| Allow me to disagree with you. "Soon, a few key employees begun downplaying this ability of mine" "begun searching for motives to belittle our work. Things have now gotten to a point where even my boss is refraining from defending us." What IF... Your university have a high "pedigree" but the education and your skills are really not great? It may surprise you.. But what if you are "average"? Or Worse.. You are smart but did not work/study hard? Now you have 2 options: 1. Be angry and defend yourself and your actions as you are doing and use "top notch" university as a shield. 2. Consider what I am saying and search for "real" feedback. #2 is very hard because people are so afraid to offend or loose their time discussing with someone that does not want to listen that they avoid giving feedback. My strategy at similar situation was sit with my "enemies" and say: "Ok, I can sense we are not getting along and may work is not to your standards. Can you really really give me feedback and tell me what I can get better?" Now be aware.. One of my "worst" enemy rant for 40 min. talking about how I do X, Y ... etc. Mostly were his personal agenda but in the middle of that I grasp two things. And that really help me. What I want to mean is:
When people complain our become your enemy is not about YOU but it is about HOW they PERCEIVE YOU. They don't know you are a nice guy that teaches for free in a poor kids school or that your a nice neighbour that helps your senior. They only "know" perceive you for small hours and with their glasses. So if you adjust two or three things on your "representation" you can make leaps in positivity. My Enemy perceived that I was not hard working despite I was the most hard worker. So Every Friday I went to his office and talked about what I did on week and my plan for the next. In two months I was the "best employee" working the same load. Surely I did not work more but his "perception" was that I did... You know... Humans... PS. I really want to help you in a positive way |
That being said, I don’t think this is about me being “average” or not. I don’ even think it is possible to measure how “good” people are in a global scale. People with different skillsets are good for different positions.
My main question is whether or not I am lacking a specific skill, what that skill is and how to acquire it. Or even if I should give up on managing people and going back to being an IC.
From what I understood based on your comment, sounds like you believe I should improve my communication skills. Is this the case? Do you think just communicating more with the people I am having problems with is enough?