Dear Madeleine, I was promoted to VP of sales a few months before the pandemic hit. I feel like I have been in an industrial washing machine ever since, and am just starting to come up for air. There was a lot of training at the beginning but then our entire book of business and…
Dear Madeleine, I recently logged into a web conference meeting a few minutes early. Some of my direct reports were already on and they didn’t notice I had joined. I heard them talking about one of their colleagues who also reports to me, and I was shocked. They were talking about their political beliefs, which…
Dear Madeleine, An employee recently left. She worked for me for 18 months. She never really seemed to want to be here, never got very good at her job, and never developed relationships with anyone on the team. At best, she seemed apathetic. She rather unceremoniously gave two weeks’ notice right before the holidays and…
Dear Madeleine, I am the director of an experimental data analytics group for a global software company. I am an engineer and am good at starting things. I drew the short straw on a job that at first felt like an opportunity but now feels like a terrible mistake. To lead this group, I had…
Dear Madeleine, I am a regional director of compliance for a global services company. Covid has been a trial for everyone. Most of my people had never worked from home before and were not set up to succeed working in what are, for many, cramped and noisy conditions. On top of this, Covid has resulted…
Dear Madeleine, I have a new team member who is constantly melting down. Our whole team is under a lot of pressure, and we’ve had to put our heads down to get the work out. Everyone has been able to do this—including me—except for my new team member who needs to be talked down from…
Dear Madeleine, I run operations for a regional (UK/Europe) division of a real estate and relocation company. I have several functions reporting up to me, and right now two of them are at war. All day every day I have emails flying in from both sides, pointing fingers, blaming, asking for the other side to…
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 am the EVP of sales for a global professional services and SAS company. As you can imagine, we are reeling from the pandemic and the economic train wreck that seems to be coming at us. In the midst of this chaos, I have a long-tenured sales professional—let’s call her G—who is running…
Dear Madeleine, My team is losing it. I have eleven employees, all of whom are used to coming into the office daily with the occasional WFH day for doctor appointments, big deliveries, that kind of thing. When we all were told to WFH a few weeks ago, I thought getting everyone set up with the…