Anxiety relating to my Line Manager

[Flower_2501]

I’ve realised over the last week or so, that it seems I’m more anxious around work than I realised and I’ve been able to acknowledge that’s where a huge part of my anxiety is coming from.

I’m a supervisor, I’ve got a great team and our friendships are building even though it’s been a rocky road through Covid. But I’m finding my own Line Manager, very hard to be around. One minute I think she can be supportive (if you’ve got personal circumstances) and then with a switch of a button, she changes when it comes to work. I feel like at times she tripping me up on purpose. She’s given me minimal training since I’ve started, but then if something goes wrong, the way she approaches it with me, is like I am really incapable. Some of these examples are things I did by accident as I wasn’t actually shown or told anything about these. But then it’s my fault and she makes me feel about 10cm tall.

Taking a look back over the last 5 months since she’s been my line manager, there’s many times she’s outright snapped at me just for my opinion in a mutual discussion? I had my appraisal last week and I felt she under marked me for my ‘relationships with my team’, she couldn’t provide feedback and when I spoke to one of my directors about it, as I’m doing my management and counselling studies outside of work, so I asked for some constructive feedback to improve and use in my development plan and he was pretty speechless. He couldn’t understand or see where this marking came from as it isn’t a representation of me.

I’m really concerned to then address how she is with me, as I know she’s very ‘in’ with the directors above and I’m pretty scared this could shake my career path and relationships with others. But I just can’t carry on with it, she’s due to work with me this week on a few tasks and I’m absolutely dreading it. I’m unsure if she’s just got a very small amount of people skills so she doesn’t know how to address people but I do feel this is more personal to me. Since I’ve been in my role, I’ve received a lot of good feedback from the directors above and I’m starting to feel she doesn’t like this and the way she deals with that is to hold me back.

Any thoughts on what I should do would be great?

Thank you

[HelpingElbow]

Hi

It's quite evident that your line manager lacks empathy. I guess, the world has always been deprived of compassionate leadership.

Cases like yours happen when managers start considering themselves as everyone's boss. That's exactly the difference between a boss and a leader. It's not surprising that the appraisal scenarios are full of politics. It happens at every workplace, please get that.

And yes, I agree with you that our anxiousness is densely concentrated around our job and the work we do. Our basic necessities of life are fulfilled by our work, you know...

Now if you're asking for a solution, I would say there'll always be a tradeoff. You see, if you fight the waves, you might get into unpleasant situations, e.g. a verbal fight or an escalation. There's no right way of fighting this, especially when our hearts are feebled by anxiety. However, we must stand by whatever we feel is ethically correct. You cannot backoff.

You won't believe, but the last time I fought the tide, I pissed off the senior management pretty badly. There's too much office politics that comes into the picture and you'll realize this some day. It's already started I guess, courtesy: your last line...that you already have a good rapport with the directors and your line manager displays some kind of resistance.

BTW, I left my previous job due to this exact same reason. However, I know that this is not a fair advice. You never know what soup you might land in.

Over the years, I have developed this mentality to be content with the salary. The workplace issues will remain the same, everywhere.

Assuming that we both are holding a glass of our favourite beverage, I would say cheers...long live office politics😈

[Flower_2501 in reply to HelpingElbow]

Thank you for replying and putting so much effort into your thoughts about it. I really appreciate it. X