Ethics: My Direct Report Is Countermanding My Instructions. What Do I Do?

A reader writes: I started a new job and inherited a completely demoralized staff. A transformation was in order, and I began working through it. One director, however, apparently disagreed with some policy changes I requested, but didn’t tell me so herself.  A member of her team came to me in confusion because Julie (fake name) had told him to ignore my requests and do things the old way.

Confused myself, I sat down with Julie and asked her about the situation.  She hemmed and hawed, apologized, and then said she’d make everything clear to her staff.  I thought we were done, but the same thing happened a few weeks later, and my assistant told me Julie was still actively telling her team to ignore my directions.

Minda Zetlin responds:

What a frustrating situation! And how awful to have a team member outright lie to you. Julie has put you in a really tough spot.

As a newcomer to the organization making some big changes, you were bound to come up against resentment from some who were accustomed to doing things the old way. If things hadn’t been so dire, you could have taken some time to build relationships with longtime managers like Julie. You could have taken their input into account when you started changing things. That might have resulted in more buy-in, or maybe not. Change is never easy and there will always be some who resist it, even if the current situation isn’t working.

There are, obviously, some very big drawbacks to terminating someone who’s been in the organization for so long, especially at a time when you’re still learning your way around. But, ultimately, you can’t do your job if the people who report to you are countermanding your instructions and lying to you about it.

You should begin documenting every instance of this behavior that you learn about. And you need to let Julie know there will be consequences if she keeps this up. You might also want to start building relationships directly with her team. You could let them know there’s been some understandable confusion over the new policies and procedures and invite them to talk to you directly if they have any questions or issues. With someone actively undermining you, it’s smart to stay as informed as you can.

Update:

The reader was understandably upset, and took a few days to calm down and think things through. Then this reader began thinking about the fact that Julie and her team were also working very closely with a different department within the organization. “There was a new leader of that team, and he was looking to expand the group,” the reader explains. “I took him out to lunch, and we both realized that Julie would be perfect for a slot he wanted to fill. After further discussion, the organization’s leadership decided it would be best for Julie’s entire team to move.”

It turned out to be a great solution. Both Julie and the new group were happy with the move. And with Julie’s team now part of another department, the reader was able to hire new employees, taking some of the burden off their own overworked employees.

“She’s a person with low emotional intelligence.”

I asked the reader how they felt about Julie, in effect, being rewarded for dishonest behavior. They said it did not bother them. “She’s a person with low emotional intelligence, and if she felt she got one over on me, that’s fine,” they write. Julie had been in her job for many years, and the company’s leaders knew the real story.

In the end, after the reader had moved on to their next job, karma seems to have caught up with Julie. “I just looked her up in the directory, and she seems to have lost her director position,” the reader writes. “She’s still there, but in a manager role rather than an executive role. So, in the end, it all worked out.”

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