager tasked with shaking up a team which is performing poorly, using inefficient processes, hasn’t modernised, has low morale, etc — and there are going to be frustrations but fundamentally you’ve still got to respect them, and have at least some empathy for why they are performing poorly, using inefficient processes etc. I don’t think anyone’s going to successfully lead a high-performing team if their attitude is that their team are a bunch of losers.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bike Walk Barb*

      All of this, and what are her measures for “not doing work”? She needs to be held accountable for that as their manager, not just complain about it to her manager. In essence she’s doing what she says they’re doing: talking instead of working on what needs to be done.

      Reply ↓
    2. bamcheeks*

      (On the flipside, I don’t think the Occam’s Razor of “which is more likely, that 7 people started lying??” is adequate analysis either. It is completely possible for a small group of people to grumble themselves into a group-think position like, “she constantly micromanages us”, “she’s not a clue what she is doing”, “she’s always changing her mind”, “she’s horrible all the time” based on one or two incidents + confirmation bias. It should still be concerning that there is enough bad will between Catelyn and her team that they want her to be the villain, but I don’t think anyone has to be actively lying here. All you need is Catelyn to be looking at her own behaviour with rose-coloured glasses and glossing over one or two incidents of negative talk and her team to be magnifying those incidents to constant, both of which are completely normal human behaviours.)

      Reply ↓
    3. learnedthehardway*

      This is a very good point – Catelyn sounds like she doesn’t respect anyone and that she is taking her frustrations out on the team.

      A manager who has been put in place to modernize / automate processes HAS to have some change management skills as well. They need to be able to explain to the team why the changes need to be made, the benefit to the business AND to the individual members of the team, do the diagnosis of the processes, the new process development, the roadmap to get to the new normal, and the training with the team members, as well as manage the people side – ie. identify the early adopters, followers, resisters, etc. and address each of their needs/perspectives. Sometimes, the resisters have some valid concerns. Sometimes, they need more training or to be replaced.

      But the whole initiative needs someone with GOOD relationship management and leadership skills – and it doesn’t sound like Catelyn has those qualities. In fact, it sounds like these are areas of weakness for her, given that it sounds like she is border-line abusive to her staff.

      Personally, I would replace her, if the modernization initiative is urgent. Or I would take direct management of the function myself. If the latter, I would look at whether this is a lack of management skills issue or a character issue (ie. is she a nasty, abusive person), and decide whether to keep her on in a team lead role.

      Reply ↓
    4. RC*

      Yeah, this sounds like projection to me. If her initial impression was consistently negative of the team, it becomes extremely difficult to respect a manager when they clearly don’t respect you. And (completely speculating based on my own experiences) a year and a half would be enough time to learn that only bad (or poorly thought out, or inconsistent, or changing goalposts) proposals come from a certain person, therefore “resistance” might come up there. Especially if we take multiple people at their word re: micromanaging and inconsistencies.

      And after a while of a bad manager, yeah, far too much of my time was spent talking with colleagues to try to figure out how to manage the bad manager, when I’d much rather be doing actual work.

      Reply ↓
    5. spiriferida*

      Honestly, I could see the fact that she’s saying the team is resisting her instruction as a sign that there could be some degree of truth to what the team is reporting. If from their perspective instructions are unclear or inconsistent, they’re probably pressing her order to get clarification. This is something that a bad boss is going to interpret as talking back.

      Reply ↓
  29. Grumpy old tortie*

    A little mobbing of the boss? I suspect new boss is a threat to the status quo and employees are just not working because they are sabotaging her. Have watching this play out too many times to believe the employees without serious surreptitious investigation.

    Reply ↓
    1. Venus*

      No need for a serious surreptitious investigation as this can easily be sorted by looking at employee results. I’m given a lot of trust in how I do my work, and it’s a job that needs flexibility, but if my grandboss was suddenly questioning my productivity then I could easily come up with a list of things that I do every day / week that would address any concerns.

      Reply ↓
    2. Dust Bunny*

      Except we know that Catelyn started out with a negative attitude before she even knew anyone, and that she’s complaining rather than managing. She’s not a reliable narrator. The OP also doesn’t say that there were/are any performance issues with the team, which there would be if they weren’t working.

      Reply ↓
      1. Just Here For this*

        Over the past 35 years, I have worked at two places where a manager came in and immediately started picking everyone apart. One actually drove an entire team to quit and brought in all her own people (I over heard her on the phone bragging about doing it.) The other one just didn’t know how to manage down but could manage up.

        However, I have worked in more than one place where there was a group of women with enough seniority that they harassed and drove out newcomers, serious hazing, abuse of seniority, etc. It’s not the sole reason I’ve quit a job, but it has been the tipping point. One place, when all the managers who were used to the women we called “sacred cows” retired, and the younger attorneys who had to deal with them refusing to take work out of their hands before they made partner, a number of women were fired from admin jobs they had for 30 years or more.

        Either way, Catelyn is ineffective. If this is just resistance, she should be able to effectively document it and have a plant to deal with it. If Catelyn is a bad boss, OP is about to lose a team. I’ve seen firms lose entire departments before, on two occasions.

        Reply ↓
      2. Roland*

        That’s rude.

        I had a similar thought to tortie, not that this is 100% what’s going on, but that it’s definitely a possibility. As Alison pointed out, there’s no situation here where Catelyn is a fully effective manager for this team because she just clearly isn’t, but yeah, it’s absolutely possible for a group of people to make up lies against someone else. I bet we’ve had a letter like that on AAM in the past.

        Reply ↓
  30. Bike Walk Barb*

    This makes me curious about Alison’s thoughts and everyone else’s on skip-level meetings. My team grew rapidly and I instituted these on a recurring basis.

    I tell them it’s their time for whatever they want me to know. I ask their thoughts about how the team is working in general, how they feel connected to the larger organization, how it’s going with their manager. I’m not there to go around their manager or problem-solve on the fly; it’s information-gathering and relationship-building time and what they tell me is in confidence unless they ask me to do something. It gives me information I can use to coach their managers without violating confidentiality.

    100% of our team was hired from outside our organization and this is a way of building a sense of belonging as well, which is important for anyone’s recruitment/retention plans and especially important for us because we’re all teleworking and live in different places.

    If LW had these on a regular basis they’d have a direct relationship with the individuals, would have a sense of how things were going, and would have had much earlier signals with specific details.

    Yes, it takes time. I invest in it because my job is to lead an effective team of people who feel supported as valued colleagues and this is part of doing that.

    Reply ↓
    1. bamcheeks*

      It very much depends on how you run them. I had a skip-level manager who instituted skip-level meetings and treated them not as “this is my chance to hear how things are going two levels below me” but as “this is my chance to justify decisions and tell people they didn’t understand the bigger picture”. Not that you can’t *ever* do that at skip-level meetings, but they very quickly turned into something that everyone lower down dreaded.

      Reply ↓
    2. Anonym*

      LOVE skip level meetings. Well, that might be a bit strong, but I really appreciate them. I may take a while to feel comfortable raising concerns if I have them, but those meetings build the trust needed to do so. It also helps to get a wider perspective on your work. Grandboss ideally knows things about the organization and other teams you partner with better than the boss does.

      Anecdote: I had a grandboss who helped me sort out an issue with one of her directs that my boss couldn’t solve, in part because they were having a bit of interpersonal conflict. Grandboss explained that that director had a very rigid, hierarchical working style, and that being told by her peer (my boss) to work with a junior staffer (me) had rankled her. She talked to both of them about it, and gave me some scripts to help improve my working relationship with the person, and it really helped. She also didn’t badmouth anyone, but did acknowledge that the person could be difficult sometimes. Because she was honest and straightforward and provided context, I left that experience a better relationship builder and happier employee.

      Reply ↓
  31. AAM Reader*

    I witnessed this in my final job before I departed government. Now a year later, bad manager contacted me because one of their subordinates is pressing charges against them! Ugh, I wish I would have fired them during their probation period. . . great advice from Allison. Hope this helps someone because I sure could have used it.

    Reply ↓
  33. Antigone*

    I’m staring at this wondering if it could *possibly* be about my own skip-level manager, with just enough details changed for plausible deniability. It’s probably not, but whew, does this sound familiar.

    What I can tell you in my case is that yes, that manager is absolutely a bad people manager, a micromanager (who declares loudly and often that she’s not a micromanager), and a belittling jerk who believes a long-standing, competent, smart team is full of stupid people, because she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. Most of the upper management is aware and has grown to loathe her, but the top-level boss who championed her hire doesn’t seem to see it. And everyone around him says that they’d tell him if he asked directly, but otherwise they can’t because it could be career-ending for them.

    So, on the off chance you’re my top-level boss or someone like him – find someone in the organization that you trust, ask them for a no-holds-barred opinion on this situation, and swear to them *and mean it* that if what they have to tell you is that you’ve made a huge mistake, they won’t suffer for being honest with you.

    My org just lost several team members with combined decades’ worth of institutional knowledge and expertise, and several more including me are on our way out the door, because of one bad management hire. It’s a shame. I hope you can turn your thing around before it becomes our thing.

    Reply ↓
  34. Jellyfish Catcher*

    You need a new manager.
    We all have encountered people like this: two faced abusers who kiss up and kick down.
    I have no idea if this type of adult can change. But it’s not to your benefit, OP, to use your company, your staff and your financial stability to find out.

    From my experience, those types will change the appearance of their behavior, but the deficits of integrity, honesty and kindness will surface again.
    Your staff sounds loyal; you can do this!

    Your employees are reporting this, expecting resolution. It’s fortunate that they have all remained, so far.

    Reply ↓
  35. Religious Nutter*

    LW, as someone who’s suffered under an abusive manager, I am ~begging~ you to do the right thing: Fire Catelyn.

    If this were a single report coming to you with complaints you could (maybe, sorta, kinda) write it off as a personality conflict and try to resolve it through training, coaching, or mediation.

    You have multiple people (!) coming to you with complaints. At least one of them was upset enough to bring a complaint to HR (!!). That’s all the information you need. One person can be disgruntled. More than one person reporting the same pattern? The pattern is real.

    Abusive people are expert social climbers. They’re brilliant at navigating office politics and can be extremely friendly and charming to people who have power over them. Ingratiating themselves to authority is one of their tools for maintaining control over their victims.

    If you treat this as he-said-she-said and go all “how can I possibly be sure!?”, you’ll lose that team. Top performers will leave first, followed by middle-of-the-pack. You’ll be left only with people who are desperately clinging to their jobs (IE, ones who can’t get hired elsewhere).

    Don’t do this to those people.

    Reply ↓
  36. B*

    This part (how do I make it a proper quote?):

    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

    Has big “I’m a good communicator but people don’t listen” energy. If the team doesn’t respect you, and resists your proposals, don’t just piss and moan, what’s your plan as a manager to remedy this? Respect is earned not owed, and resistance almost always has a root cause you can tackle to bring the team on board. To me Catelyn sounds like someone who likes to blame her team for her own deficiencies.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lab Rabbit*

      (how do I make it a proper quote?)

      Click on the “How to Comment” link (to the right on desktop, or probably below if on mobile) and it will have instructions. (Be sure to include closing tags!)

      Reply ↓
    2. Hlao-roo*

      (how do I make it a proper quote?)

      There’s a link to the “commenting rules” above the comment box. If you go there and scroll down past the rules, the “other things to know” section shows how HTML code works to get bold, italics, and

      blockquotes

      in your comments.

      Reply ↓
    3. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Has big “I’m a good communicator but people don’t listen” energy.

      Right? If people aren’t listening, then by definition you are not a good communicator.

      Reply ↓
  37. Slow Gin Lizz*

    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?

    This^, 100%. Does she act shocked or surprised when you tell her these things? Or just brushes it off like it’s no big deal that her team is unhappy with her?

    And when you have the conversation where you lay out the outcomes you want for her and her team, gauge how she reacts to that as well. If she just says, “Yes, I will do that” and doesn’t offer any more ideas on what to do, that’s telling as well. This should be a conversation between the two of you, not a lecture. Ask her leading questions, such as, “How will you accomplish XYZ?” and let her talk. If she doesn’t go into any details, or any that you find satisfactory, that will be important in figuring out if she’s someone you can keep employed in her position or not.

    Reply ↓
    1. Somehow I Manage*

      Just a small suggestion to what you’ve said… Yes, Catelyn should be coming up with ways to accomplish things, but I think OP should ask questions and then give Catelyn some time to really give thought to how she’d answer the questions. As in have the the conversation this afternoon and schedule a follow-up meeting right before or after lunch tomorrow. That would make it more likely that Catelyn will have actionable plans versus shooting from the hip, telling OP what she thinks OP wants to hear.

      Reply ↓
      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Good point! Give her a chance to really think about it. I know I often can’t answer questions off the cuff very well and have on many occasions told my boss, “I don’t know the answer right now but give me a couple of hours or overnight and I’m sure I’ll know what the answer is.” And it’s amazing how often I come up with solutions immediately upon waking up in the morning, too.

        Reply ↓
  38. Smurfette*

    OP I think you need to review your own management approach here. You’re not managing her or the situation, and she’s taking advantage of that.

    Maybe review your hiring process and assumptions as well, because you can be a terrible manager even after seven years. Did you check references? Ask her about her management style?

    Reply ↓
  39. Middle-Aged Wasteland*

    “She’ll say belittling things about customers, co-workers, and even team members (her own reports!) behind their backs.”

    “But none of this happens when I’m around!”

    Except for the time it 100% happened while you were around, right after she started, and she only stopped when she saw you didn’t agree with her.

    Reply ↓
  40. Meep*

    I was wondering what my old boss was up to. Sounds like her same old tricks.

    From experience, if a manager is sowing discord among her employees and things are getting done – it is the employees keeping it together and Caitlyn in attempting to throw whoever under the bus to hide the fact her own work isn’t getting done.

    Reply ↓
    1. DataGirl*

      oh yes, very much this. I doubt Caitlyn does any work herself, she just takes credit when others do well, and makes them scapegoats when she let’s things slide.

      Reply ↓
  41. I Can't Even*

    I feel that this is written about my office. I have watched my direct manager act like a completely different person than who we know when anyone higher up or from HR is around. It’s like invasion of the body snatchers.

    Reply ↓
  42. Anya Last Nerve*

    The letter doesn’t say there are 7 people on the team; it says Catelyn has 7 years of experience managing. There could very well be only 3 people on the team. While it doesn’t necessarily change the overall advice, it change the first bullet of the answer (while 7 people are unlikely to have colluded to lie, 3 people are more more likely to do so).

    Reply ↓
  43. CommanderBanana*

    OP, you have seven team members coming to you – team members you ostensibly trust and do not think are all colluding to lie to you – with consistent information about this person.

    If seven people told you they saw John shoot Mike behind the 7-11, would you assume they were all lying because you didn’t see it?

    I don’t understand why you think it’s so far outside the realm of possibility that Catelyn behaves differently when you’re around.

    Reply ↓
    2. Myrin*

      We don’t know that there are seven team members – the only seven in the letter is Catelyn’s years of management experience. But I did get the feeling that that’s about the team’s size regardless. Doesn’t really change your point, though, unless the team consists of, like, two people, but only insofar as it’s likelier for two people to think something up together than seven; if OP knows these two people to be trustworthy and levelheaded, that’s two people too many having to deal with a manager like that.

      Reply ↓
  44. AlabamaPhoenix*

    OP, I think it says a LOT about YOU that you are willing to allow good workers to possibly experience terrible managing, simply because Catelyn has such great gaslighting skills. You seem genuinely confused about those skills, saying you don’t think she’s “subtle” enough. But what really burns me up is your hesitance to do anything simply because you haven’t observed Catelyn being a bad manager. Here you are, actively watching the outcome of bad managing, but you just can’t bring yourself to believe it. It’s like when you’re driving in traffic, and some jerk brake checks you, nearly causing an accident, but when you report them to the cops, the cops say “We can’t do anything because we didn’t see it.” That doesn’t mean IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. Please believe your employees. I wouldn’t give Catelyn another day’s pay: it’s clear that she’s got you bamboozled, and you can’t believe anything she says to you anymore.

    Reply ↓
    1. Somehow I Manage*

      Following your accident/legal evidence line of thinking… OP has evidence of Catelyn’s behavior because they’ve heard it from more than one person, from people you know longer than you’ve known Catelyn. While employees may from time to time raise a concern about their manager to the manager’s boss, it probably doesn’t often happen en masse. Maybe there’s not enough evidence to dismiss Catelyn immediately, but there’s sure as heck enough for OP to engage more fully in what’s happening in this department and not let this spin out of hand more than it already has.

      Reply ↓
  45. DataGirl*

    OP’s attitude is really kind of gross. This is just like when multiple women step forward to accuse a harrasser and the boss says “well he never harrassed ME so you all must be lying”. It’s seven to one here. Believe victims- and yes, these people are victims of an abusive boss.

    Reply ↓
    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Yah, it’s like the Nathan Pyle cartoon where one eagle says to the other, “Do you think the owl is a predator?” and the other one says, “No, he’s never bothered me.” They’re silent for a couple of panels and then one of them says, “I don’t know what Mouse was talking about.”

      Reply ↓
    3. Roland*

      Where is everyone getting that it’s seven people? The letter doesn’t say anything about the size of the team.

      Reply ↓
  46. C in DC*

    I’ve worked for 2 managers like that. It’s demoralizing for staff members. The staff are actively job hunting. If you don’t want to lose some of the staff, you need to manage Catelyn.

    Reply ↓
  47. Purple Turtle*

    OP, when I read that none of Catelyn’s behavior happens when you’re around, I thought “Of course it doesn’t!”. Given all the circumstances, you’re probably just seeing a censored version of Catelyn’s behavior.

    Reply ↓
  48. JobSearchingReluctantly*

    Act with urgency – this letter could have been written a year ago by someone where I work. He brought in a manager who is horrible and continued to not acknowledge the response from the team. Several HR complaints were dismissed as “lack of proof” including testimony of witnesses being “unsubstantiated” because the witnesses also worked for her. And the situation now has hit critical mass.

    There has been over 100% turnover in the last year and they have now reached a point where so many people with institutional knowledge have left that the temps and new people don’t know how to do any of the things. It could actually be the thing that brings down the entire organization as it is starting to affect our compliance in several areas. Vendors and customers are dropping. It is now a crisis. 2 years ago I was pretty confident this was a job that would take me through retirement in 8 years. Now, I hope I can get a new job before I lose health insurance

    Reply ↓
    1. JobSearchingReluctantly*

      I should note, it is not my department, I have a great team, but I see all the affects of what they do.

      Reply ↓
      2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

        If they say this to you, could you ask what they would consider to be “proof”? Like, what kind of proof could someone possibly produce to substantiate them saying that Catelyn rants in 1:1s or says belittling things being staff’s backs? I mean, I’m assuming that secret audio recordings would be frowned upon!

        Reply ↓
  49. Ellis Bell*

    For me, the most crimson flag is the fact Caitlin doesn’t seem to see it as her job to solve the issues she says she’s seeing with her team. She’s literally just venting to OP without any kind of plan to resolve them. That would mean she doesn’t understand what a manager does, and most bullying managers are hapless; bullying is all they really know how to do. Equally, it backs up what other people say. Most of the team are telling OP about Caitlin’s habit of venting, which is coming out as badmouthing and tearing down the team’s morale… but OP isn’t sure whether to believe this, even though they’ve heard Caitlin vent pointlessly themselves? In general all encompassing terms too, rather than specifics. In OP’s shoes, I would be present with the team much more often, making it as hard as possible to maintain a false front and I would seriously dig in to looking for evidence of her skills, and her managerial judgement and not allow her to sidetrack that focus, by letting her twist it and talk about others. Her responsibility level is higher than the others. This is her job.

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  50. Toot Sweet*

    Alison’s assessment is spot-on. Catelyn is clearly in defensive mode here, rather than looking for solutions to her “issues” with her team. LW, you need to steer her toward a solution-based outcome, and be very frank with her about the other potential outcome of separation from the company. Allowing her to torpedo a great team will end up reflecting badly on you.

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  51. Nice cup of tea*

    I’m going to be blunt here.

    You would rather call your longstanding staff liars than believe that you made a mistake hiring Catelyn.

    You need to listen and deal with this situation. Get your head out of the sand, document everything, put her on a PIP and get rid of her.

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  52. Observer*

    OP, I haven’t read all of the messages, but I want to suggest something.

    Alison is correct, that you need to act with urgency. And that you most definitely *can* act on things that you did not observe yourself.

    The issue that worries me a bit is that HR seems to have the same blind spot. As though they can only act on evidence that is even stronger than what you would need in court. Keep in mind that juries do not convict based on what they have seen, but what the witnesses have seen. Why can’t you come to conclusions based on the same kind of evidence?

    Having said that, given that your HR seems to have this blind spot, I would suggest two things. One is to compile a list, with all relevant detail of every complaint you get, and keep adding to that list. When you see the whole pattern that becomes a lot clearer what is going on.

    But also, go back to people and ask them to start putting things into email, and their calendars, which can then also be used to document the problem. So, their 1-on-1 is on their calendar for one hour, and they should follow up each meeting with a recap. This is *especially* important for instructions, especially if she’s giving them orally, because that becomes much less of a “who really said what” conversation, and it’s also one of those things that is a LOT harder for sloppy HR (which your seems to be) to dismiss as “just personality” issues.

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    1. Catelyn's Boss*

      So, funny (extremely not funny) story here – the team member who complained to HR is a very diligent young person who meticulously tracks everything. EVERYTHING. When they went to HR, they shared their spreadsheet which tracked all their work stuff – sick days, vacation days, shifts, etc, and also issues and concerns; when it happened, how it made them feel, the whole nine yards.

      My reaction: Wow, that’s really smart; they’re teaching Gen Z right
      HR’s reaction: No one normal does this, this youth is a troublemaker and is looking to cause problems.

      -_-

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      2. Ellis Bell*

        Are they at all effective in any circumstances? Because that response sounds massively lazy. Practically, I would probably say to them from this point onwards “I’ve instructed everyone to record things as diligently as possible because of your request for more proof”. But I don’t think this is actually a Catelyn problem, it’s a company that won’t let you manage and which doesn’t trust you.

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  53. Timothy*

    > And the team says that she is different when I’m present.

    This is all you need to read. The OP just needs to invite herself to a week’s worth of Catelyn’s meetings, then get feedback from Catelyn and the team about how things go that week.

    I would also say that a 1:1 that’s an hour long is ridiculous. My 1:1 was blocked out as half an hour, and we were usually done after 10-15 minutes. It also wasn’t as one-sided as these ones sound like.

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  54. Catabodua*

    This is giving flashbacks. I was one of 9 mid level managers who got a new director. 8 of the 9 of us were gone within a year because he was that horrible. New managers hired rarely last. One left after only a few months. The VP who hired the director still sings his praises. It’s beyond my comprehension.

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    1. Anon Just for This*

      Same. There has been a lot of turnover on a team I left 2 years ago because of a new manager who sucked. I tried to gently flag things to other leadership, but the message I got was that nobody was going to intervene – or even talk to her! – unless there was some obvious rule she was breaking. Even if all of the staff were miserable.

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  55. Somehow I Manage*

    My boss and I were recently presented information about a manager who has since left the business who was engaging in some problematic behavior, and their direct reports were VERY uncomfortable with how the manager was acting in several circumstance. These were both young and new direct reports, and they didn’t feel like they should say something proactively, though they did say that they wouldn’t have lied if they’d been asked about something. So all of this stuff came out the manager left. (Note: We did follow up the conversation by imploring them to report things that made them feel uncomfortable in the future)

    I tell you this, LW, to tell you that you’re hearing from people. They’re bringing problematic behaviors from their manager to your attention. They’re not holding this information. They’re asking you to do something. Do not wait.

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    1. Somehow I Manage*

      Adding: And the people you’re hearing from are people who are known to you. You know who they are, how they work, and probably have seen how they operate in normal circumstances.

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  56. Crencestre*

    LW, of course you’re not seeing Catelyn at her worst – she’s putting on a nicey-nice act for you, but that does NOT mean that she’s treating her team at all well. It DOES mean that she knows – at least on some level – how she SHOULD be acting but she’s choosing NOT to behave that way when you’re not right there! This by itself is a bright red flag…

    Whatever Catelyn’s qualifications on paper, your team is telling you what she’s like in person. Take them seriously or you could start losing the best people you have (and no, Catelyn is NOT among them!)

    Last note: A person may be a fine fit for one company but not at all the right person for a specific job in another. That’s why even glowing recommendations don’t guarantee that a star performer in one firm will do equally well in another! However well Catelyn may have done in a former job, it sounds as if she’s just not the right person for the job she has now.

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  57. Just Here for the Llama Grooming*

    From someone who worked for two crappy managers:

    Seven years of experience isn’t the same as being good;
    If your team doesn’t respect you, the onus is on you to solve that problem;
    I don’t see anything indicating that Catelyn is trying to figure out how to work well with her people — and that’s what OP has to help her do or help her get out.

    I was the target of “she said X and that was bad” (and I had said no such thing), so I’m not dismissing Catelyn’s denial out of hand. But my experience was with one person, one incident; that OP has indication of the same complaint from more than one person, more than once, lends more weight to the complaint.

    I hope OP is able to get a handle on this mess soon.

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  58. Loose Socks*

    I am currently dealing with a very similar situation. I work in HR. We have a supervisor that is definitely doing something wrong, but getting to the bottom of whatever is it has been a nightmare. He has a pattern of retaliation, so no one on his shift will talk. The people that used to be on his shift will only talk to me off the clock only on strict condition of anonymity. This is law enforcement work, so talking to HR is pretty much taboo. This supervisor’s supervisor operates on “everything’s good unless someone tells me it’s not” and apparently everyone is so scared of blow-back that no one has reported anything. I’ve been working at this for months now and am finally making headway, and finally getting upper management to understand what’s going on. But listen to your staff members, the lower down on the ladder they are, the harder it may be for them to come to you. Before I talked with the upper management about the issues, I first addressed the reputations they were starting to get for “protecting” this supervisor by “looking the other way”. I don’t believe it was intentional, but since they wanted “solid proof”, that’s essentially what they were doing.

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  59. Baunilha*

    I’m having flashbacks about a director at a previous job that was very good at hiding her kissing up and kicking down. It took us a long time to finally show upper management that she was, in fact, a horrible person. Like the LW, they claimed that it just couldn’t be, since they never saw it happening.

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  60. Snacks Enthusiast*

    Generally this seems straightforward and I think Alison’s advice is spot-on. My one concern would be: are any cultural issues at play? For example, I think there could be a scenario where the staff and a new manager have very different experiences/reports of what’s going on if the new manager is a Black person brought in to supervise a team of white people who haven’t had a Black manager before (or a manager with an accent, or a woman, or a lesbian, or whatever!). I’m guessing OP would have mentioned it but sometimes this stuff isn’t obvious to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

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  61. Ho-ho-holey hose*

    I have seen this play out where in fact the team wasn’t the problem, but there were several very distinct and obvious differences that aren’t the case here. I’m providing it as an example to contrast with what OP has said, and why their case seems different.

    In cases where it is the opposite, you will see things like:
    -Inconsistent and vastly different reports and feedback on the manager, depending on who you talk to in the team, or if you are talking to different teams in your org, with the pattern that the strongest negative feedback comes from the least trustworthy sources.
    -Negative feedback coming predominantly from team members who are known to be resistant to change, or resentful of the manager’s promotion, or both. These people usually tie their criticism of the manager to the idea that they should be in the role themselves.
    -A team with known performance problems or challenges resistance to organizational change. A new manager who is a champion for the org’s goals could be a target specifically because they are challenging the status quo – but you should have seen that the team or individuals were struggling before the manager joined.
    -People slipping up. Even when people try to edit themselves or show up differently when the grand boss is present, often little things slip through the cracks. It might be little things that you could ignore or miss if there wasn’t more going on, but if you watch facial expressions and group dynamics closely, you should be able to tell if something is off.

    And then it is ALL of these things together that paint a different picture. If you have even just one person in the team who is a solid performer and you trust, who is giving you feedback like what you posted here, you need to act on it.

    Reply ↓
  63. Catelyn's Boss*

    Hi all, OP here.

    Let me include some context that I had to cut from my letter to keep it under 600 words:

    1) I have had a fair bit of exposure to toxic personalities over the years (both in workplace and outside of it), and I like to think I’m pretty good at smelling them out at this point; that’s why I was surprised in this situation, and have been keeping even more alert for tells. I am not a naive idiot thinking that if I don’t see it, it can’t be real.

    1a) Nor am I calling my long-time staff liars! but they *are* opinionated and This Is The Way, and their last manager (who they adored) had during the course of his time in the role often expressed that he had severe challenges getting them to change their ways of doing things. That unity is great in many ways, but it has absolutely colored their impressions in the past, so in justice I had to consider that possibility.

    1b) I’m not getting support from our HR department. In the case that did go to them, the HR head afterwards told me that she thought the team had it out for Catelyn because “Catelyn’s just trying to get them to toe the line”. I don’t believe she’ll take any reports seriously unless *I* witness it – and to make it worse, the other team members are now reluctant to go to HR. We are an at-will state, yes, but I truly don’t know how much power I have to act if HR doesn’t back me.

    2) Meetings: I’ve been attending team meetings regularly since this started bubbling up. None of the behaviors anyone’s complaining about show up in those. (Another part of “it doesn’t happen when you’re around”.) The regular 1:1s scheduled on the calendar are not an hour long – I’m told these tend to be ad-hoc.

    3) I have already instructed Catelyn to concentrate on outcomes rather than impressions. We are working on a communal set of expectations on KPIs, response times, and so on. (I’ve also already requested her to, as a separate exercise, record the problems she says she’s observing which *aren’t* directly related to outcomes. The fact that she hasn’t done so yet is also telling me something, yes.)

    This is how I’d see it all going down:
    Me: Catelyn, I am receiving reports from the team that you are saying X, Y, Z and doing Q. That’s not acceptable and I need you to stop immediately.
    Catelyn: I’m not and never would! They’re ganging up on me because they hate me.
    Me: I don’t know if you’re not realizing it or what, but they are not a uni-mind, and I’m hearing it from multiple team members. So it needs to stop or you will not have a future here.

    ** time passes**

    Team: Catelyn is saying X Y and Z
    Me to HR: I told Catelyn this was unacceptable and I’m hearing it hasn’t stopped. We need to proceed with termination
    Catelyn: I didn’t! This is all made up!
    HR: well, we don’t know who’s telling the truth, so you’ll need to work it out.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ellis Bell*

      I’m getting the impression you can’t unilaterally fire Catelyn based on your gut, and you can’t fire her for lacking in the role by failing to manage the team adequately either? So, in other words, HR requires some kind of a smoking gun?

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      1. Somehow I Manage*

        I think it seems very much like an underperforming sports team. The coach or manager isn’t out on the field executing the game plan. The players are. But if the team is underperforming, often times the coach/manager is the first one to be moved out. The important part of the process then is the team turning things around. If things don’t improve, then members of the team are traded or not resigned.

        OP, I think rather than trying to find that one smoking gun moment, you should work with HR to really focus on the performance of the team, or lack thereof. Catelyn is the head of the team. Focus on the KPIs. Focus on output. Focus on the things you can measure and point to. Get HR on board with some sort of performance measurements. If she’s not managing well, I think you’re going to be able to see that empirically.

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        1. Somehow I Manage*

          Also I might point out to HR that replacing Catelyn is going to be much easier than replacing multiple members of the team when they choose to leave of their own accord. The cost-savings for the business will be significant, especially when you account for the extra time you’re putting in to manage this mess.

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      2. Kevin Sours*

        It honestly doesn’t. If you have on party saying that the other party is behaving in a way that is “appalling” and that party is saying it didn’t happen it comes down to who is telling the truth. It doesn’t sound like the statements about Catelyn’s behavior leave a lot of room for “misunderstanding”.

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    3. Kevin Sours*

      If one side is providing specifics and you don’t think there is a coordinated campaign of lying and the other side is responding with “trust me bro” it pretty much tells you all you need to know. The problems isn’t that you don’t know what to do, it’s that you aren’t being allowed to do it.

      Unfortunately what’s going to happen is that your team members who have options are going to go somewhere where management (and I’m specifically including HR here) believes them.

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    4. Anon Just for This*

      I think the word limit meant that the letter sounded like you were 50/50 on whether the bulk of the problem was Catelyn or the team. From this comment, it seems like that’s not the case, that you are taking the complaints seriously and are leaning on the side of Catelyn being at least a big part of the problem. I get why the approach with any team is “trust (that something is happening), but verify.” That’s probably especially true when evaluating complaints from a team that is known to be particular and stubborn.

      Reply ↓
  64. Sneaky Squirrel*

    I wish LW provided more context about when and how often they’re around and what efforts they’ve made to witness the behavior; Caitlin sounds like a boss that I once had and my issue was that the grandboss was never around to witness or intervene. They had their hands in too many other things that they were basically unavailable. My manager was never belittling to me but they spent hours of my day in unplanned meetings complaining about how they didn’t like the company and others in our department. But I knew my boss knew how to be diplomatic and play the politics correctly when they spoke around the grandboss.

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      1. Catelyn's Boss*

        It took me a long time to compose, as you see :-P

        But yes; a huge part of the problem is that I can’t be around enough. I have seven other direct reports, I’m managing multiple projects, continually fielding stuff from above and running interference so my people can do their actual work… Even on the days I’ve been in that office suite, I have to be in Zoom for at least half the time, which isn’t helping me pick up the vibes.

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        1. Left-handed scissors*

          While you may not witness it personally, it’s very important to take the team’s complaints seriously.

          Reply ↓
          1. Roland*

            OP literally wrote to Alison for advice so it’s odd to imply they aren’t taking it seriously. If they didn’t care they would not ask for advice (and engage with the comment section).

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  66. Saturday*

    “But none of this happens when I’m around!”
    I would really try to lose the expectation that you should be able to witness these things first hand. Part of being terrible to her staff would be making sure that someone in a position to do something about it won’t see it.

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  67. Ashley*

    This happened with my former grand boss. She was horrible. Every person on our team disliked her and she ruined morale — not just on the team but across the department. Several people even went to HR and nothing happened because she knew how to play the game. Act now now now, OP! I’d recommend also connecting with her direct reports and letting them know you trust them, take what they said seriously and are working on improving the situation. If the head of my department or HR said that to me, things would have been better morale-wise.

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  68. LCH*

    “A good manager whose team had these problems would be actively looking for solutions.”

    i had a report who said they found it difficult to communicate with me and didn’t understand what i wanted. it drove me mad trying to figure out what the problem was because they couldn’t give more specifics than that. i spent time speaking to my supervisor, who was a great manager, trying to figure out how to fix this. i also made sure to continually check in with the report when discussing new projects, etc. to make sure this time they did understand what our goals were. anyway, never got any concrete examples of what i was doing, but i did continue to try to fix it. do i think i’m a good manager? not really, no. but i definitely tried.

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  69. Pretty as a Princess*

    Just a couple weeks ago I went to a senior person and relayed a series of really bad acts by someone junior. The senior person has a good heart and wanted to walk through things and said once or twice they were just shocked because they hadn’t seen any of this. And I had to say:

    “Of COURSE you haven’t seen any of it. They don’t dare do it in front of you. They do it when they think there’s no one around to be accountable to.”

    Too bad for them they did it in front of ME.

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  70. Tech Industry Refugee*

    We have a Catelyn. She is smart as a whip but extremely abrasive. She doesn’t protect her team against our unfortunately abusive clients, and speaks to some team members like they are dogs. Her team has experienced about 80% turnover in the past 4 months.

    If you value your long-time employees, please take this seriously and get rid of Catelyn.

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  71. Goody*

    I don’t know about the legality of this, but given that Catelyn acts differently when Op is around so that the issues aren’t being observed, I wonder if it’s time for some cameras.

    Seriously, though, this is a team that has been working well together for years before Catelyn. Yes, there might be some resentment or frustration over her hiring, but the entire team is complaining. If OP doesn’t feel like they have enough actionable evidence right now, they need to find a way to get it. Fast.

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  72. I'm the Phoebe in Any Group*

    OP is there anyone else in the vicinity (hearing distance) who can provide you information? Can you ask IT for access to her emails? If she talks like this she might also write in a very demeaning way. Her Sent emails could be a treasure trove.

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  73. MistOrMister*

    I think OP is trying too hard to explain away this possible bad behavior of Catelyn’s. The telling thing to me was that she came out the gate expressing negative opinions of people that she can’t possibly have formed based on actual knowledge….and then changed her reaction due to OP’s reaction. I have worked with a number of people who are absolutely foul to people below them in the chain but who present the face their manager wants to see when dealing with them and this is 100% the kind of thing those people do. Catelyn showed you who she was early, you need to realize that. Also, others have said, someone saying “Catelyn said this to me” is absolutely not hearsay. You dont have to take it as the gospel and should investigate, but it is not hearsay. Even if a person comes to you saying they overheard Catelyn say X to someone else, it’s still not hearsay as they have firsthand knowledge of it. Please find a way to investigate and realize that you very well might have a horrible manager who needs to be shown the door. It is highly unlikely an entire department has banded together and is in cahoots trying to get a decenr manager fired.

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  75. Scout Finch*

    We had a bad director for our team that made most of us physically ill. Our team lead went to the next level up above the director (1st-co-CIO) 3 times in 3 months. Was basically told that everything would be OK after vacation. Nothing changed.

    So 2 months after the 3rd 1st-co-CIO meeting, team lead has been looking for new jobs & has found one. I let the 2nd-co-CIO know that we were about to lose our team lead that held everything together on our 3 person team (that should be 5 people). (The other 2 were looking for jobs as well, but I didn’t mention that.)

    That was a Thursday. Team meeting with 2nd-co-CIO Friday. We kept it professional & presented the issues without drama. By Tuesday, 2nd-co-CIO moved the team under a different (engaged & supportive – what a breath of fresh air!) manager. 1st-co-CIO (who ignored my team lead’s concerns) actually came by a team meeting on Thursday & apologized to us, saying they didn’t realize how serious the issues were. We are professionals – if one of us comes to a CIO with an issue, it’s not due to a fight on the playground.

    A bad manager/director will cost you good employees & $$$ via turnover. It was validating to be taken seriously.

    Believe the team that you know & trust. Otherwise, they will move onto someone who believes them.

    Reply ↓

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