michellew Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 One of my good friends also happens to be my colleague/co-leader of our dept. I love her as a friend, but as a leader she really sucks. I feel like I'm always cleaning up her messes and doing her job for her so that our dept doesn't look bad. She is also very unprofessional and can be a little "ghetto" at times. It's gotten even worse lately as we are going through some restructuring. All she is doing is complaining and talking trash to everyone about the changes that are occurring. All I want to do is accept them, move forward, and continue to do my job no matter what the circumstances. She is making us look really bad and people are basically laughing at her behind her back. I don't want to brag, but I have always had a good reputation where I work and am known for my strong worth ethic, reliability, organization, and efficiency. Being friends (we hang out a lot outside of work) and working side by side with this girl, I fear that I am going to be seen negatively as we go through these changes and my good name will be ruined. I am trying to distance myself right now, but it's hard to avoid her when we have to work on things together. Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Link to post Share on other sites
d0nnivain Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Not everybody is a good leader. Can you buy her a leadership book & anonymously leave it on her desk? Link to post Share on other sites
Author michellew Posted August 14, 2014 Author Share Posted August 14, 2014 Not everybody is a good leader. Can you buy her a leadership book & anonymously leave it on her desk? If I did that, she would think it was part of the conspiracy that she thinks is happening right now. (It's not a conspiracy. We really do need change. I'm one of few who is all for it.) I can just hear her now if I left the book on her desk... she would run around telling everyone, "oh my god! Now they (the higher ups making these changes) are trying to tell me I need to be a better leader when they are terrible leaders themselves. F*** this! I'm done." "I'm done" is one of her favorite words these days. I can't take it anymore! Either get out or shut up, get over it, and show everyone your strengths, not your ghetto side. Link to post Share on other sites
preraph Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 Let me give you a lesson I learned the hard way. Stop catching her before she falls. I'm the type of worker who prevents disasters and doesn't just think on a day-to-day basis. At my old career, I was always foreseeing how something was going to turn into a mess and I'd be the one who brought it up to the bosses first, thinking they'd appreciate that. They didn't. They saw me as a complainer instead, even though everything I predicted would happen. Some people are always dropping the ball, but if you think they really appreciate it when you pick it up for them, you are mostly wrong. In order for anything to change, you have to let your friend/supervisor make her own mistakes and leave it to her to fix them. It's the only way they learn. Just try to keep removed from the situation and let her figure it out. If she calls on you, fine, because then at least she's asking you for a favor to fix it and realizes she needs you. If you keep it all clean without her quite getting it, she doesn't appreciate you and neither does anyone else. You'll never get credit for cleaning up her messes unless you kind of force her to acknowledge she made a mess and figure out how to fix it. And if she asks you to, then you're free at that point to let other people know she asked you to fix this mess and you did it and saved the day. You get credit. As long as someone is cleaning up behind them, they will never permanently fix the issue, trust me. Link to post Share on other sites
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