An Employee Keeps Complaining to Me About a Manager I Supervise
Posted Jan 22, 2024
I have an employee who I'm having a hard time understanding how to manage.
I manage Jessica, who manages Cynthia. Cynthia is very meticulous and holds people to incredibly high standards. This sometimes makes her difficult to work with, as she gets upset when others don't work in the same manner as she.
Cynthia frequently complains to me about her manager, who takes a much more right-brained approach to her job. Jessica's management style is loose, fun, and go-with-the-flow. I believe in our culture, Jessica's approach is beneficial.
When Cynthia complains about Jessica, I have tried to redirect her to work it out with Jessica directly and to be more adaptable to different management styles. But she continues to complain to others and to me, and I don't know what to do about it. I've asked her not to do this, but it seems like she feels I'm not doing my job if I don't discipline Jessica in some way.
I believe she wants me to agree with her and put the same kind of pressure on Jessica that Cynthia puts on herself, and I'm not interested in being that kind of manager. I am happy with Jessica's performance. If I don't take the action Cynthia believes I should take, she sulks and complains to the other employees.
In all honesty, Jessica is much easier to work because she doesn't get so worked up about everything. In my opinion, I'll take a team player who moves at her own pace over a hard worker who complains about everything. Do you have any words of advice for dealing with Cynthia?
Green responds:
You need to shut this down!
It's not okay for Cynthia to constantly complain about Jessica to you or others. It's not a good use of your time to field the same complaints over and over again, and by not shutting it down more assertively, you're inadvertently signaling that it's okay for her to keep bringing it up. That's really undermining to Jessica! And by allowing Cynthia to sulk and complain about Jessica to others, you're letting her create a toxic environment for other employees ... and again letting her undermine Jessica.
It's not clear to me if Jessica knows this is happening, but if she does, she's probably pretty frustrated with you for not handling this more assertively.
If your main response to Cynthia has been to tell her to work it out with Jessica directly and be more adaptable, that's not enough. That might have been fine the first time Cynthia complained to you, but it sounds like for a while now she has needed to hear a clear statement that you are happy with Jessica's work and disagree with her complaints. If you haven't said that explicitly, she probably thinks you don't feel strongly either way and are just being passive about getting involved. And she probably thinks she should keep advocating for change because you haven't clearly told her that you don't agree with her take. She may even think you're sympathetic to her case.
You need to tell her much, much more clearly that you are happy with Jessica's work, and you need to shut down the ongoing complaining.
The next time Cynthia complains to you about Jessica, say this: "We've talked about this a number of times, and I don't agree with your assessment. I'm happy with Jessica's work; she's doing an excellent job. I hear that you have concerns, but this is at the point that I need you to figure out if you're able to be reasonably happy in your job, knowing that the things you dislike aren't going to change. This is not a conversation we can keep having because it's becoming disruptive to our work."
From there, if she brings it up again, cut it off right away: "We've talked about this in the past, and it's not a discussion I'm going to continue to have. I'm concerned that you're not hearing that message."
Frankly, someone also needs to address the sulking, but that should really be Jessica, as her boss. So if you haven't already, loop Jessica into what's been going on and tell her that you have her back in shutting down the sulking the next time it happens. If she doesn't have experience dealing with this sort of thing, you may need to coach her through what that looks like. You can suggest language like, "I understand you're frustrated about X, and I've heard your concerns. X isn't going to change so I need you to decide if you can work here knowing that." And, "While I understand you're frustrated, you can't take that out on your coworkers -- I need you to engage in real discussion when people ask you questions and not turn your back when people are talking with you (or fill in whatever specific behaviors are reading as sulking). If you think about it and realize that you're too unhappy here to do what I'm asking, let's talk and we'll figure out what to do from here."
Right now it sounds like you're staying too neutral, and that's what's letting this continue. Get in there and manage the situation more proactively -- and support Jessica in doing that too!
I do want to note that in general, managers should be open to hearing concerns about the managers below them. You don't want to reflexively send people back to their managers to work things out when there might be serious problems you'd miss otherwise. But it sounds like you've considered Cynthia's concerns and are confident in your assessment of the situation.
JAN 15, 2024