How do I help my manager with her overly abrasive style?

When we are asked as HR professionals to support Nursery Owners with this question, the first place we start is to understand the severity of the style.

There is a massive difference between someone who is Nasty! Someone who fuels a culture of fear and damages team morale and someone who has good intentions but comes across as as unemotionally intelligent.

Once we know where the manager is on that scale we can recommend approaches that the Nursery can use.

Step one will always involve a tricky conversation between the Nursery Owner and the Manager about the behaviours being demonstrated.

Giving feedback on how their style is being received by the team, will be hard to receive and hard to deliver but is essential.

Once the conversation has started, the Nursery Owner has the option to use the conversation to coach the manager on alternative styles that she can use or discuss whether training is needed in effective communication or emotional intelligence.

What you cannot allow is for the situation to continue.

Therefore we would not recommend that the Nursery Owner leaves the conversation open ended. Whilst changing someone’s abrasive style may not happen over night, depending on the severity of the behaviours some aspects may be required to stop immediately. There is always the potential when someone has been inappropriate in the workplace for this to result in disciplinary action. Upon investigation we have seen suggestions of abrasive style, identify occasions of bullying and harassment and employees have been dismissed for their misconduct.

The Nursery Owner will need to be prepared to give examples of the behaviour seen to the manager and illustrate the impact that this behaviour has had on the team. An abrasive and direct communication style can lead to anxiety, fear, low morale, higher absenteeism, higher labour turnover and low levels of stability. If team members feel criticized rather than supported they will not perform at their best.

The Owner should seek the managers perspective as she may be struggling with underperforming team members and not have the tools in her toolkit to address underperformance in a supportive way, hence the abrasive style.

If we can be of any assistance in relation to the performance of managers in your Day Nursery give us a call on 01527 909436.