How would you handle a manager being assigned to your team that is known to be toxic?

[blazing talon]

We have a strong team of engineers that is currently manager-less. It's looking like one manager is trending towards becoming our new manager, and we all have an extremely negative view of this person as being toxic and extremely political. We know of several instances of reportees being burned by this manager so this manager could save their own skin and throw the reportee under the bus, and we have experienced their influence from afar having immensively negative impact on our work. In fact we have launched several services successfully in spite of this managers' sabotaging behavior, adding immense unnecessary stress to the team and org.

The team has voiced our concerns and anger over this manager in the past to leadership above them when their actions were undermining and detrimental to our work. We were told our concerns were heard, but if its looking like this manager will be our new manager, it does not at all feel like we're being heard right now.

Would you consider this a "apply and get out" situation? How would you handle this situation? I'm thinking I need to start prepping LC with hiring season coming up..

[quasi flint]

Are there open roles within the company?

Who told you your concerns are heard? Your future skip manager maybe? Are they aware the seriousness of the situation?

If you can't trust your manager, then the only way is to switch.

So the three things you could try are preventing that person becoming your manager, find a new role within the company, find a new role outside of the company.

If you apply outside, start with CV update and review, and researching roles and companies. LC can be done after your CV is already in good form.

[blazing talon]

@quasi flint Yeah, our skip manager (who we voiced our concerns to) is the report to the manager that would take over our team. They should know the seriousness of the situation - I don't think we could have been more vocal about our past experiences with this manager.

I'll work on my CV now just to be ready. Thanks for affirming my feeling on this.