Advice after a BAD awkward meeting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just met with one of the leaders of my new organization. I’m completely new to this field and bring a technical skill from a different part of the business. My predecessor was “all talk no show” and I’m very delivery oriented but don’t understand this part of the business well and I’m not the sales-type person my predecessor was - he was all vision and ideas, zero implementation. Before he left he wrote this paper telling the business that they could make loads of money by doing x, y, and z - he sent the paper to the highest leadership, above the leader I just met (her boss and others). She is responsible for the part of the business this paper is about. She was polite but clearly pissed off that MY team would do this. It was awful! When the paper was written I was new (and not officially on seat) - my predecessor wrote it and I’m clearly blamed. I tried to walk it back and apologize and minimize the damage, but clearly this isn’t working. Now it feels like I have people who don’t like me or want to work with me that don’t know me or my team or our skill. I have to work with them otherwise I’m out in the next layoff. How do I recover?!

I feel so ashamed and embarrassed over something that I had zero control over.

Why would you apologize OP? That was a mistake.

Your attitude needs to be: sorry my predecessor left this for us to deal with but how can I help make it work?

My reflex is to avoid conflict. I apologize reflexively, like Brits do, even when I know I’m not to blame. Yeah, she’s American and will likely interpret that as me taking responsibility. Now I’m embarrassed for apologizing. Geez there’s no end

Are you sure this role is for you? I think you need to get over your insecurities and generally submissive style if you want to be a good manager. Obviously your team needs to turn things around if they haven't been delivering on what they are supposed to. That requires a strong manager, not someone who is constantly apologizing and getting embarrassed over small things.

Thank you for calling it a small thing. I needed to hear that. I don’t have a sounding board. You’re probably right and I actually don’t want this role at all but I have no choice - it was up or out. I’m a global GM of a very large company. The awkward conversation was with a regional VP. I’d much rather be a low level manager or team lead, but I was the only one in the company with th background and skill set to lead this group. And my team IS high delivery - this is legacy from the transition period.

If your team is high delivery, then what's the problem? Your predecessor may have included your name, but sounds like it would be impossible to actually assign any blame to you since you weren't around for it. I can definitely see that you have imposter syndrome because you're acting with emotions and reactions instead of in a calm way. Ask for another meeting to go over the game plan for dealing with what they are so upset about. You've already got a negative against you, time to turn it around

The game plan and reset came with my next sentence after the apology. We have a path forward. I also addressed how she wants to handle situations like this in the future. It still didn’t help my embarrassment at being blamed for something I didn’t do. And ultimately I’m responsible for whatever fallout happens from that because my predecessor was laid off.

Seems like you need to work on your self esteem