New boss problems, need advice.
I have a new boss in a senior leadership role. We work in a field that requires dealing with a lot of convoluted regulations and government policies. It’s often confusing and regulations and policies often seem to contradict each other. The new boss is knowledgeable but has different experience than me which I thought would be great. I love working for folks I can learn from.
The problem is that over the last month or so, they have made changes some processes based on their interpretation of regulations that are simply incorrect. It’s causing chaos for my staff and will eventually have a larger impact on the company and the reputation of our department. When I catch these inconsistencies I always try to have a private conversation to iron it out but the boss isn’t listening and often won’t budge.
I’m finding myself spending a lot of time digging through regulations and sending them to verify the new direction they have implemented. I’m not always successful in getting the boss to change their mind and the weekly pivots in my staff’s direction is making it difficult for them to know what they should be doing. Some of my staff are losing confidence in me because the boss is very confident in their incorrect direction. Others will call me and ask WTF is going on knowing the direction is incorrect.
I’m usually very good at smiling and nodding and going with the flow. But like I said, some of the direction we’ve been given will certainly blow up in our faces. I don’t know what to do here. Do I go over the new boss’s head to our VP in these cases? I don’t know the new boss well enough to know how that will go over but I can’t imagine it will be good. Do I start cc’ing our VP when I send emails with regulations and my questions? In our corporate culture that is often interpreted as aggressive. I dunno, I need help and for some reason this scares me. But the frustration is coming to a head and I’m aware I need to step up and speak up in a more impactful way.