update: managing a team that resists any change and complains constantly

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer in HR who had recently brought in a new manager, Barbara, to manage a team that was resisting any change and complained constantly? Here’s the update.

First, Barbara is no longer with our organization. Due to some troubling behavior that was witnessed by multiple people (myself included), and given the nature of Barbara’s actions during her short time with us, we all felt this just wasn’t a good culture fit and parted ways.

Since then, we’ve brought in a new manager who has taken the team by storm in all the good ways! We did sit the team down after Barbara’s departure and talk through some of the issues we had noticed, and after digging deeper, it seems a lot of the pushback was due more in part to Barbara’s management style, which was such a radically different style than what the team needed. We even uncovered some additional troubling interactions between Barbara and some of our vendors and customers, which has really opened our eyes to the real problem actually being Barbara all along, unfortunately.

During that sit-down, however, we did still talk about things that the team needed to be open to with any manager that they get, and they all seemed very receptive to it. Quite frankly, the issues they’d brought up with both of their previous managers really just stemmed from inadequacies on the managers’ parts that we couldn’t see from the upper management point of view (and the team was unsure of how to voice it and/or too nervous to bring it up to upper management), and so we are making some changes on our end to make sure this doesn’t happen again!

All that said, the new manager we brought in is just as much of a go-getter, but more of a team player and collaborator than Barbara was, which is exactly what this team needed! Barbara was the “it’s my way or the highway” type with no input really being allowed from her staff, whereas the new manager (let’s call her Sara) has taken the time to see how things are done first before making recommendations for any changes, and bases a lot of her decisions on what the team feels would be beneficial (within reason). As far as the team wanting other departments to do things that are clearly in the title of their department goes? Seems to be a non-issue now! Sara has really lit the fire under everyone on the team and re-invigorated the necessity of them to provide these services, and leads with encouragement and collaboration instead of an iron fist masked by kind demeanor and surface-level gratitude for perception‘s sake.

All seems to be smooth sailing for now! We are so grateful to have found Sara after everything this team has been through over the last few years! There’s still been a few hiccups as there usually are, but everyone’s really finding their stride!

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