If you are a middle manager, you might ask your higher-ups to come to a meeting with your team to talk about the company’s state or provide a chance for folks to ask questions and get to know them better. It is inspiring and motivating for your people to get some unsolicited praise and recognition from the top occasionally. That kind of engagement from top management shows they are curious and caring about their workforce.

There are high-level managers, though, who can show up abruptly and muscle in on your team. These are managers whose leadership styles tend to lean toward command and control. They often have an exacting idea of how they want things and little tolerance for failure. I have had a few of these types of leaders above me when I served in middle management roles, and I learned a few ways to deal with them.

Characteristics of a Swooper

A COO in a company I used to work at, I’ll call her Jane, once sent an email to Tim, an IT manager who reported to me, on which I was cc’d along with several other people. If the contents included a query for some information or an appreciation, it would have been a pretty usual exchange. This one was neither. Jane, without asking me first, told Tim to build a set of dashboards so she could see what his team was doing. The tone of the note was angry and chastising, and she was reacting to something that itself was not clear.

I call this kind of boss a “swooper,” or one who swoops in. The more technical term for this is skip management, which happens when a manager skips a level to get something from someone else’s direct report. When skip managing, it is imperative that the manager in between be notified of any requests made and discussions had.

Jane included me in the email to Tim, so I was immediately notified. It would have been much worse if she had not included me because then Tim would have been in a much less supported position. It was not clear, however, why she had to address Tim so directly and publicly. It also did not excuse the shaming tone.

A swooper is thus more extreme than a skip manager. For me, a swooper conjures the image of a hawk bearing down on a rabbit in the field. It is an aggressive act to swoop and one that usually comes out of nowhere.

In the email, Jane came across as impulsive and needing to put her needs ahead of others.  She seemed to be holding Tim to higher standards than the rest of the organization expects from him, myself included. She was clearly frustrated and looking for someone to blame, even though the circumstance was unclear. 

It is typical of a swooper to seek to blame rather than try to understand when something doesn’t go exactly how they want it to. They often feel compelled to take control of the situation themselves, doing so by wielding their authority. Needless to say, this behavior does not build a culture of trust and collaboration. 

In this situation, Jane’s actions essentially said, “You all don’t know what you’re doing; you are doing it badly, and now I need to fix it.” She reacted and went into command and control mode, taking away any autonomy Tim or I had to understand and address the situation. It also left me worrying that Tim might quit. 

Responding to a Swoop

Swoopers, in general, rarely swoop out of malice. They just want their organizations to run smoothly.  Sometimes they can become self-centered and start micromanaging because they want it to work their way. 

Still, there were some actions I had to take to course-correct both the situation and the negative impact it could have. I chose to use the listen-and-learn leadership tactic, so I didn’t fall into the blaming trap as well.

The main impact on me as the manager between Jane and Tim was that I was given no right to review the demand Jane was making. So, to take my power back, I treated it as a request rather than a demand and got to work on reshaping the incident.

Be Curious and Explore

First, I immediately contacted Tim to find out how he felt about this new request. After all, he already had a pretty full workload, and there is no faster way to burn somebody out than to overload them with work. It didn’t help that Tim also suddenly felt like he had two bosses. The fact that so many other people were cc’d on the original email also made him feel like he was being publicly shamed. I assured him that I would get to the bottom of it. 

Next, I contacted Jane and asked why she felt she needed to suddenly assign this project. I let her know that I would prefer she talk to me first. I learned that she was frustrated at the internal support she felt she should be receiving. She wanted to know what this team was doing since it wasn’t meeting her needs. I told her if she felt like she wasn’t getting what she needed, I would be glad to work with my team to better understand and meet her needs.

It was, in my mind, a knee-jerk reaction to an issue she would rather try to control than understand. My first impulse after talking to her was to approach the situation with curiosity. I asked Tim for more detail about what had happened that caused this issue to escalate to the point where Jane felt compelled to swoop in.

I learned that Jane had asked another person to get this team to address an issue. Instead of following proper procedure by submitting a ticket in the help system, that person went directly to one of the people on the team. The initial ask was unclear, so the team member had to research. It took some time to clarify the need, which was done through back-and-forth emails. As a result, the issue took a few days to address, and progress was not openly visible. 

Jane, however, thought it should have taken an hour or less. She was livid and decided the team must be slacking off. She asked for a dashboard so she could see for herself what they were doing. She had never asked anyone why it took the time it did to complete. All she accomplished in the process was to send the message that she doesn’t trust me or the people who report to me to do their jobs properly.

Clarify Process and Accountability

I asked her to let me handle issues like this in the future, given that it involved people who reported to me. I explained that the team members already had work on their plates, and it was unfair and stressful to be ambushed with more work that did not come through the proper channels. I told her that requests not made through the helpdesk could not easily be tracked and measured in a dashboard. I had created a rudimentary dashboard by this point, and I was already addressing some gaps in the team’s processes, which I also explained. 

The day after I talked to her, Jane emailed me directly with a service request. I don’t know if she did that to show that she was honoring my request to talk to me first or to make a point that she had authority over me. It felt like another swoop to me. I responded by saying I would be sending the request along to the helpdesk so it could be logged properly and tracked on the dashboard she had requested. 

At least she contacted me first, but this is something a swooper will do. They will use direct channels outside of agreed-upon processes that everyone else uses. This lack of respect for the process by a high-level manager is a mild form of power abuse. Rather than using proper channels and labeling a request as urgent, a swooper will invoke the privilege of their authority to interrupt someone already working on something else. That person then feels compelled to drop what they are doing because the request comes from someone with much higher authority. 

Share and Acknowledge Feelings

When dealing with a swooper, be direct and honest, and use nonviolent communication. Explain the situation, if they are willing to hear it, but more importantly, explain the feelings that were invoked by their actions. When you tell someone how they acted made you feel untrusted, they are more likely to reflect on it and say that was not their intent. Ask them why they reacted the way they did, and acknowledge the feelings they were experiencing. 

Support Your Team

Let your direct reports know they can and should come to you when another manager swoops in on them. Tell them they should receive such directives as requests rather than demands. Such requests should be added as a help ticket just like any other request and triaged according to their level of urgency, not the level of the person who requested it. Give them the autonomy to respond, and be the shield of support that maintains their trust in you.

In the end, swoopers usually don’t have ill intent but rather react in ways that reflect their leadership style. Sometimes their style is more controlling and authoritative than yours. The best thing you can do is stay curious, be factual, and ask for the trust and accountability you need to lead your teams in a more people-positive way.