Should You Consult H.R. About a Conflict With Your Manager?

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Letters may be edited.Speak Up or Stay Silent?I’m really struggling with my new manager.He’s not very good at managing our tight-knit marketing team and we are all suffering.

He has instituted new practices to build transparency on team projects, but isn’t transparent about his own work or even the company’s initiatives or goals.He doesn’t involve us in important projects we’ve historically been involved with, and tries to tackle it all on his own (even though we’ve offered ourselves to be involved!).

Team morale is the worst it’s ever been and none of us feels empowered to do our jobs.To be clear, I don’t feel this manager is a bad person, but overwhelmed and insecure with his role and working with upper management.

There doesn’t seem to be an avenue to escalate the team’s frustrations.Frankly, what’s your opinion on whether H.R.

should be notified of the manager’s impact on the team’s morale and productivity? My husband says it would be career suicide.Should I just sit back and watch the team dissolve as my colleagues depart? If so, is this really what corporate America has come to?— AnonymousI can’t answer that last question, the one about corporate America, because I haven’t worked in corporate America in some time.

(I’d also want you to define what you mean by “corporate America.”) Regardless, it seems to me that your real question regards whether a human resources department — or your company’s human resources department — is a force for good, or ill? The fact that you worry that consulting H.R.about your manager’s failings (and how they’re impacting your entire team) would be “career suicide” suggests that there isn’t much trust between people or departments within your company.And that, I think, is a lot more damning, and perhaps more de...