u/Organic-Star9362

I had a 1:1 with my manager today that's been sitting with me. The core feedback was: my team isn't proactively following deadlines or communicating with me. She framed this as a "director-level presence" issue, basically, be more authoritative and people will respect the deadlines and speak up on their own. At one point she did an impression of how I talk while making her point, mimicking how I speak? 

But if someone consistently misses a deadline I've set, isn't that ultimately something their manager (who may not be me) needs to step in and correct? It feels like being told "be more authoritative" is being used as the fix for a compliance problem, when the actual issue might be that there's no real accountability behind the deadline regardless of how I ask for it. Really most of the teams are completely overwhelmed so I’d argue it’s a resource problem. 
Regardless  Is "manage up your tone" actually the standard fix here, or should a manager also intervene directly when someone repeatedly doesn't deliver?

Separately — I lead with a pretty casual, open, rapport-based style with my team. I think it's part of why people trust me, but I think she reads it as not being "authoritative" enough. I don't want to become a hardass to prove a point, but I also don't want to dismiss real feedback if there's something to it.

Is it reasonable to expect a manager to step in on repeat missed deadlines, or is holding people accountable purely the PM's job regardless of style?

How do you tell the difference between "this is useful feedback, act on it" and "this was more about how it was said than what was said"?

Can you be more direct/structured as a leader without giving up a casual, relationship-driven style?

Appreciate any perspective — trying not to let one comment overshadow the part of this that's actually useful.

I started a new job about 5 months ago and came in with a solid project management background. I've never had issues running client meetings before, but this customer base has been a completely different experience.

A few weeks ago I had a medical emergency and was out with an OOO up. My team was hosting a meeting and the key client stakeholder wasn't going to attend. Instead of reaching out to anyone else on my team, the client only contacted me. My out of office reply was on so they should have known. The meeting happened without the stakeholder, went poorly, and I got an angry call afterward blaming me.

More recently, I was coordinating meetings with a team member who had limited availability. I blocked time on his calendar and sent invites accordingly. I'm in a different timezone and didn't catch that one of the times landed at 8am for the client. They were upset, I offered to push it to 9am, and they canceled everything. Now all meetings have to be submitted to a specific person for approval with 48+ hours notice. I send the request, wait for confirmation, then schedule. Even after all that, I'm still getting pushback on who is or isn't included.

The issues seem to fall into a few patterns:

Scenario 1: Not enough people were included on the invite. Sometimes I'm intentionally limiting the audience, or I wasn't sure every person needed to be there, or I expected them to forward it internally.

Scenario 2: Not enough advance notice. I'll try to get approval from the client, but they often don't respond clearly, the meeting falls through, and the timeline takes the hit.

Scenario 3: Very specific scheduling requirements that I'm expected to know and accommodate at all times, with no flexibility in return. One-off days off, hard stop times, people who only work certain days. But when I ask that we avoid meetings before 11am ET to account for our West Coast team members, that's apparently unreasonable.

I've managed complex client relationships before without running into this. Has anyone else dealt with a client base like this? How do you handle it without losing your mind?