New director awful. How are orgs so bad at picking competent leaders.

[Anonymous]

New director over about 800 people is just truly awful. Her style of management is extraordinarily micromanagy. For example, she wants to attend virtually every meeting that goes on in the office. Monday last week they send out an email at 9:50 PM stating that they needed to reschedule a morning meeting the next day for 4 PM because the director's schedule has changed. It angered a lot of people having to stay that late in the day because many of them have kids to pick up from school, etc. Having a last minute notice while not being able to plan anything was so annoying for many people. And it wasn't like it was some important meeting either, it was just a routine team meeting about 5 levels below the director level, so why is she even caring about this kind of minutiae as a director? Worst of all, the director herself was late to the meeting and didn't even call in until 4:15 PM because she was driving home!

Last Friday was also really bad. Because she is so micromanagy, she attempts to edit ALL, yes I mean ALL, of the work coming out from 800 people. We had a document due Friday last week and the team was done by the early afternoon. Yet the document simply couldn't go out until it got the 'director's approval'. What did she do? She held the entire team hostage until 6:30 PM with her edits to the document because there was zero communication for when she'd have her edits in. Everyone basically had to wait around for forever until she was done. Insane. Before she arrived documents would go out all the time without director review and everything was fine for years. There's just simply no way the director can review that volume of work while doing a good job (literally hundreds of documents per week). Yet she tries to have her hand in them all. Worst part is that there is so much information the teams review and go over that it is inhumanly possible for her to read the information the documents are being crafted about. So all she does is provide her edits and comments for documents regarding information she hasn't even read and barely understands, because she had no time to go over it in detail.

How do orgs hire people this bad without screening at this level for leadership ability. She's pissing off so many people and they're all leaving.

[Anonymous]

I don't think you have a gripe about a meeting being changed to 4PM. Boo hoo. That's part of the workday.

The micromanaging is obviously a problem. I can see a person who is new try to really jump in to try to get a sense of everything and everyone in the organization and then pull back later when they start to trust people, but trying to edit documents for hundreds of people is nuts. I can't imagine the documents would need substantive edits by the time they get to the director.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Sounds like my old boss, but there were only 8 of us. I can’t imagine.

[Anonymous]

When a new director comes in, it's a good idea to sit in all all types of meetings, meet a large, hopefully representative swathe of all the groups, to understand the culture and identify what needs to be overhauled.

It's not meant to be sustainable, OP. Soon she will stop. But right now things are in flux because she is rightly trying to get a handle on things. Maybe she's not going about it the right way... but you need to understand that a new director HAS to shake things up, just to see how everything works.

Patience. Your workplace will calm down soon enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think you have a gripe about a meeting being changed to 4PM. Boo hoo. That's part of the workday.

The micromanaging is obviously a problem. I can see a person who is new try to really jump in to try to get a sense of everything and everyone in the organization and then pull back later when they start to trust people, but trying to edit documents for hundreds of people is nuts. I can't imagine the documents would need substantive edits by the time they get to the director.

No, it is not part of the work day. Our org has flexible hours. People come in as early as 6 AM to start work so they they can finish early and take care of their families. It causes huge strain on their familial obligations if a meeting gets changed in less than 24 hours for late in the day past 4 PM so that the terrible director can attend a meeting 5 levels below her 15 minutes late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When a new director comes in, it's a good idea to sit in all all types of meetings, meet a large, hopefully representative swathe of all the groups, to understand the culture and identify what needs to be overhauled.

It's not meant to be sustainable, OP. Soon she will stop. But right now things are in flux because she is rightly trying to get a handle on things. Maybe she's not going about it the right way... but you need to understand that a new director HAS to shake things up, just to see how everything works.

Patience. Your workplace will calm down soon enough.

You'd have thought. It's been over a year now and it is just getting worse. Multiple good people have already left because she drove them nuts and out.

[Anonymous]

On the one hand the changing the meeting to 4pm is within the workday, but culturally, if you're a fed with a flexible schedule and lots of people leave at 3 or 3:30 that's pretty tone deaf. Also really disrespectful of staff to make them sit in, be late, and CALL in. If you're going to sit in on a meeting to learn, you butt needs to be in the seat or the playing field needs to be equal (everyone on Zoom, etc...).

Sounds like she is a little tone deaf and doesn't care much about balance. It might change if people right under her push back "Sorry Larla, I leave at 4pm/my staff works 7:30-3:30, we need to find another time. / Sorry Larla, your edits will be reflected tomorrow, the team is done today." But also, it might not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think you have a gripe about a meeting being changed to 4PM. Boo hoo. That's part of the workday.

The micromanaging is obviously a problem. I can see a person who is new try to really jump in to try to get a sense of everything and everyone in the organization and then pull back later when they start to trust people, but trying to edit documents for hundreds of people is nuts. I can't imagine the documents would need substantive edits by the time they get to the director.

No, it is not part of the work day. Our org has flexible hours. People come in as early as 6 AM to start work so they they can finish early and take care of their families. It causes huge strain on their familial obligations if a meeting gets changed in less than 24 hours for late in the day past 4 PM so that the terrible director can attend a meeting 5 levels below her 15 minutes late.

Yep. I would never do this in my organization. The only people who get last minute fire drills are executives and managers. It is crazy to do that to front line staff. Even crazier to review work product several layers under you. Not a good sign.

[Anonymous]

IME, very few competent people want the job. Managing well is hard and emotionally draining for most people. I have worked in organizations where there were zero internal candidates for the big jobs: everybody said no thanks. Then they bring in an outsider and it's a roll of the dice.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a terrible leader who is compensating with micromanagement. At my firm we call these people “frictional”: they create more heat than light. Re hiring, there are very few good leaders out there to start with, and HR departments only pay attention to “credentials”, which are basically worthless in predicting competence. The best hires are entry level and referrals from trusted people. The rest are a crapshoot at best. Sorry. She will unfortunately probably stay around because she will “look busy”, and things will only improve once she’s lost a ton of her team and execs wise up… or not.

[Anonymous]

I hope you find a new job soon! I am so sorry. This person reminds me of an old boss of mine who would always put her family first and would leave the staff (also with families) holding the bag. She didn't understand why everyone left after one or two years because that was all anyone could take of her.

[Anonymous]

WTF - are people really throwing a fit about a 4pm mtg!?

When do people leave the office over there or get in? Is this Club Fed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think you have a gripe about a meeting being changed to 4PM. Boo hoo. That's part of the workday.

The micromanaging is obviously a problem. I can see a person who is new try to really jump in to try to get a sense of everything and everyone in the organization and then pull back later when they start to trust people, but trying to edit documents for hundreds of people is nuts. I can't imagine the documents would need substantive edits by the time they get to the director.

No, it is not part of the work day. Our org has flexible hours. People come in as early as 6 AM to start work so they they can finish early and take care of their families. It causes huge strain on their familial obligations if a meeting gets changed in less than 24 hours for late in the day past 4 PM so that the terrible director can attend a meeting 5 levels below her 15 minutes late.

Hope y’all use time card punch ins or your ID cards time stamp your actual hours. Sounds like a $hit$how where moochers come in late and leave early, then pretend they merely shifted their 8 hour day and wolfed down lunch in 10 mins at their desk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think you have a gripe about a meeting being changed to 4PM. Boo hoo. That's part of the workday.

The micromanaging is obviously a problem. I can see a person who is new try to really jump in to try to get a sense of everything and everyone in the organization and then pull back later when they start to trust people, but trying to edit documents for hundreds of people is nuts. I can't imagine the documents would need substantive edits by the time they get to the director.

No, it is not part of the work day. Our org has flexible hours. People come in as early as 6 AM to start work so they they can finish early and take care of their families. It causes huge strain on their familial obligations if a meeting gets changed in less than 24 hours for late in the day past 4 PM so that the terrible director can attend a meeting 5 levels below her 15 minutes late.

That goodness you dont deal with any outside vendors or clients since you all can make up your own work hours. How blessed.

Hope your group is pulling in industry margins or better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WTF - are people really throwing a fit about a 4pm mtg!?

When do people leave the office over there or get in? Is this Club Fed?

Yet this manager is driving home before 4pm and the worker bees are left in the office.

That is the opposite of leadership.