No direction from my director and boss

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified)
in

My boss, a franchisee of a quick service restaurant chain, hire a new director 7 months ago to help with a restruturing process of his company. He owns 22 stores in 3 different areas. I'm one of 4 supervisors who each have 5 to 8 store's managers to direct. Each store have 10 to 16 employees. None of us have training nor courses in management. I've been working in that company for the last 14 years and have seen it going from 6 stores to 22.

My problems are :

1) The new director doen't have a clue about managing and restructuring. She doesn't know anything about the operations of our restaurant chain and and often says she's too fancy to eat in our restaurants. SHe's very insecure, she micromanage each supervisor (except me because I've too much experience for her) and she's getting really upset when they do anything without first getting her permission. She upset everybody she works with (many people left the company) and always try to make her more important and competent than anybody else. She neglect to give direction and act on little unimportant things. She haven't talk to me within the past three months. I've received 3 e-mails from her during those months : one to ask to look if on of my stores need a new openig hours sign, one to ask if all stores have the right pipe's colour for the washing soap, and the other also for and not so important thing.

2) My boss just start to be a little engaged in the management of the company. I've been by my own trying to give a direction to the managers during all those years. No training, no performance review about my work. He doesn't seems to really know where to start to restructure the company. He can see his new director doesn't do the job, but seems unwilling to do something about that.

As I listen to MT podcasts since more than a year now, I have a pretty good idea as where to start to help the company. I present that to my boss and he was open to the ideas, but he wants our director to take the lead. We present that to her, but she still focus on unimportant things. She just didn't get it. She started to read books about "how to lead", but doesn't act on her leadership.

I'm now wondering if I should left the company to be able to go further in my career, but I'm afraid to do so because I haven't any official training in management. Also I don't know where to look for a new job as there's not many restaurant chains that have franchisees that own many stores like my boss. I'd like to hear about your thoughts about my situation.

Marie-Claude

Submitted by John Rosenau on Friday March 8th, 2013 11:52 am

The only advice I can give you is that change always takes time. You have to decide for yourself how long you are willing to stay on to see what changes are made.  You may jump to another company and find not much difference.

John

Submitted by Raymond Bonwell on Friday March 8th, 2013 1:11 pm

Marie-Claude,
Congratulations on your focus to improve, both yourself and your organization, by introducing these MT techniques.
I agree with John, change does take time. And when presenting new approaches, I have found it helpful to focus on the good of the organization.
If you are thinking of leaving - the direction is important. You do not want to *leave* your current position, you want to *go toward* a new opportunity. This is a distinction with a difference. There is nothing wrong with exploring for new opportunities; a better fit is something you will be primarly drawn toward, not primarily the need to leave where you are.
Best wishes, and keep the forums posted!
Raymond

Submitted by Marie-Claude T… on Friday March 8th, 2013 8:27 pm

Thanks John and Raymond,
I'll first be patient and look for opportunities within the company. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your support !
 
 
Marie-Claude

Submitted by Marie-Claude T… on Saturday March 9th, 2013 9:12 am

George,
I agree and will work on my accountability. Thanks a lot :)
Marie-Claude