Dear Evil HR Lady,
I am [the] HR business partner for a Russian team in [a] multinational world famous corporation. I support 150 employees in Russia. And this team is managed by a classical micro-manager from U.K. In this case the micro-manager thinks that he knows better from the U.K. how to get things done here in Russia. This micro-manager is the boss for our office for 7 years now. (I have joined the company 6 months ago.) If it were just micro-managing, it wouldn’t matter. Russians are very patient people. But in the last 2 months he has become almost insane. He yells at subordinates during conference calls, literally bullies local team leaders and demands that I help him to fire the employees who said “no” to him 2 years back.
The local team has very good working relationships and trust among the team members. They support the local team leader and are ready to follow him to another company. I as HR can’t let this happen – I can’t watch a micro-manager ruin the local team, which has had great performance for 15 years now under supervision of the one local team leader. And they are just great people and colleagues to work with. So I HAVE to help the team to get rid of this nasty micro-manager.
I plan to start with a team climate survey – to have evidence that local team is OK and the local team leader is doing great and is supported by his team. But what to do next? I can’t communicate the results to next level manager, because he is a C level employee for this world brand corporation. And I’m just a newly hired HR in a small office in Russia. It feels like I have just one shot – if I miss either I will be fired, or I will harm the local team.
To read the answer, click here: My micro-managing boss is now a jerk, too