Negative Energy in the Office
Elaine Varelas offers advice on what to do when coworkers are constantly complaining about the boss.
Q: I’m in an uncomfortable position at work. Some coworkers regularly complain about our manager and try to involve me in their griping—I have a good relationship with our manager and don’t think he’s that bad to work for. Should I stand up for him? Tell him what they’re saying? Or should I just go along with it? I don’t want our working relationship to become tense.A:
Coworkers experience different relationships with managers. It’s the norm that people complain about their manager, in large or small ways, for all sorts of reasons—valid or not. Don’t be sucked in. While your manager might appreciate if you stood up for him, that may not be easy for you with your colleagues. There’s also no need to involve your manager or tell him what the team is saying. Your goal can be to not let negative conversation affect the work environment for you or your coworkers and to develop a better communication relationship as a team.
In the moment of these gripe sessions, what can you do to redirect the conversation? Suggest a different approach the coworker might take with the manager when they don’t get what they want or need. Give your coworkers ideas of ways to help them deal with your manager more effectively. Stating your support for your manager and your belief that his actions were appropriate may not make you the most popular among your coworkers, but people will respect your balanced view . You seem to have found ways to work cooperatively with your boss—share what you know with your colleagues to help the situation.
What do your coworkers want? Do they just want to complain or is there something they’d actually like to see change? If they want a different outcome or different behavior, then trying to make that happen should be the main focus—not just complaining. Because you have a good working relationship with your manager, you can help bring about the change that your annoyed coworkers want, as long as you agree with it. Perhaps you all think it would help to have more communication early in a project or that the outcomes of meetings should be shared with the team. Make sure your suggestions address something that impacts the team in a negative way and that’s within your manager’s purview to change. You can then bring this to your manager—alone or as a group—to tell him you’ve given the issue a lot of consideration and have some thoughts on how to improve it for everyone. Focus on proactively improving the situation. Griping can be good for occasional venting, but it serves no purpose in the long run. To move toward resolution, your coworkers need to be able to identify what the issue is and what a satisfactory change would look like to them.
It is time well spent to get together and brainstorm solutions to problems together, but emailing or texting negative conversation is not a productive use of your time or a wise professional move. You never know who is going to see it, and not being in control of what you’ve said is not smart for anybody.
This is an integrity issue at its core—it’s about what you really believe. If you truly believe your boss is a bad manager, then go along with your coworkers’ griping or don’t say anything at all. But if you believe he is trying his best, doing what he can for his employees, and treating everyone fairly, then you should feel comfortable saying so and helping your colleagues adjust their view.
