Dear Madeleine, I am an EVP of sales in an organization that is growing insanely fast. I have a brand new Chief Sales Officer and my regional counterpart just quit—so I have gone from four direct reports leading 300 people to seven direct reports leading 700 people. I would have thought my number one job…
Dear Madeleine, I work on a team that provides specialized services to the sales and marketing groups in a global organization. A lot of our work is time sensitive. My teammates and I pull all-nighters and weekends on a regular basis. We are dedicated, passionate and skilled—but when we are involved in a big success,…
Dear Madeleine, Ever since the beginning of this work-from-home situation, our entire department feels like it is on hold. The reason? Our seriously old school boss is not at all comfortable with meeting via phone or web conferencing. He was always a stickler for meeting in person, and has just kind of fallen apart. I…
Dear Madeleine, I am smart, I work hard, and I am a pleaser. These qualities have made me very successful. I am now a senior manager in a fast-paced, high-pressure service business. My problem is that I have created a monster in my boss. She is so used to my pleasing perfection that she pretty…
Dear Madeleine, I have just started a job at a well regarded local firm. I have many years of office experience, but this is the largest firm I have ever worked for. My job is as an admin to a senior employee—he is not quite a VP, but that is his general level of authority.…
Dear Madeleine, I am the general manager of a hotel property. I have always received great performance reviews, have high employee retention numbers (a big issue in my business) and my teams seem to really like working with me. About nine months ago I got a new boss and she is a crazy micromanager. She…
Dear Madeleine, After years of working under a very bright, well organized manager who communicated clearly, I now have a new manager who is—well, a twit. He was a new hire who managed another department and when our old manager left they moved him into this job. It is a lateral move for him and…
Dear Madeleine, I got a new boss about six months ago and I have been watching and waiting to see how he is going to pan out. So far, so good, I think—except for one thing that is really burning my toast. Literally the first thing he did was to put a stop to all…
Dear Madeleine, I am a mid-level manager with a large team in a low-profile but significant government agency. I say significant because substantial numbers of citizens depend on us for critical services. The chaos here has been profound over the last year or so. Senior leaders keep quitting or getting fired, mandates turn on a…
Dear Madeleine, I like my boss and I think she is smart—but she is a total flake. She loses documents, she is always late, and she can’t seem to understand how our calendaring system works so she misses meetings because they aren’t on her calendar. This isn’t obvious just to us, her team; her peers…