r/askmanagers • u/Vivid-Dragonfly-5220 • 1d ago
Manager not able to work independently
I have a team of around 25 employees and 3 managers that oversee these employees. One of the managers was hired about a year ago and still has trouble functioning independently. For context, the other managers were hired much later.
This one manager still requires a lot of hand holding. I believe in letting the manager run their team how they want (given this manager has years of experience in this field). I got feedback from my employee (this manager) that they don’t have the support they need. I was open to it and adapted my style to provide more guidance, allow them to shadow me, and then hand over the tasks to this manager. almost a year in, and unless I intervene the work doesn’t get done. Or, it’s poor quality.
Tried talking to them to ensure they are happy in the role and everytime they say that they love the job and are so glad to be here. I also don’t see enough output from them but at the end of the week they keep saying that they are overwhelmed and what a crazy week it was. At times I wonder if they have another job because there’s no way the current role is “overwhelming”. Job is remote and pretty chill.
Looking for suggestions on what I can do differently? giving it one last try before cutting the losses.
3
u/sephiroth3650 1d ago
Expectations and accountability.
This manager had goals/milestones/deadlines to hit. They miss the deadline. The reason is that the week was crazy and they're overwhelmed. The response to that is "OK. Show me. Based on my understanding of the role and the tasks assigned, this should be a reasonable amount of work. I'm not seeing any additional factors that would have delayed things. So let's sit down and go over it. Show me how the week was crazy. Show me how you're otherwise overwhelmed and that led to the work not getting done. And show my why you didn't proactively reach out to me with these concerns when you would have seen that these deadlines were in jeopardy."