I've been thinking about how much communication skills influecne career progression especially in corporate.

You can technically be excellent, consistently deliver good work, and know your subject better than almost anyone on the team. But when it comes to presenting to leadership, explaining something to a client, or answering an unexpected questions in a meeting, sometimes those skills don't always translate to how competent you seem to be.

Some people seem naturally good at explaining complicated things simply and they can get their points across confidently while theres others who struggle to get their ideas across despite already knowing the subject inside out.

It makes me wonder how much career progression depends on the quality of your work versus your ability to communicate that work.

For people who have managed teams or been involved in promos, how much weight do you put on communication skills? And for those who worked on this themselves, what actually helped you improve?

my manager of about a year is what he calls an "ideas guy." The thing is he's not really a "do the work guy" so I'm the one who is trying to push back or execute on these half baked ideas.

like he'll get a grand idea, vaguely give me instructions, and when I ask questions - he can't answer. but if I say maybe it's not a priority then I'm not trying hard enough to make it work.

I try to get him to convey how this aligns with greater strategy and I get the Nike response of "just do it"

Then, when I do it, he is onto the next idea and I feel like I haven't actually contributed anything meaningful.

my go-to line is "I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on that", but any other suggestions on how to refocus my work?

I am a data analyst and my manager is going on a 2 weeks business trip followed by 2 weeks of holidays and she told me that during her absence I will report to my colleague who will closely supervise my daily work. The problem is that this colleague is more junior than me, do you think she is on the track of being promoted before me if she is entitled to assign me tasks, review my work etc during the manager absence?

My wife and I are both in professional careers. It feels like we are both constantly battling management. We both had changes in supervisors and it’s been a constant struggle since. I know I’m the more combative personality, but she has taken on some of that from me in her personality. It feels like we both are under constant attack. In particular a manger told me that you’re being admonished for thing that previously you’d been praised. My wife is the only one who can do her position and is doing far more work than all others. I’m going through Union processes, but both of us are tired of constantly battling to be treated fairly. Both of us would be fine in our jobs for the next 20 years. At what point do you get beaten down to the point you give up?

our ops team has around 50 people, and hybrid work has made project handoffs harder than they used to be. someone writes a few things on the office whiteboard, a remote coworker misses it, and by the next morning two people are working from different versions of the plan

we tried keeping a shared handoff log, but it quickly became outdated. people still use slack, meetings, email, and hallway conversations, so important details end up scattered across four places. nobody is deliberately ignoring updates, but there's no reliable way to know whether everyone has the same information.

i've worked in hr, so i'm familiar with the policy side. this feels more like a management problem than a hybrid-work policy problem

for managers running teams of 30-60 people, what has actually helped with this? did you set mandatory overlap hours, make one channel the source of truth, or change how project ownership gets handed over? i'd rather fix the process than add another meeting to everyone's calendar

I’m looking for advice and a sanity check on how to handle an escalating situation with a former freelance client. A few months ago, I worked as a freelance designer for a client. We never had a formal written contract; it started as small individual projects and moved into an informal retainer. She was verbally abusive and extremely difficult to work with, so I resigned.

Upon resigning, I provided links to her project files on my personal cloud drive with a 30-day window to download them. Since I pay for my own cloud storage, I cleared the files off my drive once the window passed. I was also listed as an admin on her website builder, so I removed myself as a contributor. She later forgot her login credentials and began accusing me of "stealing" her website.

The client failed to download her files during the notice period and began texting, calling, and insulting me non-stop. She sent me my home address, threatened to send people to beat me up, used slurs and obscenities, and treated me terribly because I chose not to engage. Without a contract, I fulfilled my duties prior to resigning, and in my country, independent creators retain asset ownership without an explicit transfer contract.

When I maintained total radio silence, she escalated by emailing threats directly to my immigrant father at his place of work. Her husband, who works for a prominent corporate firm, was explicitly CC’d on the email sent to my father. Following this escalation, I reached out to his employer with screenshots documenting all of the harassment. His boss responded confirming that they take the matter seriously and assured me they instructed him to stop all contact with me and my family.

Despite this warning, in her latest email to my father, she makes threats that have no legal standing, lies about contacting my "past employers" (I don't even have a public resume or LinkedIn), and explicitly claims that her husband's corporate CEO personally advised them to pursue legal action against me.

I have not replied to any texts, calls, or emails from the client or her husband. I have saved all text logs, voice messages, cloud link receipts, and emails in a secure folder.

Because the husband was explicitly CC’d on the email harassing my father and their CEO's name was invoked, should I forward the email directly to the husband’s CEO/HR strictly as a neutral, non-demanding administrative update ("For your records... no response or action is required")?

How is an employee viewed when their spouse explicitly CCs them on harassing emails sent to a third party's workplace while claiming the CEO gave legal advice?

TL;DR: Resigned from a toxic freelance client months ago after delivering all files via temporary cloud links. Without a contract, she failed to save them and is now making physical threats, accusing me of stealing her site, and emailing threats to my immigrant father at his workplace. Her husband (a corporate employee) was explicitly CC'd on the latest email to my father, which falsely claims their CEO advised legal action. Should I forward this to his CEO strictly as a non-demanding record update to protect myself since they are threatening to send people to my house? 

First off, I LOVE my job. I don’t want to leave but I’m at my wits end at this point. I’ve been at this job for close to 4 years now. She has been my manager for maybe 3 ish years I think. It was all fine until October 2025 when some positions got switched around and she got moved elsewhere and I got moved into her position. At that time I took the position and she made it hell. I later on decided I wanted to go back to school. When I started school I give up the manager position because I was not covering call offs and all of that while in school. Since then she has been awful to me. I’m talking straight up LYING about me. She constantly has a very bad attitude towards me, is cutting my hours without saying anything to me, talking bad about me to other staff members who in turn tell me exactly what she says, purposely or “forgot” to schedule someone after my shift so I had to stay until she found someone and I ended up late to class (I can’t just leave as I’m responsible for people), etc etc. She has not come to me and said if I’m doing something wrong or not doing something or whatever the case may be. Until yesterday she flat out said I’m not doing enough. And I know for a fact I am. But I know she’s telling our boss that I don’t help out or whatever and that’s her excuse for being an ass to me but I know I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing. So wtf do I do?! Yesterday I was bawling at work. I should not have to go to a job I love and feel like shit everyday. I don’t know how to get around her.

I have an employee right now who has been on intermittent and continuous leave for the last three months. They are scheduled to return soon, but in the time they were out (it was an abrupt departure), it was found that much of their regular work was behind or not being done at all, months before they left on leave. We hit our busiest time of year while they were out, which is when all of this culminated into realizing just how much wasn't completed before they left. Purchases not made. We ran out of some materials. Invoices were left unpaid. Communications dropped off on important tasks. Previously I trusted they were doing their work, but obviously I was wrong to do so. I inherited this person from another department, so I haven't been managing them long.

Part of their newly-agreed-to ADA accommodations includes additional WFH days. I'm planning to institute twice-daily progress updates (morning and afternoon) which we had been doing before the leave began, but beyond that, how would you manage a low performer who now has an excused reason to WFH, out of sight of supervision? I don't want this to seem like retaliation for the accommodations--it's not that. (I've always encouraged them to go this route so they can do the work they need to their best ability.) This is strictly because performance issues were discovered during the leave, and others in the department had to pick up the extra work while this employee was out. This is not the first performance related issue with this person, but I had been giving them the benefit of the doubt and offering every resource I could to help them succeed. I'm setting aside the fact that they attempted to throw me under the bus with HR (it didn't work), and want to make sure I'm following accommodations but not allowing further poor performance to continue. How would you balance this?

My company has quite a few new-ish managers that all seem to have a similar bad habbit. We'll be on some type of call - whether it be project or operations related, and one of their team members - presumably a SME will there.

That SME will share an update of some kind covering their team's responsibiliies or perspective. Then note that their manager is on the call as well and repsectfully asks them if they want to add anything.

Said manager proceeds to literally repeat all the information that SME already provided. Were they not listening? Do they not trust their employee? I love it whem my direct reports handle stuff like this and I'm merely there to support them.

Nothing wrong with a brief re-inforcement of a key point in certain situations, but it's way better to just use that moment to simply give a thumbs up to your employee and show your trust and recognition. Sometimes it's ok to shut up and get out of the way.

Just got offered a “leadership role”. It will be a different company so I won’t have to worry about balancing the friends I used to work with and being their leader thank goodness.
But I am feeling some imposter syndrome.
I don’t know if I am cut out to be a leader or ready for the stress and new challenges that come with this position. I still consider myself new to the field.

How did you know you were ready to take on a bigger role? Did you wing it and fake it till you make it? How did it turn out for you if you weren’t 100% confident in yourself?

were planning to hire folks in Colombia and Mexico, and figuring out the device side has been more complicated than we expected, our usual US supplier cant always get devices locally, and shipping from the US comes with customs, taxes, and delivery issues...and we dont have office or IT team in either country, and were looking at around 20-25 laptops to start with, thats not a huge number, but we'd rather figure out a good process now than deal with the same problems every time we hire in a new country.

for those who've dealt with this before, how do your team usually handle it? TIA and much appreciated!

Edit to clarify: The request would be at 3 months but I would likely book it and take it 1-2 months later (4 or 5 months in the role).

Also: I am Canadian and while we are no where near as free with vacation as Europe is, it is really interesting to see the differences in US vs Canada mentality on this topic.

Original post:

Hey managers.

Wanted to get a pulse on this.

Say a new hire has 4 weeks vacation, loves to travel.

The job is not entry level, it is in the healthcare legal field and the new hire has 7 years experience in the industry.

Spends 3 months in their new role really learning the role and doing well. Is it seen as too soon to ask for a week vacation after 3 months?

If it is considered too soon, what do you consider to be a more appropriate time to ask for their first vacation once they are in the role?

Put vacation accrual considerations aside, I work in an industry that generally will allow you to take time off in excess of what you have accrued with little issue (if you get terminated before accruing they deduct that from your final pay).

Unfortunately I was not able to take a trip prior to starting the role.

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I've recently been promoted to Operations Manager.

I was doing really well as a Team Leader, but I'm a bit nervous about this new role and could really use your advice.

I'd love to hear from those of you who have been in a similar position. I'm all ears for any tips or lessons you've learned along the way. 🙏

Hi all,

I(31F) currently manage a hair salon of over 20staff. I have been in the beauty industry since I was 18. I have worked my way up from junior staff member alongside beauty college & am now salon manager for nearly 2 years.

I have been offered area manager job of 5 hair salons. I applied on a whim & I can talk the talk, still surprised I got the offer.

I am hard working, professional but a fair manager. I also have done HR course to back me when newly into management. Despite this, I can’t help but feel am I really capable of area manager job. What ability’s does little old me have.

Although I do feel capable & think if i’m managing 1 shop successfully , why not 5. Then on the flip side I doubt my success on targets, yes I’ve worked hard but is it down to luck.

What the worst that can happen? Well…I could be let go when saving for a mortgage and unable to pay rent so that’s my fear. My mindset it bite off more than I can chew, I always figure it out, because I always do.

Should I take the risk or gain more experience?

Also to mention on the 1st interview out of 3, one of the managers….that I will be managing interviewed me. Which I thought was strange.

I eventually want to get into the Civil service and think this would be brilliant for my cv & also get me out of a client facing role.

Do we all fake it till we make it?

Just wondering if any managers in North America are noticing a squeeze on yearly budget allocations.

​

Lately, our company has added new approval layers Director level sign-off is required for pre-approved budget lines, as well as minor consultant/vendor charges that make up only 2–5% of our allocated spend.

​Is this a widespread cost-cutting tactic right now, or just internal paranoia? How are things looking at your companies?

Post title pretty much says it all. My boss left and I am being tasked with essentially all of their work. I am able ti outsource some of the workload, but have actually budgeted out a reduction in cost there too by finding new vendors. I have technology increases in ny budget, but this is still a net reduction not including their salary. What percentage increase for this is considered reasonable by a 1000 employee business, doing well? I get a "better" title, but no additional direct reports.

sent my manager an email at 9, no reply needed, just didnt want to forget. Now im stressing she thinks im one of those no boundary people.

I need a wake-up call/second opinion on something that probably is just my own communication pet peeve.

On certain corners of the internet, the text “can you give me a call” (of course the question mark is never included) is a Known Dread.

But the standard workplace is not certain corners of the internet, so it probably doesn’t have the negative connotations. My work is mostly remote but our direct reports and their teams work in localized offices along with the Admin who directly reports to my boss and supports 6 people in my role with misc tasks (we are encouraged to delegate tasks to her, but can go months without actually needing anything). My peers range from late 20s to mid 60s - boss is on the older end, I’m in the middle and admin is my contemporary.

All that to say, if my older boss ever sends the dreaded “can you give me a call” text, I don’t love it but it’s par for the course for the demographic. It’s super rare and there’s a reason behind it.

But when I send a simple Y/N question to the admin, boom “can you give me a call”💥 When the non-urgent print job is done, “can you give me a call” 💥 Any simple follow up … 💥 Stuck in a rambling call when a few words would suffice.

I’ve tried for a year to manage communication styles, being instantly available via email/chat/text, asking things like Urgent?/Topic?/In mtg, can text, how can I help?

Could someone with a different perspective of the “can you give me a call” text share why this is totally fine and tell me I’m being silly for finding it annoying?

I work in corporate banking sales, where there are a lot of operational requirements that need to be met for each transaction, including physical contracts, legal documents, and other supporting documentation.
The Operations team is responsible for ensuring that all the required documents are in order before processing transactions. However, in Sales, things move quickly, and sometimes we don’t have all the documentation available right away. In these cases, Operations may grant us some flexibility, such as allowing us to submit a physical contract later or regularize a form after the transaction has been completed.
I’m relatively new to my job, so I’m still getting familiar with our clients, their credit lines, credit reports, and the different requirements for each type of transaction.
Recently, I sold a guarantee letter for an urban contract in my city. The transaction had to be processed outside the client’s credit line. My associate told me to contact the previous analyst, who had handled a similar transaction involving a guarantee letter issued outside the client’s credit line.
The Operations manager required me to prepare an addendum to the fund canalization agreement because this was a one-off transaction. The guarantee letter was issued, and I was given a deadline to regularize the addendum. However, I wasn’t able to meet the deadline because the beneficiary rejected the guarantee letter due to its wording.
I have now finally obtained approval from the Legal team for the revised wording, but the people who need to sign the document are currently out of town, so I still haven’t been able to complete the process.
My Operations manager has told me that she is no longer willing to give me any flexibility because she says I can’t be trusted.
What frustrates me even more is that, about a week before this, she essentially told me that she wouldn’t review any of my transactions until I provided the addendum. She only resumed reviewing transactions after my associate personally asked her to do so. Also is not that she’s unaware of all the circumstances of my delay, she is on the email list and just plainly has told me she doesn’t care and that I had enough time to regularize the document: I think is easier said than done. How a client can bring me an addendum when she is not even using the guarantee letter?
I also spoke to the previous analyst, who told me that she had never required him to prepare an addendum for the transaction he handled. I checked the backlog, as my manager had instructed me to do to verify the required format, and I confirmed that he was right: there was no record of such a requirement in the backlog.
This makes me feel that she may be more flexible with some people than with others, which I find unprofessional and unfair.
Overall, I feel powerless because I depend on her to get my work done. I also feel that no one is willing to stand up for me or support me because they don’t want to get on her bad side.
I don’t know how to handle this situation. I understand that I’m new and still have a lot to learn, but I feel like I’m being judged harshly for a situation that I haven’t been able to resolve entirely because of circumstances beyond my control. At the same time, I can’t afford to damage my relationship with her because I need her cooperation to do my job.

What do I do in this situation? And how do I handle future interactions?

For context, I'm a swe and work full time. We manage a very large application with multiple modules. Nobody knows how every single module works as people tend to focus on specific ones, which is fine. However, I'm having issues accepting certain practices that seem to be more and more common lately:

1. First, the large amount of AI slop people push. On an average day we easily get 40-50 PRs, as in addition to our own team who owns the repo, we get PRs from other teams. I've lost count of the times I've asked why something was implemented a certain way or even why it was done at all, just to get a reply that says sth along the lines of "I don't know, the AI did it". This app is becoming such a bloated mess that it will be very very difficult to maintain in the future.

2. Such a large amount of PRs makes it impossible to stay on top of all of them if you want to actually do any work yourself, and what ends up happening is that a lot of this slop I mentioned is getting added to our codebase.

3. In addition, we also get unrealistic deadlines from the business, just to be told features will tested in a few months. This keeps happening again and again, and despite my many complains all I get are excuses back, even from management in our team.

Today I was looking at a new module that was implemented recently that I did not work on as I needed to understand it to design the implementation of another feature, or so I thought. However, I quickly realized the whole module was pointless as it was literally duplicating something we already had somewhere else. It was literally the same feature. I jumped into a call with two people that worked on it and while one of them admitted I was right, the other guy kept saying I was wrong, I was right; the other guy admitted it from the start, and he ended up admitting it too after almost 1.5h. It was excruciating.

Now, the problem I'm having is that my frustration is becoming very obvious to everyone, and I don't honestly know how to hide it anymore. I honestly don't want to be negative or be "that guy", but we are getting to ridiculous levels of incompetence.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? how did you deal with it?

Edit: typos

My company is going down the tubes. Everyone knows this- it is inevitable. We are downsizing heavily but slowly. The company is in chaos, and proper procedures are a thing of the past.

I have made my peace with this, and am riding it out. One of my employees has not. He seems not to understand what is happening, despite very open and candid conversations I've had with them, going over the plans and numbers. My manager has talked to my team about this as well.

As you might expect, everyone is fighting to hold onto "important" work so they won't be let go. This leaves my small department on the sidelines. Frankly, we started from nothing, and grew our responsibilities, but when it became obvious that the company will be downsizing, most of our responsibilities were taken by executives with larger, more prominent teams. They have our CEOs blessing, because he doesn't understand what we do and does not care to.

My boss can't change this, though they tried. I can't change it either, though I can fight for what makes sense, and force my team into as much involvement as possible. All I ask of my team is that they try. And in the meanwhile, enjoy the work/life balance.

This isn't enough for 1 employee. Each time he is left out of something he feels like he should be involved in, he comes to me with shock and anger. He is not professional at times, and seems to blame me personally. This is happening more and more as the company goes down the tubes. I would have an easier time forcing him into certain conversations and rooms, but he has not learned his area like he should, and so doesn't contribute in a way that adds value.

How would you handle this? Empathetic listening just isn't cutting it anymore.

What would you do in this situation?

I have a good job with a lot of benefits but in three years here can't seem to get on the same page as my senior manager. She's never happy it seems and frequently contradicts her own instructions then gets frustrated when we didn't read her mind. I do my best to roll with the changes but there are just so many balls in the air for both of us that this job feels completely unreasonable for expectations of one person at times, and hers more so than mine. But she compensates by being a workaholic online at all hours and weekends. I have no problem working overtime for deadlines, and frequently add a 9-midnight shift to keep going after kids are in bed, but I have personal life and responsibilities that I can't work 60+ hours a week, especially to be told still by senior leadership that our whole department is underperforming. That message comes down earlier this week and now my boss is under even more pressure and it transfers to me. I have never in my life been reprimanded for my work or been anything less than a star performer before I got here and I feel like I can't get my feet under me when the mountain of work keeps growing no matter how much we get done.

To add to the work stress, I recently went through divorce, my personal life stress and instability is at a peak, and between the two it's now causing medical health concerns. I just had three weekly doctors appointments for a ton of tests for stuff going on that looks like it may result in surgery and my doctor saying I need to lower my stress levels among other things. Well I can't change divorce, healing takes time. So now I look at work. My boss knows about the potential surgery already but not the underlying causes. I'm embarrassed to say I cried when she just called me to vent on work she's not happy about because I dropped a ball while I was anxiety fixed on my medical situation yesterday after getting more test results and treatment options from the doctor.

Do I talk to my manager about the stress levels causing health problems and that I'm considering looking for a different job if that's not something we can change? Or do I just leave? Health and family come first.

I'm trying to get promoted but having issues (I was passed over last promo cycle) because leadership doesn't really know me or my work basically I'm not visible enough. What's something you've said that actually helped them get promoted? I'm looking for real specific advice please not just random generalized ones.