Dear Madeleine, I manage a fully remote team and have one member who is wonderful—when he is able to focus on work. His contribution is valuable, he is easy to get along with, and other team members depend on his experience and wisdom. But he is always dealing with some kind of personal crisis. He…
Dear Madeleine, I am the director of ecommerce marketing for a fairly new and innovative global digital logistics company. The marketing team is huge; there are three other directors for other kinds of marketing and we are all very busy. My problem is with my boss, our CMO. She is brilliant, she does a great…
Dear Madeleine, I am a partner in a medium-sized professional services organization headquartered in a large metropolitan city. I was recently at a private social function that some employees of my company also attended. It was quite a party, and pretty much everyone had way too much to drink, including me. One employee, a person…
Dear Madeleine, I manage a team in a large company that recently went to an Unlimited PTO policy. I am glad, because tracking and trying to get people to take their PTO was a pain. So far, it has worked pretty well. The policy is that people need to request holiday time in advance, mainly…
Dear Madeleine, I am a branch manager for a regional bank. We are a small crew, and everyone reports into me. Things run smoothly for the most part. I have one team member—an older woman—who has terrible body odor. It is so off putting that I lose focus each time she comes near my desk.…
Dear Madeleine, It has recently become apparent that one of my newer direct reports is lying. In one instance, he told me a presentation was proofed and ready to go and I found out it wasn’t when I went into the document on our shared drive to make a change. In another instance, I learned…
Dear Madeleine, I run a very lean team and one of my people is a hypochondriac. Every week there is a new reason he needs to go to the doctor. Any cold that comes through he gets, and it is worse for him than for anybody else. He gets the flu every year. It is…
Dear Madeleine, I work in a professional services firm and we have an open-space concept. Almost everyone is on the phone all day or reading complicated documents. We have one assistant who supports a whole bunch of the senior people, and she sits right near me. She is an idiot, and loud to boot. Every…
Dear Madeleine, I work as a training manager in a large organization. Two years ago my boss was let go. Since then, I have been doing both her job and my old job. I like my current boss (formerly my boss’s boss) but it’s obvious that he is fine with the existing situation. I’m not—and…
Dear Madeleine, I am a senior leader in a large nonprofit. My big struggle is with one employee who seems emotionally unstable. One day she is completely reasonable and easygoing, and the next she is reactive and flying off the handle for no apparent reason. I’ve learned to expect it, but her behavior is affecting…