Navigating Challenges
We have an extensive library of leadership and management training materials, and over the years we have learned a great deal about what works and what does not. If you have a question about managing people, leading teams, or navigating the challenges that come with being responsible for others, our experts may be able to help. Send us your question, and it may be featured here.
Supervising Stinks
Dear Management Expert,
I received a promotion about four months ago. I am now supervising people I used to work with. Truthfully, I am having a hard time. They act differently around me, they do not seem to take me seriously when I give direction, and I do not think I am very good at this. I used to like coming to work. I do not feel that way anymore.
Larry S.
Dear Larry,
What you are describing is one of the most common and least discussed difficulties in organizational life. The transition from peer to supervisor is genuinely hard, and the fact that it feels hard does not mean you are doing it wrong. It means you are paying attention.
A few things worth considering. First, the shift in how your former colleagues treat you is not personal. It is structural. Your role changed, and they are adjusting to that whether they are conscious of it or not. Give them time, and give yourself the same courtesy.
Second, being taken seriously as a supervisor is earned through behavior over time, not granted with a title. The things that build it are straightforward: follow through on what you say you will do, be consistent in how you treat people, and address problems directly rather than avoiding them. Those behaviors accumulate into credibility. There is no shortcut.
Third, find out what each person on your team is trying to accomplish and what gets in their way. A supervisor who helps people do their jobs better earns respect far more reliably than one who focuses primarily on authority. Start there.
Finally, look for a manager you respect and ask them to spend some time with you. Not a formal mentoring arrangement necessarily, just a regular conversation with someone who has been where you are. Most people who are good at this were once where you are now.
The Problem Employee
Dear Management Expert,
I have a team member who consistently misses deadlines and makes excuses for poor performance. I have spoken with her, but nothing changes. It is dragging the whole team down. What can I do?
Stephanie J.
Dear Stephanie,
The conversation you have been having has not worked. Before you have it again in the same way, change the approach.
The next conversation needs to be specific, documented, and direct about consequences. Describe the actual behaviors you have observed, the dates and situations, and the effect on the team and the work. Do not generalize. Do not soften the assessment in ways that allow her to leave the conversation uncertain about how serious the situation is. She should leave knowing exactly what is expected, by when, and what will happen if the pattern continues.
Ask whether something is getting in the way of her meeting expectations. Ask it sincerely and listen to the answer. Sometimes there is a real barrier that a manager can help remove. Sometimes there is not. Either way, you need to know.
Document the conversation. Write down what was discussed, what was agreed to, and the timeline for improvement. Keep that record current as things develop.
If the behavior does not change after a clear and documented conversation with defined expectations and stated consequences, escalate. Involve your HR function. Begin whatever formal process your organization has for performance management. A team that watches a chronic performance problem go unaddressed draws its own conclusions about what standards mean in this organization. Those conclusions are difficult to reverse.
Navigating a Difficult Boss
Dear Management Expert,
My manager micromanages everything I do. I feel like I cannot make decisions or be effective. How do I handle this?
Carlos T.
Dear Carlos,
Micromanagement almost always reflects one of two things: a manager who does not yet trust that the work will be done the way they need it done, or a manager whose default operating style is close oversight regardless of performance. Knowing which situation you are in matters, because the response is different.
If the issue is trust, the path forward is building it deliberately. Get ahead of the check-ins by providing updates before they are requested. When you complete something, tell your manager what you did and why you made the decisions you made. Over time, a manager who was checking because they were uncertain tends to check less as their confidence in your judgment grows.
If the issue is operating style, that is a harder problem. Some managers supervise closely because that is how they work, not because of anything you have or have not done. In that case, the conversation worth having is a direct one about how you work best and what kind of autonomy helps you perform. Frame it around your effectiveness, not around their behavior. Ask what would need to be true for them to feel comfortable giving you more room to operate. Then deliver it.
What tends not to work is absorbing the situation silently while your satisfaction with the job deteriorates. If direct conversation does not shift anything over a reasonable period of time, that is information about the fit between you and this manager, and it is worth factoring into your thinking about what comes next.
Managing Conflict on a Team
Dear Management Expert,
Two of my team members do not get along, and it is affecting morale. I have asked them to work it out, but the tension remains. What should I do?
Yasmin P.
Dear Yasmin,
Asking people in conflict to work it out on their own rarely produces a resolution. It produces an unresolved conflict with the additional burden of having been told to handle it themselves. The tension you are seeing is the predictable result.
Meet with each person individually before you bring them together. Ask each one, separately, what is actually happening from their perspective and what they need in order to work effectively with the other person. Listen without signaling whose account you find more credible. You are gathering information, not rendering a judgment.
After those conversations, bring them together with you present. The goal of that meeting is not to resolve the underlying disagreement about whatever started this. The goal is to establish a clear and agreed-upon standard for how they will work together professionally regardless of their personal feelings about each other. People do not have to like each other to be effective colleagues. They do have to treat each other with basic respect and meet their professional obligations to one another.
State what you expect clearly, make sure both people understand it, and follow up. If the behavior does not change after a direct and documented conversation, treat it as a performance issue and manage it accordingly. Ongoing interpersonal dysfunction that a manager has addressed directly and specifically is no longer a conflict problem. It is a conduct problem, and it should be handled as one.
Time Management Troubles
Dear Management Expert,
I am overwhelmed with tasks and cannot find time to focus on strategy. How can I manage my workload more effectively?
Andrew L.
Dear Andrew,
The most common cause of this problem is not a shortage of time. It is a shortage of decisions about what the time is for.
Start by looking honestly at how your time is currently being spent. For one week, track it in enough detail to see where it actually goes. Most managers who do this discover that a significant portion of their time is occupied by work that either should not be theirs or should not be done at all. Meetings that produce nothing, decisions that should be made by someone else, and tasks that have accumulated through habit rather than necessity tend to show up clearly in that kind of audit.
From there, make deliberate decisions about what requires your attention and what does not. Strategic work does not happen in the gaps left over after everything else is handled. It has to be protected. Put it on the calendar as a commitment, the same way you would a meeting with your own manager, and treat requests to use that time the same way you would treat a conflict with any other protected obligation.
Delegation is the other part of this. If the people on your team cannot handle work you are currently doing, that is a development problem worth addressing. If they can handle it and you are not giving it to them, that is a different problem. Either way, a manager who cannot offload appropriate work does not have enough time for the work that only they can do.
Dealing with Resistance to Change
Dear Management Expert,
Our organization recently introduced a new system, and my team is resistant to adopting it. How can I get them on board?
Priya K.
Dear Priya,
Resistance to a new system is rarely about the system. It is almost always about what the system requires people to give up, what they are uncertain about, or whether they believe the people asking them to change have actually thought through what the change asks of them.
Before you do anything else, find out which of those things is driving the resistance on your team. Have direct conversations with the people who are most reluctant. Ask them what their specific concerns are and listen to the answers without defending the decision. You may hear things that are worth surfacing to whoever owns the implementation. You may also hear things that you can address directly.
Explain the reason for the change in plain terms. Not the organizational rationale that appeared in the announcement, but the honest answer to why this system rather than the current one and what it will make better. People accept change they understand more readily than change they are expected to take on faith.
Make sure the training is adequate. Resistance often has less to do with opposition than with the anxiety of not yet knowing how to do something that used to be automatic. People who feel competent in the new system are considerably more likely to use it willingly than people who have been told to use it without being given the skills to do so.
Use the system yourself, visibly. A manager who asks the team to adopt something they are not using themselves has made a statement about how seriously the change should be taken.
Building Trust in a New Team
Dear Management Expert,
I have just taken over a team, and there is a lot of skepticism about my leadership. How can I build trust quickly?
Emma F.
Dear Emma,
The most useful thing to understand about this situation is that the skepticism is not about you. You represent a change the team did not choose, and they have no basis yet for knowing whether that change will be good or bad for them. What they are waiting to see is whether your behavior over time gives them a reason to extend trust. That is a reasonable thing to wait for.
Start by listening more than you speak. In your first weeks, your job is to understand the team, the work, and the existing dynamics, not to demonstrate your capabilities or signal the changes you intend to make. Ask people what is working, what is not, and what they need to do their jobs well. Ask and then listen to the answers without redirecting them toward your own agenda.
Follow through on every commitment you make, including small ones. Trust in a new manager is built through accumulated evidence that what you say and what you do correspond. A single broken commitment in the early weeks costs more than it would later, because there is not yet enough history to absorb it.
Be consistent. Treat people the same way from one day to the next and from one person to the next. Inconsistency in a new manager is read as unpredictability, and unpredictability makes trust difficult to extend.
Do not rush to prove yourself by announcing changes. The team will read that as indifference to what existed before you arrived. If changes are necessary, explain why before you make them, and demonstrate that you understand what you are changing and what it will ask of people.
Remote Team Challenges
Dear Management Expert,
I manage a remote team and communication feels disjointed. How can I keep everyone connected and aligned?
Noah W.
Dear Noah,
Disjointed communication on a remote team is almost always a structural problem rather than a technology problem. Adding more tools rarely solves it. Clarifying the purpose and cadence of the communication you already have usually does.
Start by identifying what your team actually needs to stay aligned. That is different from what communication is currently happening. Most remote teams need a regular rhythm of full-team contact, consistent one-on-one contact between the manager and each team member, and clear agreement about where information lives and how decisions get communicated. If any of those elements are missing or inconsistent, that is where the problem is.
Hold a standing team meeting at a frequency that makes sense for the work. Keep it focused and worth attending. A meeting that produces no decisions and no shared understanding of what people are working on and what they need from each other is not solving an alignment problem. It is occupying time that could be used for the actual work.
Hold regular one-on-ones with each team member. These are not status checks. They are conversations about how the work is going, what is getting in the way, and what the person needs from you. Those conversations, held consistently, are how remote managers stay connected to what is actually happening on the team.
Finally, make sure the team has clarity about how they should communicate with each other when you are not in the conversation. Remote teams that operate well tend to have explicit agreements about those norms. Remote teams that do not tend to produce exactly the kind of disjointed communication you are describing.
Navigating Cultural Differences
Dear Management Expert,
I lead a team with members from a range of cultural backgrounds. Misunderstandings arise from differences in communication styles. How can I address this?
Fatima H.
Dear Fatima,
The misunderstandings you are seeing are most likely not caused by cultural difference alone. They are caused by cultural difference operating in an environment where the norms have not been made explicit enough for everyone to work from the same set of expectations.
Every team has a culture, whether it has been defined deliberately or not. On a team with diverse backgrounds, the assumptions people carry about how to communicate, how to disagree, how to signal respect, and how to raise concerns are not likely to be shared automatically. Making those norms explicit is the manager’s job.
Have a direct conversation with the team about how you want people to work together. What does it look like when someone disagrees with an idea in a meeting? How should people flag a problem? When is it appropriate to go directly to a colleague versus bringing something to the manager? These are not cultural questions specifically, but answering them clearly reduces the space in which cultural misreads can occur.
Beyond that, take the differences seriously as a learning opportunity rather than a problem to manage. When a misunderstanding occurs, address it directly and specifically with the people involved. Find out what each person understood and why. The explanation will almost always be more useful than the assumption.
Educate yourself on the specific backgrounds represented on your team rather than approaching cultural difference as a general category. Broad frameworks for cultural difference are useful starting points, but the people on your team are individuals, not representatives of a cultural type, and they deserve to be treated as such.