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Should I wait for the new supervisor to arrive or implement changes now?
I have been managing two teams for approximately 5 weeks. One team will have a supervisor that will report to me and lead 10 directs. This person will be hired within 6-8 weeks. To date, I have been been only observing and have fought off the temptation to implement some changes I think will help. I have a "lead" who has gone unchecked for sometime and will be difficult for anyone to supervise. I have a hunch that other team members would welcome some input from me, but wont say so. I believe they fear this woman, not respect her. Although I don't look forward to dealing with her, I am committed to seeing this through. Thinking about the timing, I want to strike the right balance between letting the new supervisor address this issue and not letting the team down.
Also, the other team I manage is losing an employee to retirement. He is a senior staff and has given a short notice. This will require copious amount of my attention over the next several months. Thoughts?
Enough time?
As you can see from my DISC profile, I am a shoot first, ask questions later type of guy. I do not like to leave problems for others to solve. That said, 5 weeks is not very long.
If you aren't doing O3's with this group, it's really hard to figure out the real issue and the best way to address it. I would need to know some more details around what you mean by "unchecked". You can't be giving feedback yet based on the trinity roll out schedule, so how have you addressed the behavior of this lead?
Dax Middlebrooks
DISC: 7611
Hey Dax- I'm not yet doing
Hey Dax-
I'm not yet doing O3's and I'm not sure I will because of the pending arrival of the supervisor. I have not addressed the behavior yet. What I meant by unchecked includes; no one has checked her productivity, challenged her hostile, and at times, passive aggressive behavior, her automatic "excellent" on performance appraisals when there is evidence that lead to something other than excellent. I have not given feedback, but feel I will have to do that soon. Her interactions with me are dismissive and a bit condescending. I have purchased the trinity , but have been only observing her behavior and getting to know the other employees. My DISC is 7422, so holding back on giving her feedback does not feel natural to me. In fact , prior to 5 weeks ago, I never would think of holding back on something/someone like this. I have noticed one benefit, "going slow to go faster' appears to have disempowered her to some extent. I realize that I don't know exactly what the real issues are, but I'm optimistic using MT will help.
Thanks
Don't wait
Why wait to address the "lead''s behavior? Won't that just make it harder for the new supervisor to address the behavior? By starting to address the issue now, you can bring the supervisor up to date when they arrive, and show the "lead" that you expect the behavior to change. While waiting for the proper rollout of the trinity is important, severe behavior that potentially tears down the team should not wait to be addressed.
Thanks
I just returned from vacation, so I was off line for a week. I agree with your comments and will have discussions with this person as I move forward. I was reluctant to address this behavior because I wanted to stay true to the trinity model.
Thanks again, Chris