I find that most leaders have a tough time addressing these types of situations.

I’m a big believer in ensuring everyone in an organization has the opportunity to be successful when performing their roles. When you have a person on the team and, in your case a manager, who is alienating others, the impact is widespread. You’re likely seeing signs of this impact – a decrease in collaboration, employee dis-engagement, lower morale, lack of commitment and perhaps an increase in absenteeism or office gossip. These observable signs are an indicator of what is going on with the overall performance of an organization.

One of the best ways to handle this situation is through courageous feedback. If your intent is to have the behavior of this highly contributing manager stop, address it with firm compassion. Let the manager know that you value her contributions. And, authentically express your concerns related to her behavior, ask her what’s going on for her and be clear that you want the behavior to stop immediately. Related to those she’s already alienated, there’s some clean-up to do there, too. Depending on who the others are, I would recommend team restoration and development sessions.

I love your acknowledgement of your previous manager and that person’s influence on your being where you are today.

Helping other reach their greatest potential is primarily about four things:

1. Creating an open environment.

2. Ensuring your team understands their expectations and has the tools and resources necessary to be successful.

3. Being honest with your people about what’s possible for their future career growth & committing to helping them in their development.

4. Be a champion for your people to reach their full potential - whether it’s with your company or not.

As a leader, it’s important to pay attention to what people do well and where they can stretch further. And to ask questions like, “When do you feel most fulfilled in your job/career?” Or, “What do you see for yourself in your future?”. Finally, being totally present to your team and providing them with coaching that is in alignment with what they are good at, what they want to do, where you see gaps and where you see opportunities for them to take risks is also an important factor in the role you play.

That’s a great observation. And, I have a question for you. “Have you conducted a team assessment lately?” In other words, do you have the right people in your organization? Do they have the skills, competencies and experience to perform the work you need to them to do? Are you leveraging everyone’s strengths equally? Do you know where people’s weaknesses are showing up? And have you addressed what you are observing with the individuals on the team?

It could be that you don’t have the right talent to do the work that’s needed. Or, you could be in a situation where everyone’s strengths aren’t being leveraged.

My advice for you is to be curious with your team to see what’s actually going on. If you need tools or other ideas, please feel free to contact me.

It sounds like you’re implementing a change in the organization and that your team is resisting this change. If this is the case, you may want to think about how you’ve introduced your vision about the new growth strategy. You’ll want to assess why your team isn’t aligned to your vision. When going through this type of organizational shift, it’s critical for you to be conscious and deliberate about your change management approach so that your team can move to adoption sooner.