Dear manager, here are 12 things we hold back from telling you

Jhana’s research team surveyed 200 direct reports and asked them what they wished their managers knew. Here are some of the most common and important responses, in letter-form.

Dear Manager,

It’s us, your direct reports. We care a lot about you, but we need to talk. We know you’re busy. We know you’re doing your best. And we appreciate you, we really do.

But we wish you knew a few things about us. They’re too awkward or sensitive to bring up in person, even if you hold regular 1-on-1s and tell us you’re open to feedback, so we’re writing you this letter instead.

Here are 12 things we’d like you to know but are too afraid to tell you:

1. Stop assuming we all share your political views — we don’t.
2. Someone isn’t doing their job. Do you have a clue? Are you going to do anything about it?
3. Whatever’s on your mind after hours, if it’s not an emergency, it can wait until the next day. Just because you think of an idea in the off-hours, doesn’t mean you have to start a dialogue at that time too.
4. We wish you honestly cared when you ask, “How are you?” It would make us feel less like work-producing robots.
5. Your meetings are forced and inefficient. We go over the same things over and over again, and it just ends up being fruitless.
6. It’s not worth sharing our thoughts and feedback anymore. You don’t listen and you get angry or defensive.
7. Your stress rubs off on us. It just makes everything worse for everyone. We all dread it.
8. You’re being unfair by not giving us a raise. You gave my co-worker a raise, but we deserve it more because we pull more of the load. Our workload is increasing every day but our salaries are not.
9. We hear you gossip — and you sound unprofessional.
10. Stop interrupting us with your dumb stories. You insist on having the attention of anyone within earshot, whether they’re busy, or not, in order to tell your stories over and over.
11. You don’t really understand what we do all day. If you did the job like we do, then you wouldn’t be making nonsense demands. You have been a manager so long you are out of touch.
12. You’re way too hard to get ahold of. When we want a meeting, we wish you would set a date and time and keep to it.

Please don’t get defensive (see #6) or stress out about it (see #7). We’re telling you because we care, and we want to help you be a better manager…for all our sakes.

Love,

Your Direct Reports

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