I need some tips on how to tactfully deal with an issue at work.
I have a colleague (let’s call her Ann) who is a nice person. She’s a team lead and for the most part, handles her duties well. However, she occasionally causes conflict by engaging in behaviors that her team members perceive as controlling and hyper critical, and they resent it. I’ve also heard it said that she will stubbornly challenge people on things based on flawed reasoning. Even though I’ve had my own history of disagreements with her (sometimes my work involves her team), these disagreements didn’t damage our professional relationship or cause me to seriously question her competency.
But a recent experience is causing me to see the validity in her team member’s complaints, and I’m wondering what the appropriate response should be. In a few months I will be acting as her boss and I’m trying to get a feel for how a good manager would address it.
So I’ve just finished some analysis that I’ve been working on for the past few months and I sent her the results to review. Most of her feedback was fine, but on one point she expressed concern because a particular value was expressed as a rate rather than a percent. Apparently she’s under the false impression that rates always have to be based on time (like a speed rate is). At this point, I don’t think it will be difficult for me to explain to her why this wrong, but it bothers me that someone at her level, who is supposed to have some credibility, would correct someone else (me) on such a matter and be so off the mark. It indicates to me that not only does she have gaps in her knowledge, but she’s unable to see these gaps.
If you were her boss and you discovered she had this pattern, would you give her feedback about it? If so, how would you go about it without causing offense? I don’t think Ann is stupid at all, but I do think she is overly confident in her knowledge.