My Manager Thinks I'm Holding Her Hostage

While these behaviors are different and can manifest in various people, they are shared behaviors and easy to slip into. In fact, many of us have personality traits that lend themselves to these behaviors. In many cases, we just ignore the behavior and don't confront it directly. We may resort to some of these behaviors to try to change behavior in others, but it doesn't work. In fact, it usually backfires. For example, a manager may feel that he is being held hostage by prima donna programmer behavior and resort to micromanaging. Instead of gaining control, the manager may find the prima donna just bypasses and undermines him. In other cases, this behavior is less deliberate.

Ignoring poor behavior is a type of enabling-the more we let the behavior go without confronting it directly, the more we allow it to continue. It feels easier either to ignore the problem behavior or to try to deal with it indirectly.

It can be intimidating to confront this kind of behavior, but try the following:

• Talk to your manager directly.
• Ask HR for advice.
• Talk to your manager and HR together.
• Have a facilitator help your group.

Do not:

• Talk to other employees about your manager's behavior.
• Subvert or undermine your manager.
• Engage in the same kind of behavior to try to change their behavior.