“The best times are when Bjorn* is absent. Only then do we get a break from having to walk on eggshells all the time.”
Bjorn is what we call an abrasive manager. Whenever his predecessor Isabella* thought that her team wasn’t at the top of its game, she analysed the situation, tried to identify the causes of the problem and discussed her ideas with the team members so that they could find solutions together. But Bjorn makes threats, shouts, humiliates, mocks, makes a fuss over nothing and throws his weight around.
To try to resolve this situation, first we need to look at the origin of the problem. Bjorn is afraid that his team’s under-performance will be blamed on his own incompetence. He feels threatened and scared that he will lose the respect of his colleagues and hierarchy, and adopts a defensive attitude. Why can’t he react like Isabella used to? It’s very simple: no-one has ever shown him that there’s another way. Perhaps he came up against an abrasive manager himself at the start of his career. Perhaps he grew up in an environment where his feelings were ignored. He follows the same blueprint, because he isn’t familiar with a more constructive alternative. He’s therefore spent years managing objectives, not people... and especially not their feelings!
Do you think that Bjorn is doing this intentionally, with the aim of hurting his team? Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s more likely that he doesn’t see the damage he’s causing: shattered confidence, fear, inhibition, lack of initiative, or even members of his team moving to other teams.
How should we deal with an abrasive manager? Don’t try and fight him with the facts; he’ll waste no time in denying or underplaying them: “Don’t worry about it, my team know what I’m like. They know it’s my way of getting things done. By tomorrow they’ll have forgotten all about it!” We need to start by confronting him with his team’s feelings and emphasising that they are real: “Bjorn, maybe you didn’t mean to threaten the members of your team, but the fact is they perceived your words as a threat and they are paralysed by fear.” Next, we must make him aware of the advantages of changing his behaviour: “The fear that you instil in your team is hindering its performance. If you can identify the source, you can eliminate it and improve the team’s work.” Unfortunately, if no one manages to get him to change his ways, other measures will have to be taken because this style of management simply isn’t tolerated at CERN these days.
Out of fear, victims or witnesses of an abrasive manager rarely speak up. If you find yourself in this situation, ask for help. Remember that, as the Ombud, I can, under certain conditions, take actions that could bring about a solution that is satisfactory for all concerned.
Pierre Gildemyn
*Names have been changed
If you’d like to comment on any of my articles or suggest a topic that I could write about, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at Ombuds@cern.ch.