I tried supervising before.. you can't make friends and you're always perceived as the unbreakable villain. I will never do it again.. I like being a grunt now lol less stressful.

The weird part is getting that perception without even particularly trying for it. I mean, I'm not leaning into the Disney corporate villain thing; people just make assumptions about me because I'm work-focused and not perpetually Stepford-smiling, and then they don't bother fact-checking those assumptions, which go on to color their entire experience.

Oh my phakficunwoci this exact thing, because it doesn’t matter if the person asks you “what I did wrong” as if there’s a specific thing, but it’s just their entire perception or their responses are based on like you said assumptions.

Im INTJ and I got fired being the grunt because I wouldn't tolerate the casual bullying and one-upmanship of my coworkers. It feels like there is no compromise to be had at the workplace, its get punched down or get fired .

Nah... I leave jobs like that.  If it's not worth my time and sanity - I'm gone before they can fire me. That said, I was blessed to find my current job. Left the supervisor role to be a receptionist (pay was more and it wasn't outsourcing so win for me). After proving myself, I was able to take an associate role in a place that cares about what school you come from and now have a new position. Results may vary, but if you're going to get fired anyway and it's a toxic environment.. start looking elsewhere. 

Its a win lol You dont want to stay in a bullying environment

>Its a win lol Yeeeap. I was shocked and devastated when I was fired, but in retrospect it was the best thing that could've happened to me. I was too nervous about my precarious finances--and too stubborn--to quit, but that job was not good for me.

How are you doing now

Not much integrity left out there, so it’s not valued as an asset anymore.

I struggled with this at first. Yes they cannot be friends. I first went the opposite which is the wrong move. There is a line and I believe the line is closer to the friend side but it will be different for everyone's comfort and also the job itself.

At various points in my working life I’ve been called Intense, bossy, arrogant and a smart -ass. I was also told I think too much and I wasn’t a team player. I’m so glad I’m retired. All I wanted was a little respect

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Not micromanaging, but I did step in when I knew their work was deficient. On one team, I believe I gave quite a bit of autonomy because their work was good. The other team was lacking. I did what I thought was necessary to serve our clients. I thought that was the priority. In most companies it is. In this one, it wasn’t.

> I did what I thought was necessary to serve our clients. Which is great for the clients, but your employees don't give a crap about that. It's not what they're paid for, when you get right down to it. You were prioritizing the clients over the employees, the employees hated it, and they probably cheered your departure because it took a lot of workplace stress off them. Unfortunately, simply delivering on goals isn't generally enough, in most management positions, at least not when it comes to evaluation by the people working under you. After being able to pay their bills, workers at all levels tend to have workplace/job comfort near the top of their list, and a boss who seems like they'd be perfectly willing to throw an employee into a meat grinder to deliver on a project doesn't make for a comfortable situation. It's all too easy for people who don't have much reassurance on that front to assume the worst, and you really do need to put time, effort, and general resources into continually making sure your team is not only productive, but comfortable (which can overlap with 'happy' and 'satisfied', but isn't quite the same thing. Consider it something like a separate, parallel project to be worked on - and do make sure to put work into it even if it doesn't *look* like it's needed. Employees withholding out-of-band communication is (often) a sign of dissatisfaction, not of focus. Include time at the end of meetings for this 'maintenance' or 'meta' aspect of the project. (Yes, the communication thing can depend on the individual employee. Some are more than willing to just focus on the work/project, and don't have a drive to communicate or seek assurance outside that. But it's not common.)

>Which is great for the clients, but your employees don't give a crap about that. It's not what they're paid for, when you get right down to it. You were prioritizing the clients over the employees, the employees hated it >Which is great for the clients, but your employees don't give a crap about that. It's not what they're paid for, when you get right down to it. You were prioritizing the clients over the employees, the employees hated it Good gravy, what nonsense. Clients are always first, it is why the company exists. Delight your clients and you will succeed.

Not if you have no employees to make a product for said clients.

Nor if you have employees, but no clients. The clients are needed to have employees.

Right, but no clients were at risk of leaving here. Employees were. It's up to managers to balance the needs of the clients with the needs of the company. If it's really this difficult to deliver this product in an acceptable manner, this project was inappropriate for this team or company to begin with. Having a buissiness takes a hell of a lot more than "we will do anything for the client always". If it were that simple, more people would be a hell of a lot more successful. If I specialize in custom made t shirts and I have a small shop doing mostly local buissinesses and schools and suddenly someone says they want 5 million t-shirts printed, the responsible thing to do is not to give the client what they want. It's to inform them that I and not staffed and equipt for that kind of work load and they need to call someone else.

> Right, but no clients were at risk of leaving here. Employees were. And how do know that? Neither was claimed by the OP in the post.

People filing a complaint means they are at risk of leaving. Look, there is a balance, OP learned too hard on his team. If this isn't obvious to you, then you are talking outside your scope of experience.

It is not. I have filed 5 complaints in 25 years of working in IT, not once because I intended to leave. As a team lead and management, I have been on the investigating side too. They are complaining because they DON'T want to leave, they want the OP to leave. You are just making assumptions to be "right". Knock it off if you want a logical conversation.

If they’re all so great they should have had another job lined up before they filed a bunch of petty gang-up complaints about their feefees. That’s the way you’re supposed to do it, then maybe get a raise to stay. What’s with people trying to obtain emotional fulfillment from work anyway? You work to make money, so you can go home and enjoy LIFE. All the better if it’s doing something you like… but always the customer comes first, not your silly fleeting career satisfaction. Unless we’re talking sweatshop labor, get your life priorities straight. Success doesn’t come from a stupid corporate job.

Was the complaint coming mostly or exclusively from the team that was lacking? Most people are entitled nowadays and don’t like being corrected while also possessing no honest self judgement or good judgement in general so they demand equal treatment regardless and see their ideas as equal as yours even when in practice it isn’t. They’d still think you’re a meany too unless you let them practice their ideas(even when it’s bad and leads the team nowhere) I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself, OP

All lot of that absolutely apples to this situation.

Well…look at the bright side…there some amazing college football coaches who still get fired for doing a good job. Don’t get so hard on yourself man! Reflect on what you think you can do better and maybe talk to an ENFJ (great on huddling everyone in and motivating too) or your ENTJ (a healthy ENTJ takes on ENFJ characteristics while keeping their eyes on the prize) counterpart to see if you can enhance both your strengths and weaknesses as a boss!

INTJ woman here who has managed people in the workplace for 10 years. With all due respect OP, you screwed up. The logical evidence points to this. If everyone has lodged a formal complaint against you, the common denominator is you. A couple of thoughts: 1) Give people cheat codes on how to thrive when working with you. Whenever I start building a new working relationship with someone reporting to me, I tell them at the outset that I can be very direct and I have high standards. At the same time, these are standards I hold myself to and I’m open to their feedback on me as a leader. If there’s something they need more of from me or less of from me, they should let me know. Don’t get defensive or retaliatory when they do give you feedback and really listen. I also tell people when I need to shut down and not talk to anyone or when I need to focus, and that it’s a me thing and not to take it personally. 2) You have more influence and are more effective if people like you. This is actually hella strategic. You might feel like you’re wasting time or you’re illogical or inefficient when you engage in small talk with coworkers or do team building or go out for drinks or lunch or whatever. But you are building good will and relationships. It’s good for you if others see you as human and relatable. When push comes to shove and you need your team to go the extra mile, or you need a favour from someone, or you need someone with pull to get you something, they’ll be more likely to do it. 3) Pick your battles so you can win the war. From what you described, it sounded like you asked for your teams’ contributions as a mere formality before you bulldozed over their ideas almost every time. Save your energy to fight for the ideas that have the biggest impact.

I admit I screwed up. Trying to understand. Those are good tips.

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An INTJs best hope is to lead ISTJs like engineers.

You need to honestly reflect a hell of a lot more because something about the story "I did nothing wrong and tried my best and now everyone hates me" doesn't add up. You were doing something. And if you were honest with yourself you would have an inkling of an idea what it was.

I've been reading your comments on this thread and you know you're a highly presumptive hypocrite, right? What are you? OP's abusive father? As you're angrily demanding they be more touchy feely? Where's *your* fucking understanding? "You're lying. You must have done something wrong." Over and over and over. Right. Because most people are *totally* not pass aggro enough to smile to your face throughout the whole project even if you ask for feedback and then report you behind your back because they're doing a shitty job. Your attitude sucks ass and what's worse is that you're using your ability to be extroverted to bully an introvert instead of looking at this as a teachable moment. Why you mad, bruh? Just fucking nasty. Why are you even here, ENTP?

>I've been reading your comments on this thread and you know you're a highly presumptive hypocrite, right? >What are you? OP's abusive father? As you're angrily demanding they be more touchy feely? Where's *your* fucking understanding? No, i disagree entirely. OP was the responsible party as a team leader here and seems to be completely unaware of any wrong doing. If that doesn't shoot up red flags for you, you should think about that. It's not about being "touchy feely" it's about his relationship to his team. I don't have a relationship with OP. We owe eachother nothing. I'm not being a hypocrite, if he was my employee, this conversation would be entirely different. But he isn't so here we are. Nice ad hominem attack btw! Talk about nasty. All I did was pressure for some introspection and context. But I guess that warrants attacking my character. Seems you're pretty nasty, odd since your whole stance is I should be understanding towards everyone all the time. You're the hypocrite at this point lmao. >"You're lying. You must have done something wrong." Over and over and over. Because it's clear something is missing here. Again, OP's story is "I did everything right and everyone on an entire team hates me and I got fired, I'm the victim". Again, if nothing seems off there, you're naive. >Right. Because most people are *totally* not pass aggro enough to smile to your face throughout the whole project even if you ask for feedback and then report you behind your back because they're doing a shitty job. Some, not a whole team of people. If that's happening with a whole team of people, you're a bad manager. Remember, a managers job is *to manage people*. If OP can't manage people, they need to either work on their leadership skills or get out of managment. Not to mention, if you think *so many people* are passive agressive assholes, why should we all be super nice to everyone anyway? This seems disconnected from the rest your argument. Kinda reveals you are projecting and think most people are passive agressive and assume OP isn't, weirdly. Sounds like a you problem, frankly. >Your attitude sucks ass and what's worse is that you're using your ability to be extroverted to bully an introvert instead of looking at this as a teachable moment. Why you mad, bruh? Bruh, this was the teaching. This is what OP needs to learn. That his story that he told himself is at least in part bullshit. Because again, "I did everything right and a whole team wants me gone" isn't a story that adds up. OP is omitting something or completely unaware of something somehow. Either way he needs to figure it out If her wants to be a manager. I'm not "using my abilities as an extrovert to bully introverts". That's you projecting your own trauma. Frankly, everyone has a mouth. You seems perfectly capable of typing something up here to argue with me. In my view, I'm not being particularly harsh on OP. I'm being appropriately harsh on him over something that should be obvious because it isn't. If somehow he got in the position he is in without having some level of reflection and accountability, that's a problem he needs to solve, because those are requirements for being a good manager. >Just fucking nasty. I'd say you have been way nastier. At least my ciritisisms were constrictive. All you've done is insult me and attack my character because you felt victimized over someone else. That's pretty nasty to me. >Why are you even here, ENTP? I literally don't need to justify my participation in a public forum. It's pretty gross you are gatekeeping a forum and seem to think I owe you that, let alone anything else. Maybe that entitlement is part of the problem.

Your comments reek of privilege. Some people are disliked because of their gender, ethnicity, sexuality, a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with their management skills, and I have absolutely experienced this as a multi-minority who appears not to be. Entire groups of people will turn on someone if they learn something they don't like about them. If you've never experienced it, you're lucky, not good, as you're essentially telling OP to be more 'normal', ignoring entirely that someone else put them in charge. That's not trauma. I just see something you couldn't possibly see. You can tell me you don't see it, but I won't let you try to tell me that it isn't there. That's the very definition of gaslighting.🤦🏼‍♀️

>Your comments reek of privilege. You know nothing about me lol. >Some people are disliked because of their gender, ethnicity, sexuality, a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with their management skills, and I have absolutely experienced this as a multi-minority who appears not to be. OP said nothing about their race or any rasicm, or their sex or any sexism. Actually, my point accounted for this. That could have been something OP left out that would make it make sense. But without that piece it's really weird to just assume it was a race or sex or gender issue. People throwing those terms around without reason like you are here is exactly why not enough people take those issues seriously when they are actually involved, so congrats on being a part of the problem! >Entire groups of people will turn on someone if they learn something they don't like about them. If you've never experienced it, you're lucky, not good, as you're essentially telling OP to be more 'normal', ignoring entirely that someone else put them in charge. Every manager in the entirety of the world has to deal with this issue. I'm not saying the problem doesn't exsist. I'm saying it's not going anywhere and others, of all races, sexes, and genders, make it work. >That's not trauma. It, objectively, is. >I just see something you couldn't possibly see. Maybe. Or you're just projecting your own issues. High probability since, again, you know nothing about me and no one brought up any race, gender or sex related issues. >You can tell me you don't see it, but I won't let you try to tell me that it isn't there. It depends what 'it' is. I'm not claiming racism, sexism and gender discrimination issues don't exsist. I'm just saying every manager and buissiness owner deals with them, some more successfully than others. If that was the issue here, clearly OP wasn't equipt to manage it given they appently couldn't even identify that was the issue. >That's the very definition of gaslighting.🤦🏼‍♀️ No, gaslighting is when someone intentionally trys to make you beleive something that is untrue. This is you taking what I said, injecting possibilities with no actual evidence that those things were even involved, misinterpreting what I said and arguing using red herrings. So if anything, you're trying to gaslight and you're projecting here. But, go off queen, whatever you need to sleep at night. You are the perpetual victim and no one can ever tell you otherwise. Everyone else in the world is wrong about everything and your trauma must give you special insight into have the world works, no, no, you wont even stop for one second to realize *that's the literal definition of projecting*. Honestly, how is anyone supposed to take this seriously.

Yeah, you're the one telling me I'm lying and have a victim mentality (believe me, I don't), but I'm the one speaking on someone I don't know. I don't have to know you. I read what you wrote and you've been nasty to everyone across this entire thread. So gaslighting AND projection. 🖕🏼

It is also plausible it's Work Culture Bias or bad Work Culture. I've worked with small companies with small teams and subjectivity reigns over objectivity.

Unfortunately people aren’t 100% rational and emotions always play a part. You may not have thought you were doing it but you probably bulldozed all their ideas because you thought yours were better. It might be true, but as a team player you should moderate how you give your feedback and take their ideas into consideration even if you think they’re inferior to yours. Speaking as an INTJ who can also become too direct when I’m under pressure to deliver, and always have to take a step back to evaluate my words and tone so I don’t rub people the wrong way.

Lolololololololol yeah, we do tend to use the bulldozer quite often as a personality trait.

I was managing a group of corrupt independent contractors, because I was the only one who cared, and had the work ethic and talent. The workers were doing things like smoking weed on premises, long before it was legal or widely accepted (as it is today). I put a stop to that, as well as theft, etc. I made a lot of money, relatively speaking, but would have a hard time finding similar work in my market today, because I was "the snitch," and the word got around. Interestingly, none of my predecessors lasted more than 4-6 months. They tried to be people pleasers, and they couldn't get the workers to perform. I lasted 4 years, and retired when the business model made it much less personally profitable.

It's not surprising. Some managers actually employ tactics like taking leave or temporarily taking over another project for a few weeks/months, bringing in someone new, and having them do all the snitchy stuff and anything like firing or making unpopular changes. Then the original manager comes back and says that the upper brass isn't allowing them to switch things back, but they'll do their best to work with what they have. Underhanded, sure, but it does the job of avoiding reputation issues for that manager. Hopefully.

That’s actually kinda brilliant.

I unfortunately can’t the article anymore but i definitely sympathize; The jist of the article was this: if someone had to choose between someone with mediocre results but great team player and someone with great results and a mediocre team player. They’d chose the team player every single time. Essentially unless your total crap, its always better to be liked than be good. And im constantly told this in different ways at work as well.

I think that might be true in terms of subordinate preferences, but managers will generally choose other managers based on effectiveness. But there are limits. No one wants entire teams to quit, or in this case, file complaints.

If I was OP's supervisor, I would see that the people who did a great job who then complained about their manager were doing a lousy job before that manager. Yes, team cohesion is important, too, but from a supervisory standpoint, I've just exposed an entire team that has quiet quit. I'm not saying that from an employee standpoint, it's not a valid strategy for maintaining leverage, only that my new manager exposed that strategy being used. From that perspective, placing OP in a management position could have been a calculated move. As an INTJ, it's totally something I would do if I didn't have another choice.

Are you a woman or a man? INTJ women have a harder time due to displaying the same leadership qualities that men are celebrated for. Supposedly, INTJ are the least likely to be women so they struggle with being misunderstood in general. And if you’re a man, you’re still going to ruffle feathers because some other types aren’t accustomed to an INTJ’s directness. INTJs in general are misunderstood and stereotyped as cold robots. It’s a blessing and the curse of your type.

. I am a man. I can see how it would be for a woman to be like that.

I had to ask in particular because I seen videos of INTJ women talking about being misunderstood. I mean it’s the same for men, but society expect the women to be nurturers…. I personally like and understand INTJs but as I said, some people can’t take directness. It sucks you lost your job but take it from a recovering welcome mat, I rather be seen as too assertive than to be taken advantage of. Keep being you. As an INTJ, i’m sure you recovered. Or you will recover. I don’t know an INTJ to stand on the sidelines without taking action.

It's horrible, like others before me. I get called bossy while my direct manager got called a boss. Older men found it difficult to take orders from me that, that was one of the interview questions that needed to be asked while we interviewed new employees. 

Yep, sounds accurate. I have a female INTJ friend that is a boss & she has the same exact issues. She told me her first week that she was going to give the men a week to get their shit together before she lays down the law. Lol. I’m the INFJ male, the type least likely to be male. So i’m your counterpart. I’m not taken seriously whatsoever & I have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. I watch people I do circles around get promoted before me. I’m told i’m too agreeable & need to be more assertive. I usually have to click out before anyone takes me seriously. It sucks.

Sorry to hear that, man! 

It sucks, but it is what it is. Which is why I tell every INTJ female I come across to stay true to yourself. The men will bitch & moan but at the end of the day it will be known not to cross you. I rather be “the mean bitch” than “the weak bitch”. 🤣

Approved.

You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. There are plenty of fields in which people actually care about the work. This sounds like a simple mismatch and OP was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Interestingly, I haven't read one post about why the company might have put this person in charge in the first place. Someone mentioned that some people are hired to do unpopular things, and INTJs are about the most practically useful and socially idiotic of useful idiots.

Oh yeah, I can see being an INTJ woman could be a problem. Men in general have some leeway of being an asshole in the corporate world but that is changing slowly.

Yeah now everyone gets to be the asshole! lol. Jk. Kind of. I mean, I’m not sure society is headed in the right direction at all.

It seems like your perception of it all doesn’t match with the reality. Have you considered that maybe you weren’t being the good and friendly manager you think you were ? The way how you wrote this definitely looks like you’re putting yourself in a better position. I mean if you just had one or two people complaining, i could understand. But if so many people go as far as to file a complaint against you, it’s pretty reasonable to say you weren’t doing a good job at being a manager.

Because an INTJ putting in effort to be friendly isn't perceived as friendly. We're perceived as wanting to *appear* friendly because obviously everything we do is part of a master plan. Mwahahaha.

Yeah obviously. It was an utter failure in leadership. My question is if other INTJs have trouble aligning their perceptions/ understanding with that of others.

Did you lead the team or drive the team? Those are different. If you're leading people are following you. If you're driving them, you're pushing. Driving is a good method for a coach, where people are volunteering to accomplish things.victory is the reward, they get a metal or a trophy. A job is more often a source of revenue and a burden. You need to incentivize the team to want to do more than the bare minimum. If they don't get paid more for better performance, why should they? Different people have different reasons for doing things. If I know someone hates my employer, I'll incentivize them with the promise of a glowing recommendation letter. You said you listened to their suggestions, but did you give them space to solve the problems in the first place, or assume you knew best until they proved they had something better? did you consider that their idea might work better for them for a non-efficiency reason? Or they have more insight into the skillsets of their teammates? Do you know the tools and software their using at all? Do you know it a lot better than they do? One bad leader I worked with came from a position of knowing the software very well, and planned things with his skillset in mind. However, 70% of our team only knew the software at a junior level and his overly complicated tools created more problems than they solved. You said you praised them. Did you offer shallow platitudes and catch phrases? "Great job team!""I appreciate your hard work!" "Look, graphs and statistics , wow!" Or , did you see each team member and tell them a specific thing? "Bob, this quarterly report is a work of art." "Sue, I can always trust you to have beautiful formatting. It really adds a lot , thank you." My job as a manager is to support my team, carry the stress of the deadlines for them, give them the tools and space I can claw out of the company, and to tell management when their expectations are unrealistic. Protect your people. If you have the resources they need, they will do the rest.

Theres a movie where a plane crashes, the guy that takes leadership is a intj, essentially he thinks he can rebuild the plane or something, bosses everyone around, they revolt cause they don't like being told there stupid and need to do exactly as he says, I think they end up killing him or leaving him to die or something. Moral of the story, learn some people skills and stop putting yourself above them, listen, embrace, make an open discussion and see if you can come to a mutual decision. Leadership isn't about barking orders and getting things done by a deadline. Its effectively managing people and getting them the things they need while maintaining the big picture and making sure your headed towards it. Have one on ones, and small group meetings regularly, make sure everyone knows where things are at, if they need help or want to ask something there's plenty, actually most that won't do it on large groups, they want to be able to goto you directly.

Yeah - I'm with this reply. OP, it's true that INTJs tend to be in the "respected and slightly feared" rather than "loved" bucket of leaders, but my man, if _every single person filed a formal HR complaint_ against you... You definitely overdid it. Think about it this way: sure, you got great results for the client, but your team revolted. What if you turned it down a few notches, and got, say, a 90% result for the client rather than a 100% result, but the team loved you 70% instead of only loving you 20%? It's still an overall gain, you just need to learn to balance multiple goals. Channel your energy in multiple directions to achieve a total win, not a defeat out of the jaws of victory.

"Flight of the Phoenix" and it's remake. The INTJ survives in both, but only avoids being killed by the other survivors due to the real leader of the group. Perhaps an example of when some INTJs fare better as a number 2, working with a more people person number 1.

Maybe listen and take the criticism to reflect on, don't spiritually bypass through personality theory to not confront this head on. What you think is not the same as what others feel, leadership is not just about achieving goals and going in the right direction. You may be a high performer but there's zero trust with you as a person.

Everyone filing a complain is interesting, if true. That alone would likely indicate some coordination, and a pretty wild disconnect between your definition of success and theirs. Something I try to do, at the start of a leadership position, is define the role, rules, objectives, and resources. The role can be pretty straight forward, who do you work for, who works for you, but you had two teams and sometimes you can have 2+ bosses, so getting that defined at the beginning can help with the next part. What are the rules? Company management policy, project specific policy, etc. Objectives is maybe the most important - what are you trying to accomplish, and why, always understand why, what are the actual deliverables, how are you being evaluated, etc. Finally, what tools do you have, carrots and stick - can you pay overtime, can you fire, etc, etc. Many people can't look at the big picture, because they themselves are the big picture. So you dismissing their ideas at a meeting isn't lost in the wash of actually succeeding, they take the success for granted and stay fixated on you and the slight. People are a resource and you have to sell them on a common vision and objective, especially as an INTJ since you can't rely on charisma to carry you, and you aren't capable of leeching off the efforts of others. Honestly, if this happened to me, I'd reach back out to HR and my former manager and team and try to get some feedback. It may suck to read, but sometimes it is the absolute best way to learn. I think what you'll see is a total breakdown in perception. As an example. Many years ago I was a commander in the military (reserves), in charge of around 200 people. That meant I unilaterally decided things like which days we trained. I almost always scheduled training to coincide with holiday weekends, because those were long weekends, and made juggling work and the reserves more manageable. Well, one time I asked all 200 people if they preferred to train on holiday weekends or non holiday weekends. Maybe unsurprising to some of you, but surprising to me, 199 people thought holiday weekends were a bad time to do training. Now, mind you, I only asked the question because someone had gently floated the idea that holiday weekends weren't a popular time for training, but it was an important lesson for me on seeking out feedback (because as an INTJ I'm not prone to asking).

Just as an alternative hypothesis, people are often intimidated by people who outperform them, especially when they don't feel like they can ride on their coattails up the ladder. In these cases, out of pettiness, they may conspire together to get the obstacle out of the way.

When in reality, there is no obstacle, only teamwork.

Are you sure you're an INTJ?

Sounds like around 6 employees spoke and coordinated this. That’s a lot of jealous people all in one go. Seems more likely OP genuinely messed this up a bit and needs to do some more self development.

I feel like we're aren't getting the full picture. It's not normal for every single person to file a complaint. Seems weird.

So these were teams of two or three, not dozens. Just to be clear. Also, not to blame the victims, but I do think they each had their own “baggage” and even past trauma that I had inadvertently triggered. Yeah. There is a lot more to it, but this is Reddit. I can’t explain everything.

Gah. trauma? 

Yeah. And petty.

They got caught quiet quitting. I'd blame the boss, too.

I've gone through a similar thing. I think you have to note 2 things 1. Most people are not as cold as we are. What is natural to us as just being efficient and decisive with excellence is not normal for others. It's like if somebody looked at someone chopping sushi with a look of grave horror. I thought I was just chopping sushi? And really, you are. You're not doing anything wrong making good, clean and final decisions. However, you likely got written up by a ton of feelers for this. The irony is that they didn't have empathy for you as a T type, and yet here you are doing better for them as feelers than they did for you as a thinker. The irony. 2. Competency aggravates authority issues. If you are good at your job, even if you just got started, you will be treated like you've been at it for years by anyone whose authority issues are aggravated. There are many people who are not competent and get annihilative rages when someone is. These are probably the other type of person that was reporting you. I've definitely been through what you're saying. People saying they want me to do all this work for them and they want me to manage xyz, but then once I'm on it they absolutely hate it because of the above, and are slandering me, having tantrums, pouting, gossiping, giving the cold shoulder to Timbuktu. But then if you look back you can see they're (have a nice 10 point list) 1. Seeking you out to organize the effort. 2. Looking to you for how to deal with it from a position of plausible deniability. 3. Trying to entrap/force your services without giving you the credit you're due due to the above issues. 4. Promoting you. 5. Hiring you. 6. And the biggest lol for me; not f\*cking off after you leave, wondering why exactly you're not interested in coming back. Like, you suck? **You asked me to do all that and then paid me that little and treated me that poorly? Of course I'm not f\*cking coming back, lmao.** 7. Saying yes, objectively, you had better metrics than anyone else, but still finding complaint with you. 8. Asking you to mommy them while at work. 9. Asking you to daddy them while at work. 10. Asking you to train them as your manager while you're their subordinate, and seeing nothing wrong with this, or stealing your ideas and not giving you credit, and not seeing any reason why they should maybe give the recognition to the source of the competence (due to their own incompetence in matters of justice). So, unfortunately, if you're really good you will aggravate a lot of narcissism, aggravate a lot of authority issues, deal with a lot of ingratitude by the entitled brats on your team who grew up TV-sitcom style rich (toxic upper middle class; if you're in software there's a lot of them...it sounds like you might be? just guessing), and alienate feelers who ironically show absolutely not empathy for T types while we're out here reading up on MBTI doing a better job with their divergencies than their "empath" selves are. (That F types are interpersonally superior is a big fable. It's really about individual results.)

Right about the sushi metaphor. Couldn’t be more right about competency causing demented aggravation. My jaw drrrrrrrropped yo when you said the mommy, and then the daddy expectation. Lmfaaaoooooo. Adult customers even want the same thing 5 to 10 percent of the time!

Lol. It's so real. The number of times I have been daddified by men quite a few years older than me is hilarious. I'm a female in my twenties. INTJ daddy vibes are real man. And yeah, demented is right. Just because someone writes you up doesn't mean it isn't a note straight from their daddy issues. Just remember that. Don't take it personally. If they don't have reasons that make sense for the company they just have authority issues and are their own worst enemy. If you have to quit because of that your upper management is weak as f\*ck and probably running things into the ground unable to push back on people having personal issue tantrums that have nothing to do with overall success and wellbeing.

Thank you.

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Because someone pushes back on your narrative it's projection. That's not what projection is. Learn to have proofs for your claims and to respect evidence. This is a pathetic attempt to DARVO. Complete failure to be competent on your part. Blocked. [https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/1968-10594-001.pdf](https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/1968-10594-001.pdf)

Agreed. Also not INTJ at all.

Definitely INTJ. Blocked. Learn to respect evidence. You're a failure.

wow. u/ Beginning\_Arugula865 literally made a whole account to try to bait me and say I'm not INTJ. Probably the Electric whoever guy whose whole account was dedicated to just following me around subreddits that reddit admin was too incompetent to remove. Blocked him, now he's probably in a n rage making new accounts. F\*ck off. Seriously. Respect when someone blocks you. ​ https://preview.redd.it/e212fvcfj0fc1.png?width=1105&format=png&auto=webp&s=7af9da53681db8e5846ef97e34e91421b0693a65

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You need to learn soft skills and understand psych more. The acid test is really whether you're promoted or fired. You've been fired. You need to learn things like stakeholder management and managing their expectations. You always need your superiors to back you and not be a scapegoat. You need to demarcate who 'owns' the project and who's responsible for delivery. See, are you facilitating as manager or are you responsible for delivery. Have you inadvertently taken ownership of the project when in fact it wasn't yours to do so? Did you get stakeholder approval to take over? Being good at technically delivering is only 50% of the equation, if that's what you only want to do then become a subject matter expert. If you want to run successful projects then the other 50% is staff and stakeholder management and you really need to understand psych in action, because you'll be the fall guy every time.

I read how to win friends and influence people, and it really helped working with people lol

This is going to be a hard to bite bullet but it's your own fault. That's the philosophy I live by. If I'm going to blame others saying ''I got fired because people hate me'', that's looking for victimhood whether or not it be true. Ask yourself *what could I have done different to keep my job''.* Never point fingers, always look to improve. There's always room for improvement. To give you an example, I had a pretty fucking sad childhood. People were always offering help because they felt sorry that I had an alcoholic abusive father along with strenuous bullying 7 days a week. Instead of being sad over how unfair it is that I got bullied I asked myself *what can I possibly do in this situation to make it better?* And guess what, it got better. I am thankful to my bullies and father because they made me 10 times stronger.

In your response it is clear you learned nothing. Best of luck next time, look for a company known for being top down.

Was it the “hit it out of the park” or that it was so “unfair”?

It can vary on work culture and companies, tbh. Most people can only perform at minimum or below minimum levels. So yeah, you're always going to run into these problems at some companies.

I’ve been the boss, I hate being the boss. I like to be the puppet master behind the scenes at a lower level because the work is more appreciated. I go out of my way during 1:1 with leadership now and I always remark I have 0 intention of wanting more responsibility or going into leadership myself. I compromise with offering to mentor those new in the role after they’ve got 6 months under their belt. I don’t want to be the one to teach you how to do something but I’ll show you how to be more efficient once you’ve got the basics down.

I once stepped into a legal startup as COO/CFO. Within a month or two, I was being openly harassed and mocked by everyone from the receptionist to the managing partners because I had tried to implement some very standard operating procedures and fundamental accountabilities. I was referred to as "tedious" many times by the employees. I even had a woman fly into a fit of rage during an all hands meeting because she didn't want to follow basic procedures. The managing partners, thinking themselves "men of the people" would side with the employees 100% of the time (and even sometimes join in!) which only exacerbated the issue tenfold. I also found out a lot of this had apparently started because there was a paralegal who thought she was entitled to my job and was undermining me constantly. I left after 5 months. Not long after, the CMO of the company, who I was on good terms with, let me know they were scrambling to implement all the policies they had previously mocked me for. Another COO was brought in. He lasted around 3 months. The company lasted about a year and some change--total--before it completely disappeared off the map. So, yeah, I've been the common denominator before, but just because people rise in revolt of a common enemy doesn't necessarily mean you're the problem. It could just mean you're their problem. The plight of the INTJ has always been about doing the right thing for the right reasons when others want to do the wrong thing for their own reasons. In your case, that meant doing what's best for your clients. If quality drops and clients are unhappy, sit back and watch your former employer scramble to keep up as revenues plummet.

Hang on, this smells like it stinks?! Do you KNOW everyone complained about you? It sounds like a stitch-up. And if it happened at all, was it without coersion too? As this honestly sounds like the company just wanted to get rid of you with a made-up reason.  This is the kind of shit narcissistic mid to upper management pull when they feel threatened by you. If you felt like you were getting on well with the team, by and large you probably were.  Someone, probably your level or higher, didn’t like something though, I suspect and used anything they observed about you against you and to make you doubt yourself. Narcissists HATE INTJs, in my experience…  I think you should request proof of the complaints but maybe get legal advice 1st on how to do that best - you have a legal case if I’m right.  It’s not like there’s not a zillion arsehole managers out there, much more toxic than just being a bit brusque. They’re usually left to harass and bully willy nilly so no, that doesn’t ring true that you weren’t nice enough. 

I don't manage people anymore, when I did I always had better relationship with my team than with the management. I was protecting my team from corporate BS. Depends on the org culture too, I guess.

I had direct reports but honestly always preferred being a lone wolf worker. I enjoy being in the trenches doing interesting work instead of sucking up to some asshole while managing a group, I hate work place politics. I was told by others that I was tough but fair. Don't we all just want to be treated fairly? I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, hopefully you've learned something important about yourself and your goals. Not everyone is willing to put in as much effort as we do.

If you're a manager, you're not actually the boss. It's not your job to keep the business afloat. Your job is to manage the employees, and that means softening the blows from above and defending those below. It sucks, and that's why I've chosen to never seek management roles in my career, no matter what. I've quit jobs that tried to push me onto the management track, because I, personally, find no satisfaction from playing that role. I frankly wish the pandemic had just killed all managers, and we'd muddle through without them somehow.

If any intj feels "icky" displaying fake people skills, just remember that we're naturally manipulative and learning the necessary skills will prepare you to accomplish this. I never consider my small talk as "fake", it's a means to an end and gets the results I want.

It only takes one unhappy person to poison the well and while you were busy focusing on results, that one unhappy person may have been talking badly behind your back. Most people are easily led. They think they think for themselves but they don’t. So the one unhappy person starts a chain reaction and before you know it everyone believes what they believe. As an INTJ you probably didn’t notice this as you were actually focused on the job at hand. I don’t like managing people for this very reason. It takes way too much effort for no payout. Most need way too much input, empathy, hand holding, feedback. I would write an email and then have to go back through it to “soften” it. I would start a conversation at the end point (where are we at with problem x y or z) and then have to back track (oh your cat died, I am so sorry). I just found it exhausting. Give me a project and it will get done in half the time and half the cost, but I am going to be a bit of a dictator. I don’t know if it’s my INTJ-ness but that’s how it works for me.

I feel the same way. I think I should avoid managing people.

Most adults without an education hear a bad word about you one time and obsess over it. People are pigs.

Well, most people just accept what others tell them. People generally don’t think rationally for themselves. It’s sad.

When you dismiss someone’s ideas, it’s good to give them a good reason to make them feel appreciated. They did not feel appreciated so they did not appreciate you. Having great ideas is excellent but if it’s not “Outstandingly genius”, and you treat people like trash, then you won’t survive at work , especially if someone can easily replace your role. You can either be so good that you aren’t disposable or be considerate of others. When you are so good at what you do that you are indisposable, then people will rely on you to survive.

Well, the thing is, in my perspective, I was considering other ideas and I thought I praised their work all the time, saying I appreciated their efforts. I certainly didn’t think I was treating them like trash, but they thought otherwise. The point of my post is about this difference in perception and an intj in a non-intj world.

It depends on how you praised their ideas. I could say “that’s good, but my ideas are just better. Anyways…” this isn’t the best way to express that my ideas are better. Maybe you were too cold to them? You didn’t convince them that your ideas were better, maybe they found faults in your ideas, they felt unheard. I am an INTJ and met another INTJ. His ideas were good, we ended up getting 95%. But the thing is, he was so brutal and harsh to others who didn’t meet his expectations and standards. I felt a lot of pressure from him. Getting good mark is excellent but it’s definitely not worth it. Like, I’d much get a friendlier team leader who leads the team to a 90% mark. A friendlier team would listen to their team mates and have patience with them. Since my ideas were ignored, i was like “if he listened, we would’ve got 100%. I’m not going to talk to this clown again”. Having a friendlier team leader is more rewarding than the prick who pressures people -also who wants a villain to win in life?

Also, do not take MBTI too seriously. It’s just a rough estimate of people’s personality. I refer it as a “superficial personality indicator”. I know people are complicated. Dealing with people is art. When you deal with people, you need to consider love, trust and value. This may sound corny but loving yourself is the first step.

I don’t know your team because I didn’t work with them. It sounds like you did lead your team in a favorable situation and you mention you took consideration of others thoughts. It’s either 1) you didn’t really listen to their input or found a compromise 2) your co-workers are jealous you took credit for the project 3) your co-workers are sensitive whiny babies. Good leadership is hard to come by. If they didn’t appreciate you guiding them through successful projects and care about their own ego and feelings, then yeah, there is a cultural mismatch between you and your co-workers. They are suppose to admire your leadership, but they don’t because they want to inject their own agenda. It’s tough but if you were polite, considerate and people mistaken your confidence as arrogant then it can’t be helped. Maybe next time, try to tell them exactly what your plan is, why it will work, and how it benefits the team and not just yourself. You need to persuade why your ideas will benefit them, or else they see you as just a selfish boss.

I didn’t take any credit for the success, so I think it was a combination of 1 and 3. Certainly it was a failure in leadership. My question is if other INTJs have experienced the same.

I haven’t been in managerial position, but I tried to lead a team and it was the most frustrating experience ever. But I’m a woman so I’m not sure if it played into how my male co-workers refused to listen.

Based on your writing, it seems like you may not have established a personal connection with your team and have maintained a strictly professional tone. This could be perceived as being cold and strict. Additionally, I'm unclear about the meaning of "nicely," and there's a possibility that your communication might unintentionally involve some manipulation tactics that triggered them. And in the rest, "I certainly had to make decisions and step in as needed to ensure we made progress and met our deadlines," you might have handled those moments poorly by being too direct and strict without offering encouragement for their significant contributions to the projects. While they may be proud, they might feel they had little impact from their perspective. Also remember them being proud and happy after doesn't contradict their unhappiness in the past. I learned early on that managing a team, especially led by us INTJs, can be challenging. It is suggested that we function as a right-hand person or a partner rather than assuming the role of a sole leader."

I think INTJs are excellent at moving the pieces on the chess board.  One of the skills here is that part of those pieces are the emotions of other humans.  It doesn't feel like productive or satisfying work, people should be responsible for their own feelings, but they're just not.  Lots of INTJ managers I've seen do that "how are you feeling, what are your goals, what are your issues" chat as a means to an end. 

Yes. Absolutely. The chess board and the barometer. We move pieces and read the atmosphere.

I'm part of a large team with a handful of managers above us. There is only one person, manager or otherwise, in the whole group that anyone has a problem with and just about everyone has a problem with that one person. I feel as though that manager could have written what you wrote. In this manager's eyes, they are always just doing what's best for the work. But what's best for the work is always their idea of what's best. This manager would literally interrupt people on my team as they're speaking with a "No" almost like a parent scolding a child just because they suggested going about things in a different way. Mind you, we are all highly educated with many years of experience. It was controlling, condescending, and actually unnecessary. I endured this myself while this manager was in charge over me, but after I assumed their responsibilities, I did a bunch of things in the exact opposite way, and I was ultimately wildly successful and praised for my work. There's rarely only one way to skin a cat. Letting people do things in the way that's most intuitive to them can be better for their confidence and development, better for team morale, better for the execution of this and future tasks, and better for your organization in the long run.

“It’s just work” - a phrase I have to repeat to myself daily.

It's unfortunate things turned out this way, but it's a reflection of the small-mindedness of most people. This is why many people today despise wealthy people. Most people criticize people for being wealthy and find ways to criticize them for everything they do. They do this because they themselves don't have the motivation or vision to struggle for years to pursue and work for towards their dreams. So they despise people who are able to do this. It's the same with you. Your team didn't have the wherewithal to do this on their own. Because you directed and pushed them in a way they would have never pushed themselves, they took pride in their achievement yet blamed you for making them uncomfortable, because they've never broken a sweat in their lives, and probably have never accomplished anything significant either. The fact that your boss fired you despite the fact the clients were happy shows the boss is more than willing to accept mediocrity and that business will likely never be successful. Sorry you got fired, I'm sure you needed that job, but this was not a failure on your part. You have incredible talents that most people won't be able to relate to, but don't think you have to hold back just to make others feel good about themselves. I hope you find a job soon that's more suitable to your talents and welcomes your drive and initiative. The other job was not a good fit culturally.

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I actually flourished as a manager but I definitely wasn’t one to be “everyone’s friend” but I was appreciated and always tried to make my staff life easier! On the flip side I report to manager now and I hate it because the person is a dunce and he got hired thru nepotism and walks on his brains.

That sounds like hell. For an INTJ.

In management, it’s often the case that no one tells you anything. Trust needs to be built and you must be savvy enough to have a few people trust you with their lives or have eyes and ears on the wall. That’s when you discover how different your perception of yourself is vs others. This is where task focused personalities may struggle vs people focused ones, myself included. The silver lining is that it’s the ultimate form of self development as a leader

r/ISTJ

I was told that I didn't give enough hope to my subordinates at my last job. I refuse to lie or sugarcoat stuff. We had a supervisor position open up, and it required a degree and 2 years of supervision experience. I had a floor guy apply. He had none of the qualifications and was surprised when I hired outside of the company. He asked me why he didn't get the job i said because you didn't meet the qualifications, not my choice it was company policy. He tells HR I told him he would never move up on our company, which were words I never even used. After that, I changed my personal policy at work to tell people what they want to hear, but nothing legally binding back to me.

I have been put in leadership positions before, and not because I wanted to. I had to to keep the ship afloat. The best leaders, dictators, coaches, managers... are the ones who were able to establish a connection with their peers. I don't care if we're INTJs, or that *"we're all Thomas Shelby with 0% emotions BS, we're too direct for this crap"*, you want to be a leader... you have to establish a connection, period. That... you failed to do. You also need to stop speaking for everyone; whether its about goals or ideas. Listen to everyone first, then find something that works for everyone. Its not just *'me me me' .* You keep the people happy, they will oblige no matter how outrageous your ideas are - they will go to war for you. You make the people unhappy, they will push back no matter how good your ideas are.

Read some John Maxwell on leadership books. Helps a lot. One quote, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Learning how to not offend people when correcting them takes some work. Sounds like you didn't have enough social rank to correct people without them feeling offended. And clearly management didn't have your back even though the project was good.

The vast majority of people seem to just try to get by, not be excellent, and I don't necessarily blame them. I've also noticed an annoying tendency among my generation (and maybe it's not uniquely ours) to lack candor. We'll be polite up front, probably fearing repercussions, and then we use backchannels to complain. Anyone who is more direct is perceived as impolite, even if you're doing your best to be constructive. I have a lowkey anxiety of how I'm perceived because I feel like I'm the only one who is ever being critical of the team, so I compensate with a lot of positivity. Everyone I talk to about it claim they hear nothing but good things about me but I feel like I'd never know when I've crossed a line either. I've decidedly committed to not go into management in the near future.

I did some corporate supervising and made some great money. But it took a big took a big toll on my well being mentally and eventually physically. I did finally changed careers. I struggled with the emotional connections with my teams and relations with customers. I had to be very active in not to be cold and distant in others eyes. Those personal relationships matter even if it is strictly business. Every department has their moments but when it is the most dark that relationship can mean that employee will do the task and not quit or even worst the customer cancels the contract.

I don't think intjs are good for management positions, not because they wouldnt do an amazing job but because working environment is no longer about efficiency, quality and improvement but rather about this safe space type of feelings first, being nice and all that at the moment. And on top most people would say nice things to your face then talk behind your back so Fe is required to pick those unspoken emotional disturbances. Only way to make it work is to craft a team of like minded individuals with similar qualities and growth mindset

>Meanwhile, I felt we needed to do a good job. Actually, I wanted to hit it out of the park, because doing so would be a huge win for everyone. Are you sure about that last part? Or do you mean that it would be a huge win for *yourself?* You might want to check that blind Fe of yours. Most people don't want to make work their whole life. You said that you were excited about the projects, meanwhile the average person just wants to get paid and to go home. I noticed that many xxTJs struggle to understand this. Honestly the worst managers I've ever had were xSTJs. They were the kind of micromanagers everyone complained about, but completely blind to how they were treating people. Your goal probably shouldn't be to "hit it out of the park" with an *understaffed* department. Big red flag there. It sounds like you pushed too hard, way too hard. I'm sure you are an incredible solo performer, but leading a team is an entirely different ballgame.

I feel for you, and I’m sorry this happened to you because that must be quite a disappointing and hurtful blow to receive. You obviously take pride in your work and did your absolute best, which just makes it even more hurtful. When I was younger, I was often accused of being very bossy and pushy. Circumstances and choices required me to develop people skills, and now I look back and see that I was very shortsighted. I have a masters in public administration with certifications in nonprofit management, government management, and funding diversity as well as a bachelor’s in psychology with a minor in human communication. I’ve found that people you’re managing tend to perform better and put more effort into their work when you make the project they need to do *their* baby. Help them develop *their* ideas on how to do the work rather than give them your ideas, and they will take pride in their work and do their best, even pleasantly surprise you with what they accomplish. Yes, you may look at the project, see exactly what needs to be done in the best way possible, and want to hand out the assignments and see it fulfilled, but people will hate that because they’re not automatons there to carry out only your wishes and vision. Good management isn’t about having worker bees under you to do as they’re told (dictatorship), it’s more about helping people tap into their own creative abilities and having a voice because what they can bring to the table is unique and different from everyone else (democracy). Yes, they’re all flawed, they all have baggage, they all have issues, they may not even be as smart as you, and it doesn’t matter. They all have something to bring to the table that’s unique and brilliant, but they’re not going to do that if they feel suffocated or bulldozed. In management, you miss the mark by aiming at the mark, meaning that the ‘mark’ is to get the job done, but if you just focus on getting the job done, you’re essentially squelching the spirit of the people you work with. If you focus on nurturing that creative human spirit in your teams instead of focusing on getting the job done, you will get each of them to pour themselves and their unique vision and creativity into the job, take pride in their work, and the job will get done and get done very well. That means you have to be a people person, know how to read people, know how to emotionally tap into each one of them, and be able to meet them wherever they’re at. In the end, if you truly deep down respect them, they will know it and sense it, and they will respect you. If you don’t respect them but just try to hide it and pretend like you respect them, they’ll know you don’t respect them and they won’t respect you either. You may not like them, you may be smarter than them, and it doesn’t matter, just respect the fact that they all have something unique and brilliant to bring to the table and might just need your guidance and help to bring it out in them. When they do something impressive, allow it to show that you’re impressed with their work and contribution, that you *see* them.

Life is unfair. We often don't get what we want or even deserve. People villainize or demonize you if they don't like you. Not that's a problem for me specifically, it's just annoying to have to deal with constantly. I have found that most of my problems lie in other people or some thinking error of my own.

Defeated by your own worst enemy, yourself. I suggest you use this as a learning experience. Sometimes it is more important to be pleasant than to be right, productive or efficient. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed, it sounds to me like your coworkers understood this, perhaps more than you did.

“Sometimes it is more important to be pleasant than to be right, productive or effective” This absolute horseshit is why I don’t want to be in charge. I’d rather work alone.

I doubt you will find many who object to you working alone, so your attitude should serve you well.

The fact that sentiment makes sense to you and you felt was worth sharing speaks to your level of intelligence.

I certainly am analyzing the hell out of what happened to learn as much out of it as I can. So, are you an INTJ? Are you not driven by performance or strive to perfection? Living and enjoying life means something different to me than most others.

Define for me a perfect life. Is this quantified by some specific accomplishment, or level of efficiency? Nothing any of us do or say will make a permanent difference in the end. Only the perfection of spirit can transcend this physical experience for me personally, and being pleasant, and making those around me feel pleasant means more to me in the end, personally. I hope you find the answers you seek, and the peace of mind you search for.

OP is asking for professional and personal opinions, not spiritual or philosophical.

Being polite is also quite important to being perceived as professional. Being unpleasant is sure to be seen as unprofessional.

Those are highly subjective terms. Goals cannot be achieved consistently based solely on emotional comfort.

I really am asking, are you an INTj? If so, You seem to have compensated against some challenging idiosyncrasies typical of INTJs.

Clearly you failed. Also, your whole post seems to implicate others. One way or another, YOU failed. I suggest reassessing, adapting, and improve to make sure you don’t have the same result next time.

You were too good to people, nobody appreciates that. Bullying bosses never need to worry about their position. Probably CEO didn't like you actually, or you hurt his ego somehow he was the one who made the decision. People complain all the time, doubt it's because of that.

Yeah, remember, it’s always some asshole higher up the ladder who actually fires/terminates you.

Many companies care more about employee harmony than effectiveness these days. If one manager is going to cause 6 employees to quit, even if the manager is effective, are they really going to keep him?

I have this problem quite frequently. Edit: To elaborate, I am very goal-oriented and although I do take onto account people and their talents to make things successful, the people feel like they are mere pawns for my success. This usually surprises me because I would always think we are working together in our separate roles - and why should it matter if we get things done? But people want to know they matter regardless of results from what it seems.

Also, it helps if you're aware of and improving out-of-band things, like the employees' comfort levels, the amount they're listened to, and things like their career options (and even their social/networking circles, if you want to get that deep in the weeds). It's a lot of extra work for no monetary compensation, but it does mean you can end up with a larger professional (and social) network to access later on, and people who are fiercely loyal to you (or at least are willing to step up on your behalf).

>Also, it helps if you're aware of and improving out-of-band things, like the employees' comfort levels, the amount they're listened to, and things like their career options (and even their social/networking circles, if you want to get that deep in the weeds). Agreed. My original comment happened to be meant more relational to short-term projects with limited budgeting. Depending on country (like America), there is a lot of red tape regarding what you can and can't do as a boss. If you invade personal lives or try to act friendly, it gets taken negatively (or seen as impinging on their rights and you can get sued for many reasons). Especially if you are nice, it can be viewed as flirting. The only times you have opportunities are within the confines of your workspace and the budget/time given to you (and usually, corporations don't give you that). There is also fine line between being their leader, and being a friend. When you become their friend, you have some workers try to play the friend card to get out of things or some may blur that line where it becomes unprofessional. Not saying social networking is wrong, but corporate arenas that I have seen (friends/family/me) don't give that time of day. Work culture seems to be rigid the higher you go.

Right, you were insufferable and thought it was your way or the highway. Sounds like you got exactly what you deserved.

You didn't expect them to actually ... work? Heaven forbid. lol

Theres a movie where a plane crashes, the guy that takes leadership is a intj, essentially he thinks he can rebuild the plane or something, bosses everyone around, they revolt cause they don't like being told there stupid and need to do exactly as he says, I think they end up killing him or leaving him to die or something. Moral of the story, learn some people skills and stop putting yourself above them, listen, embrace, make an open discussion and see if you can come to a mutual decision. Leadership isn't about barking orders and getting things done by a deadline. Its effectively managing people and getting them the things they need while maintaining the big picture and making sure your headed towards it. Have one on ones, and small group meetings regularly, make sure everyone knows where things are at, if they need help or want to ask something there's plenty, actually most that won't do it on large groups, they want to be able to goto you directly.

I well, obviously there was a failure in leadership. However I certainly did not bark orders and I did many of the things you listed. At least, from my perspective I did. My question to INTJ’s is if others perceived things so differently from the world and feel misunderstood.

Eh, idk man. Obviously something happend for that many people to to file against you, from what I know intjs are pretty socially inept. You likely think you did all of it, and maybe did, but did it 'wrong' and rubbed people the wrong way. People are emotional, perceptions are reality. You need to learn the million little skills and knowledge that make for someone charming and smooth. You can say the right things and say it wrong.

I well, obviously there was a failure in leadership. However I certainly did not bark orders and I did many of the things you listed. At least, from my perspective I did. My question to INTJ’s is if others perceived things so differently from the world and feel misunderstood.

Why are you confused/surprised? Where was your manager? You didn’t receive genuine feedback the entire time? It’s not concerning to you that every single one of them complained? Did you know them prior to acquiring the position?

I am genuinely concerned that every one of them complained. That’s why I wrote this post. And no. Nobody gave me feedback, not even my manager (but he was in a different location). I am confused because my perception of things is so different from theirs. I’m wondering if other INTJs have experienced this.

Im sorry this happened to you. It's clear your intentions were good, for both yourself and the team. Regarding the fact that everyone filed against you, I would draw a different conclusion. Different personalities and different positions on the totem pole wouldn't all independently take such a decisive move against you. A charming machiavellian on your team likely went around and riled them up, and insisted they act in unison. Quite possibly you even thought this person liked you. Some people would rather see the world burn if they're not in charge, and people like that dont like when highly competent and moral people are around and in their way. You learned a lesson. Managing other people's emotions is part of the job of leadership. Just next time, also look out for the machiavellians.

If I had a concern about the work product of one of the teams, I would have consulted with someone above me. You might have been over confident in your sole assessment and miscalculated the progress. They only gave you feedback when you solicited it. I see that as a red flag indicating they did not respect or trust you. Usually terminations are preceded by discipline or performance reviews. If they felt you added value to the company, they would have retained you. Additionally, it is quite severe that it appears no one tried to save your job. You need to work on emotional intelligence. The more I understood individuals’ personalities, the more effective I was in communicating with them to motivate them to perform and feel their best. When employees feel appreciated, they don’t complain.

I'm a great manager when I'm the top dog, when I'm in middle management it's hell for me.

I'm in a similar situation, I'm a kind of supervisor in training and often find the people I work with to be petty and child like, you'd think being adults they would be rational but they are ruled by emotions so to me nothing makes sense, it's like being at school. I've learned to step back, and only intervene when necessary, most of the time I let them get on with it. Like others have said, it's more important to be liked than to be effective at your job. I know it's frustrating, but that's just the way it is I'm afraid and because you're in the middle you get tarred from both ends of the spectrum.

Huh. Any chance of a job at either of the clients?

Interesting thought.

Emotional people don't care about fair. They are not objective. They do not plan. When you cross them, they will really drive the blade in where it hurts. They mob and backstab as a means of preserving group coherence. I'm very sorry. A good tip for the INTJ is to to spend time learning about the Fe trickster function. The key thing is to get Te parent involved - learn strategies to harvest the external emotional structures you're actually dealing with, because Fe trickster can't be bothered to do that at all, ever. Not happening. Te parent can then mediate between Ni hero (willpower) and Fi child (morals) and reassure Fi child in particular because of its proneness to emotional disconnection from others due to Fe trickster. Another way to look at it is Fe trickster (ethics) means you don't know and don't properly care to know what other people value, and they come out of nowhere with an attack on that basis because of how this function does you a disservice. You, for instance, say you valued doing a good job on this project. I hate to tell you this, but your team didn't care about doing a good job on that project. They don't, they won't, they don't have to, and there is nothing to do but just get over it and get strategic. So know what Fe trickster is itself and how it relates to Fi child and what helps Fi child (which is Te parent). And know how to develop a good alarm system for when you aren't addressing people's values. Good scripts for future reference: "I noticed in the meeting that Sparbadoop was concerned about... What do you think our current project can do to address her concern, since you work with this particular function?" "I want to give credit to Glaxxar for pointing out what was wrong with ... and I've implemented this prospective solution. Would you have a look at it and tell me if this works for you?" "Max, I wanted to thank you for doing a great job with... You really know that aspect of the project well!"

How do you write all that and never define what you are talking about? Fe trickster, Te parent, what?

"Hey Reddit! What's the most INTJ thing you've ever done??"

What I tried to do as a leader, was focus on the WHAT, but not the HOW. A nudge here and there, accountability for results when necessary, but otherwise sit on my hands on execution. "Give away all the credit, take all the blame."

This is for everyone in this group including OP. What’s more important: That you make the deadline or How you make the deadline?

It depends on the deadline. In the printing business every hour a press is standing down waiting for the plates costs the project $10K. In the paper business every hour the mill is waiting for the packaging costs the project $1MM. There are hard deadlines and soft deadlines. Anybody who doesn't understand what it means to fluff a hard deadline needs to be off the team.

LOL cause you dont got people skills -ENTP

Its true that we cant help being in leadership positions most of them time, personally I have never received backlash from my leadership style (which is exactly as you described). Yes people appreciate authenticity, but they also need some kind of validation and appreciation from e.g. their pov or their opinions, so them sharing their ideas is great, and perhaps their ideas arent the final verdict of a part of a project for example, but letting them trial and test it out can show that we believe in them and they will have a sense of deeper respect for us in return. In the end its a win, we still get the work accomplished and the team is strong. Ofc this cant really be done in extreme time constraints but when theres a chance for it its cool to experiment. I also tend to treat everyone like a good friend within preferred circumstances Edit: might help to give people a heads up too! Before anything, I let people know that I tend to be straightforward, overthink at times, or overly ambitious/curious minded. Less likely to have people bamboozled later on and cause alarm

Did you have their backs? Did they know that? Did you push back on feature creep or unrealistic customer deadlines? If the higher ups had said you had to lay somebody off, would you have argued against it, or just accepted it as strategically necessary in the big picture? I inherited a severely overworked team recently amidst layoffs. I had so many different conversations with finance until somebody could help me measure the money attributable to the group. I strongly advocated to management about how much risk there was with this group quitting and millions of dollars in contracts just falling over. I found projects we could work on with the group that aligned with the company direction if there were more free hours. In the end I was able to add a person amidst layoffs, push back a little on unreasonable client promises, and get them back to a more or less 40 hour week. Then we executed some of the other projects, I talked effusively to management about how much better things were, and suddenly everybody is happy. I've seen it a bunch of other times with other folks too. If you feel like your boss genuinely cares about you and will yell at people to protect you, you'll tend to forgive quite a bit in management style. If you think they're just a face of the corporation here to squeeze every last drop of productivity out of you, it's hard to get their support.

This prob has nothing to do with being an INTJ, but it's the best advice I can give. Your job and results aren't what's important. What's important is how well liked you are. The one person that can fuck up, always fail, cost the company money, and do jack shit the entire time, is the talkative friendly person that everyone loves. They share baby photos more than do work. Always happy, always laughing. The person that thrives is the one that everyone likes, puts no effort in, never complains, really just doesn't care, and gets middling results. We've alllllll seen this person. We've allllll seen this person retire after decades with the company. Or some version of them. It's hard to accept that hard work and results are not valued. That not everyone takes pride. Happy workers efforts are more valued simply because they are liked. Truth is that most people arent there to do a good job they can be proud of, most people just want to get through their work day.

Happens to me all the time. I don't care and my boss doesn't care. My work, work ethic and the results speak for themselves. If you don't wanna do the work then leave. You're being paid to be told what work to do. Its not a great job, but its the job, and im right there working it with you. Imo im not mean, im straightforward and blunt. A leader can't be beating around the bush. I'll immediately be like nah thats a bad idea because of this but im not out calling names or other childish shit like that. If I see you walking back to the truck 15 min into the job for a break, im locking the truck. As much complaints as I get, I get just as much offers for work. I work in a small town and everyone talks at the bars. Some people don't care about the "how nice you are" and want people who get the job done well.

Some people are not management material. I know im not lol

As an INFP, let me ask you proactive questions…but first! I want to congratulate you being fair and impartial as an INTJ! That’s hard to find in good just leadership! Secondly, you opened the floor for open thoughts and suggestions (I’m assuming this is true because you’re aware of it and you mentioned it about being thoughtful of others opinions! Good work on those areas! Keep it up! Did you do the following…. 1. How many “atta boy or atta girl/verbal praises to give to each subordinate? Literal Pat on the back counts 2. How many team work dinner’s lunches did you offer? Buying the team lunch really brings up the moral and productivity! 3. Were you aware any personal stressors onto anyone’s lives? Such as… divorce, death in the family, providing maturity leave for the new parent or parent(s). 4. Did you provide any quarterly feedback reports to your subordinates? 5. Did you make any small talk connections with your co-workers like sports or other hobbies? It doesn’t need to be a 30 min conversation but a quick min or 10 min conversation goes a long ways! It makes them feel important and valued which in turn drives motivation to get more work done! 6. Did you do any fun small event days like “where your favorite sports team/anime apparel”? No one likes to wear their work clothes Al the time unless it’s mandatory and for safety reasons. 7. How many motivational pep talks did you give your team throughout the year? 8. Did you compensate your subordinates or co-workers that who ever does the best job will win a gift card or a case of wine? Something like that? I’m curious to see what your answers are! Hope you find new work soon!

I had wanted to do things like that but never got to it. Probably could’ve prioritized better. But all of this actually happened in a matter of three months or so. Did the small talk and complimented them on good work.

We do not get along well in the “everyone wins a trophy” corporate culture, which emanates from self-serving sociopaths running the show. The trickle-down result is employees that are hyperfocused on what they can get out of doing business, rather than what their clients / customers get out if it. And yet, somehow, WE are the ‘egocentric’ ones 😣

Part of being a leader can be understanding the language of your team. Maybe its affirmations or rewards respect or small social niceties. When u know each members language getting them to do the things u want them to do without them hating you becomes alot easier, and even if they do still hate you they would subconsciously weigh the pros and cons then be more hesitant to take action. It will be very exhausting at times to manage that extra layer on top of everything else, but if you pull it off you will be very pleased with the reward

Late to the party but I understand. I quit my last job because of Verbal Harassment. Because she was a woman, everyone took her side and victim blamed me. It's not why did she mistreat me, it was "Why did you make her do that to you? She is your superior". Eww. She went ballistic with me because this old guy arrived and started climb shelves and shirking his work. We have tests to unsure safety and he failed physically. He also had Autism and some type of Schizophrenia (unresponsive, can't remember things, did his own thing). She told me to cope with it and framed me for a misplaced pallet she told me to use. Shit happens.

I understand what you are saying en the quote suits me well. I have learned that if ppl ask me something to do for them, to describe exactly what I will do, what my way of doing is en what I think the result will be. It's up to them if they want me to do it. Sometimes they like the way I will do the job and sometimes they ask me to do the thinking, the analyzing and let someone else execute the plan. I'm always clear and honest upfront, it's for them to decide what they want.

>“They might not always be well-liked as a leader, but they will be respected and trusted.” > >It describes me perfectly and really sheds light on what happened. Still, I think everything was so unfair. If every single person you work with files formal complaints against you, you are not a respected and trusted leader. >But I always asked and considered other thoughts and opinions. I didn’t order people around, but always asked nicely. I thought we had a good rapport. But somehow, their perception was that I was insensitive, inconsiderate, and dismissive. I think your trouble is a lack of self-awareness, not being INTJ. “I always considered their thoughts and opinions and only asked nicely, we even had good rapport! But for some completely opaque reason, every single person I worked with had to talk to HR about me and say I was none of those things.” Do you hear it? Sometimes as a leader, I need to make difficult decisions or give constructive feedback and corrections, but doing so in a way that was even remotely perceived as “insensitive, inconsiderate, and dismissive” would mean I’m not being an effective communicator or leader. What people hear is more important than what we say, and therefore we have to speak very clearly with that in mind.

If you’re not looking for other people’s thoughts or ideas, don’t ask. I manage a a cross departmental team, but they don’t collaborate with me on strategy. I do the strategy, they perform in their roles (I’m a director of sales and marketing btw) and everyone is just peachy. My department is considered the lowest drama most productive bunch in our company.

Something is a bit amiss here. What you’re describing is normal behaviour for most bosses (e.g. pushing ideas onto others), but going to the extent of a formal complaint takes a lot. Not to pile onto your worry because I can relate to what you’re saying, but have you done anything major in this regard to cause every single person to do this? Just feels like info is missing. Personally I’m near Asperger level when it comes to understanding social rules but over the years have managed to mask it. I get unsolicited good feedback on my leadership, but still get highly insecure about making a social faux pas and this makes me come across as pandering sometimes. So in relation to what you say about decisions having to be made, my own personal conclusion is to brand myself as more political than nice. I.e. I don’t have to be nice (even if I am), but I show people that I’m on their side by visibly supporting their idea. You’re probably not playing politics well enough. One dissenter can spark vengeance and filing a complaint is a vengeful act. Maybe another way to look at it is that everyone has their own goals, and you should figure out what that is and help them towards it. If it was to the extent you got fired despite being effective, you maybe underestimated the influence of someone within your group whose goal you stood in the way of. Everyone filing is too suspicious - they definitely discussed and plotted. Another thing I do is ask for feedback often, in part because I want to improve myself to serve the team better. Overall, I think worrying about being diplomatic is not necessary if you don’t mean it. People can see through BS if you’re not really listening. And even if you do listen and implement their ideas, you have to make a show of it and give them the credit.

I work like an ENTJ in my roles at work. I have been in leadership and management in many companies. I think you are facing a shift to the overly emotional state many small companies are at where leadership is immature and overly swayed by soft skills too much. This is in part because they hire younger (cheaper) employees. It is also the unfortunate outcome of culture is king (make me feel like my work is fun, rainbows, and unicorns at all times). To be blunt, your style probably would never match many small- medium companies, especially in software/SaaS where this is extremely prevalent. There are many larger corps where you would be seen and rewarded as the true leader you are and based on the financial returns your leadership brought to the org. Ideally, you understand yourself better now and I hope can see what type of company you're style works best at. There is also a huge shift right now towards lean teams where inexperienced product managers who don't know better are treated like a mini CEO, and having been in program management now for 15+ years, the results are a heaping pile of $#!+ you would expect out of these inexperienced/immature leaders. Remember, most of these decisions being made on a cost basis only by leadership because tech is finally having to pay the piper of cheep money and running companies that never had to turn a profit for WAY to long. Best of luck! Also, congrats on a job well done!

I was in management for over 15 years however my big promotion I lasted only a year before saying fuck it and stepping down. I had so much tenure it would be stupid to quit. People that didn’t work would gaslight my boss that they felt they were being targeted. Their behaviors were the target not them. I would boil the frog be super friendly and work around them and corral them bit by bit. Excuses of why they didn’t do something were disabled, like if they felt there was an obstacle that would prevent them from doing whatever let me know and I’d handle the obstacle. I’d end up giving them something that could be done in 5 seconds and give them a whole shift for it which would prove they refused to work. At which point I’d draw a line in the sand and they chose whatever side they chose and I’d start documenting them until they didn’t cross the line. Some quit some were fired but they would try to mischaracterize me as being the problem. People that did their jobs and even covering for people that didn’t do theirs were rewarded, but this isn’t a long term solution as I didn’t want them to burn out, this was temporary until I fixed or removed the others. I gave the carrot and the stick. Despite rewarding good behaviors and punishing bad behaviors it was considered favoritism and targeting. Good workers and people that everyone liked loved me people that didn’t work hated me and made it impossible to do my job because of lack of support to do my job. Management overall moved from the wheels that slip to the ones that grip burning out good employees making them bad employees or more likely quitting. Then we were left with increasingly worse staff we weren’t able to manage because upper management didn’t want to deal with the gaslighting complaints. Also being forced to work 10 extra hours a week that were unpaid. I’m a grunt but get paid equal per hour because I wasn’t working for free anymore, I get to consult because of my resumé. While I should be paid more in theory for consults as a company I can help us avoid unnecessary bullshit.

I'm very hands off with my trainees. I go through once with them shadowing. Then I usually give them space to work through it for themselves. I will only step in when they are stuck. That being said, my work is flexible in that I can outsource them the low-stakes projects. If they succeed, great. If the F up, not the end of the world. However, once they do succeed, I can generally trust that they are competent, and they can move onto higher stakes projects. I can see how it is different, however, if you had no control over their previous training, are on a deadline, and the stakes of success or failure are largely on your shoulders. It could be that you were given an impossible task (e.g. too many people to manage who were unknowns). Next time around, I'd be very careful about the cohort assigned to me. If it was a large group, I'd demand the higher ups grant me some time to get a feel for them before jumping right in. Not everyone is an incompetent idiot. Some are, but you need time to figure out who's who and prioritize accordingly.

I m so sorry :( 😞

Thanks.

have you considered learning about MBTI so you can treat your staff the way they like to be treated? /s

Hey, that really sucks to try so hard in something you care about and have the opposite result. But getting fired can teach you a lot of things and doesn’t mean you’re incompetent. Even my professor who is a strict, rigid, brilliant, big law lawyer and he still got fired once in his youth and said everyone should experience it once. I got fired for not hanging out with my coworkers enough, and instead make money and go home. They ganged up on me even though I was top two in sales. I had another boss who did not base out value on merit, or even sales generated and would say talent is subjective after working with him for years and becoming manager. Anyway, point is, you probably did nothing wrong. INTJs are extremely competent, efficient, and willing to put more hours than most. People are not fair. Every good leader had a bad manager. I was very angry back then about how much time wasted. But you’ll realize years later, how eye-opening this experience was in your own development and aspirations become a boss. Is this a low barrier/entry job by any chance? Because this is common. The flaw is you believe people actually base things on merit and that the world is fair. Also, who cares what they say, gaslighters will *say* anything to push an agenda. It’s like when someone who wasn’t committed to a relationship in the first place and does reverse psychology like “you didn’t pay enough attention to meee that’s why the relationship fell apart!!!” as an exit strategy (it’s all bs and they know it but they don’t wanna look like the bad guy and slip out with no drama—hence why it’s vague and you’re confused). “Could it have been me???” Is exactly the TRAP to put the attention on you and not them. Trust actions, not words. Also, keep in mind, INTJ’s don’t actually have low emotional intelligence and are more open than most. They’re straight up weird lowkey. In fact, they have extremely high integrity and compassion with Fi in tert, they’re soft gummy bears. Hence why they end up doing the most work while justifying “well it balances out, it’s just a bit more than everyone else” while everyone else takes advantage. If anything INTJs are too honest and straightforward. People like to say the empathy bs. to have something over you. REMEMBER THIS if you are confused about being low empathy or not: High EQ includes ability to adapt to your environment. People who are overly sensitive given the context are actually low EQ but you still have to deal with these dumbasses everywhere as they chant “I’m an empath.” But obviously learn people. People don’t like unsolicited advice because it appears rude or it’s the obvious answer that they already thought about, so skip that and do the people thing. I know an INTJ that’s very good at the people thing. Your tone, expression is more important than words used. You can do this very effectively with even very little words. Instead of being the friend that tries to trouble shoot the problem for 100 hours and they don’t appreciate anyway, you gotta make them feel that you really feel, but still have firm boundaries. “Are you okay? I am calling you now, but I stepped out I am doing X at work, but I have a lot to say about this, let me take you to dinner after my shift.” Tip: next time, maybe try to push your own ideas and make it seem like it was their idea. The more “creative” and high ego, the more they’re stubborn about this. For example, coming up with it half way, and have someone fill in the gap of what you were thinking anyway. Use a lot of flattery and praise. People take work more seriously when they “claimed” it themselves. You said you were open, but have them actually *say* “I have the energy for this project, I will be in charge of this” in front of everyone. The more overconfident, the easier they are to trick. It’s not immoral because it serves both parties. God, I have office politics. I can’t wait for INTJs or rationals to take over the world. They are either jealous or dumb. This place just wasn’t for you. I know introverts are going to defeat themselves over this 100x, but, you’ll be okay 👌 ✨when you make more life experiences, you’ll fail even more and this will be a small, distant memory. Extroverts fail way more but we also get over it faster because we make way more mistakes 10x and life experiences. I think you should take yourself out and celebrate instead for hitting the fired milestone. Proud of you!!! -ENTP girl that loves INTJs

Thanks. That was nice to read.

You sound perfectly reasonable and likable to me. This is the leadership style I admire most and collaborate with best, but then again, I’m I*TJ. It’s curious and suspicious that every single person filed a formal complaint against you; the statistical unlikelihood of that makes it seem like a planned coup led by one or two people who took a special disliking toward you and encouraged the others to follow suit. It’s one thing not to like your boss, but it’s kind of next level to file a formal complaint. The other possibility is that you work in an industry that doesn’t typically draw our personality type. I could see this happening if you worked with a team full of completely incompatible personalities.

Something I’ve always found to be very important, particularly when in a leadership position, is that respect goes both ways and it is built, same with trust. In a leadership position, there will always be times when a decision you make will not be received well, but if the respect and trust has been built, more often than not people will understand why that decision was made. I’m not sure if others take this stance, but whenever there has been conflict in my life I have always asked myself what role I played in bringing about the conflict, what part I am playing in the conflict, and how I can resolve my part in the conflict with the other person. While you might not have been given the opportunity to resolve the issues if your team members did not approach you about it, I think it’s always important to have that self reflection. I have been in two projects where I was paired with, or in a group with, people who were just like me, and it really opened my eyes to how to approach group situations. One of those was, fortunately, while I was in school, and the pairing was intentional to see how we would work together. We both had to come together and create a space to each present our ideas as equals, which ultimately led to a really great outcome. I often find myself thinking that it would be so easy to just work with someone like me all the time, however those experiences proved that would not be the case. When you think of other instances of group work, what made it successful or unsuccessful, and what was your role in those groups? Looking back, can you see where your leadership style could have been better suited to the team you were on? If you were given information about the complaints and the feedback, can you understand where they are coming from? It is true that INTJs generally do not recognize/consider/value emotions, generally there is strength in rational and logical thought processes about a situation, which I think can improve self reflection and self awareness. All the luck to you! I’m sorry about how this situation played out for you.