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Seeking Advice – Leadership right now is an abject disaster & asked for feedback

Earlier this year a leader in my organization (my boss's boss, although we all worked together) retired. He has already extended his retirement date 2 or 3 times because management couldn't get its sh*t together. But he finally retired, although it was a huge loss, I'm so happy for him – he was a rarity in leadership in that he was both highly skilled in his job and a really caring, empathetic manager who'd stand up to leadership when he disagreed with them about the direction of the company. That loss created a whole new wave of nonstop instability since. The hiring process for his role was a mess and they didn't really have a good group of applicants externally, and the internal applicants weren't considered despite being there for a decade and already being in leadership roles. The department is also new – it's the merging of two different…


Earlier this year a leader in my organization (my boss's boss, although we all worked together) retired. He has already extended his retirement date 2 or 3 times because management couldn't get its sh*t together. But he finally retired, although it was a huge loss, I'm so happy for him – he was a rarity in leadership in that he was both highly skilled in his job and a really caring, empathetic manager who'd stand up to leadership when he disagreed with them about the direction of the company.

That loss created a whole new wave of nonstop instability since. The hiring process for his role was a mess and they didn't really have a good group of applicants externally, and the internal applicants weren't considered despite being there for a decade and already being in leadership roles. The department is also new – it's the merging of two different departments into one, and this new manager would be the VP of it.

The new manager is an abject disaster. She has no experience in the work we do, although she does have government agency experience in an adjacent field. She fired someone her first few weeks there, and now my boss, who i really liked and seeing now that she protected me from the workplace BS, left which made that 'regime change vacuum' even stronger. This new person is late to meetings (if they don't cancel them first), is unprepared, micromanages on dumb things but can't be found on the big issues. My company is a member services organization and she is not meeting that need.

No one other than senior leadership has had a good experience with her and people are jumping ship (I'm waiting to hear back after an interview and I'm going nuts). The tension in the office is palpable. I'm depressed af because I feel like I'm going to get in trouble since i don't have any work to do and the stuff i do propose keeps getting rejected. We have one major revenue-making project annually (the revenue just goes back into the budget, we're a nonprofit), and the new person is questioning whether or not we'll do it next year.

All that being said, a member of senior leadership a few weeks ago sat me down and asked me how I'm doing. I refuse to fall into that trap so I said “you know, I'm a bit change averse so going to be a little stressful, but that's just how it's going to be for a bit and that's okay. ” I think that's a very diplomatic response. They told this new manager that I said this and the manager confronted me about it. So I know that this person isn't an ally. I didn't think he was because he's senior management, but that confirmed it. Then this morning I sent something to the leadership unrelated to any of this and he responded by asking how I was doing and asked for feedback.

I don't want to fall into a trap and end up getting double crossed again – especially because I have (many) actual grievances. But I also worry that if I don't say something, it will come back to bite me later for not saying anything sooner/not voicing concerns (I can imagine them saying 'well we had no idea bc you didn't say anything' or 'you said you were doing well” etc). Any insight/advice would be great.

I try very hard to be pleasant at work. Not just because of office norms, but I find for me that my misery can be contagious and then start to occupy the rest of my life. So I'm trying to keep it hidden but i know that I let things slip which ik is also really bad. My anxiety/hypervigillance has gotten so bad that i find myself shaking and when even a work buddy came up to talk to me my whole body flinched in momentary anxiety.

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