my employee keeps telling me his “expectations” of me

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader asks:

One of my employees is positioning himself to move up in a couple of years. He would still report to me, but the working relationship would be a little different, and it could have a major impact on my work and the organization if that relationship is toxic. The problem is that he thinks he is a lot smarter than me. He apparently read something about “managing up” and now he is trying to manage me. He is very, very bad at it. His attempts to manipulate me are clumsy, but he doesn’t realize that I know what he is doing (because he’s sure that he is much smarter than me). There’s also some sexism going on here (I’m female, and he seems to have problems with that sometimes). Every conversation degenerates into incredibly irritating condescension and smugness on his part. For example, he has said things like:

• “My expectation is that you will give me a hint if you think there may be a change coming up.” Me: No, not happening. I try to squelch rumors, not spread them. And if there is a change coming, your department head will know first.

• “My expectation is that you will change the meeting time.” Me: No, a meeting that involves 27 people and has been scheduled for a month will not be rescheduled just for you.

• About a minor snafu with another team: “I’m sure you understand why you need to have this person fired.” Me: Let’s just talk about how we are going to handle a fairly small problem.

He always ends with a smirk and a slow nod. Right now, I just smile, ignore it whenever possible, and get back to the issue at hand. Occasionally I have addressed it head on, when I need to clarify that he will definitely not be getting what he wants this time.

I want to call him on this, because it is getting very tiresome. It also sidetracks the conversation away from the important stuff we need to be discussing. And I don’t enjoy being treated with such disrespect. I’m tempted to give him a book on the topic and tell him he needs to study some more before trying this again. But in calmer moments, I know that level of bluntness will just embarrass him and put him on the defensive. How can I stop this behavior without doing too much damage to our work relationship? Or do I just have to put up with sentences that start, “My expectation is that you will…” forever?

A complicating factor is that he’s popular with his colleagues, who will be the ones considering him for the promotion in a few years. I could potentially veto their decision, but it would destroy my credibility with the rest of the department so I would rather figure out how to make this work if I can.

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.