how do I avoid “mom energy” with my younger employees?

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager .
A reader writes:
I’m a 40-year-old woman managing a team of 10 in a tech company, where several of the team members are 10-15 years younger than I am. How do I avoid “mom energy”?
Specifically, my employee Annie and I met in-person for the first time last week at a workshop. In a group session, I got some feedback that I’m too curt in my conversations sometimes. Annie and I sat down together in private and I asked her to fill me in on the details, like how long it’s been going on (I’ve been stressed the last couple months and was hoping it was related to that). I’ve been managing her for two years and she’s been at the company for five. This is her first job.
“Since you started,” she said, “it’s like you’re my mom, always checking up on me and scolding me.”
That baffled me, because if there’s anything I absolutely don’t feel like, it’s anyone’s mom. I don’t even feel like I’m in a different generation from those I manage — I don’t have kids myself and I certainly don’t have maternal feelings towards these colleagues. Although I don’t hide my age at work (someone’s gotta represent the mature women of tech), we don’t talk about pop culture or generational differences.
So I think it must be about the tone.
Annie prizes flexibility in when and where she works above all else, which is fine with me if it doesn’t affect her work and I know when I can expect her to be working, which is where we keep butting heads. Looking back at our chat messages, I do see my tone getting increasingly impatient as I remind her about the same thing for the fifth time:
“Good morning! I see that you have declined the team meetings for the rest of the week, what’s up with that?”
“Good morning! Are you working? If yes, attending meetings is part of that, unless you are working on something with more priority, in which case I would expect you to say that; if not, I expect an out-of-office blocker on your calendar, so that we know when you are available.”
“Hey, we’ve talked about this more than once. If you are not actively working during normal working hours, you need to have your status set or an entry in your calendar. X is broken and Joe has been waiting for an answer from you since an hour and a half ago. That’s not acceptable.”
Is this a me problem, a her problem, or both? Where is the line between manager and mom when giving critical feedback?
I’m also pretty sure I heard another employee, Jane, once mumble “yes, mom” at one point. Those are in fact the two employees who push against the rules the most and this one was also in their very first job.
This isn’t mom energy and Annie calling it that says something about her inexperience, not something about you. Since this is her first job, I’m guessing the only “someone with power over you tells you what to do” dynamics she’s been familiar with before now were parents and teachers.
But it’s wildly inappropriate for someone to use that framing at work. It’s sexist too .
And that “yes, mom” comment? Really unacceptable. It’s rude, it’s undermining to you, and it implies the person who said it doesn’t understand the nature of your role or theirs. They aren’t your kid, and you’re not mothering them. You are (I’m guessing) doing normal managerial functions like assigning work, giving feedback, and correcting mistakes.
There is a second issue here, which is that when you’re becoming increasingly impatient with an employee and find yourself writing things like “we’ve talked about this more than once” or “that’s not acceptable,” you need to move that conversation out of chat or email and have it in real time (over the phone or Zoom since you’re remote). Chat and email are fine for minor things, but when something is happening repeatedly and/or you’re at the point of frustration, you need a real conversation about it. Judging from the messages you quoted, the problems with Annie are pretty significant ones, and it sounds like you need a bigger-picture conversation about the expectations and requirements of her job, the fact that they’re not negotiable, and whether she’s up for meeting them or not. Using chat messages for that is probably contributing to her feeling nagged — because by using that medium, you’re downplaying the importance of what you’re saying, while still saying it over and over. Take it out of chat and have a serious, sit-down meeting about those issues, and be clear about what the consequences are if the problems continue. (The consequences should not be “I continue to say this and get increasingly frustrated”; the consequences need to be ones for her , not you.)
As a general rule, I’d say that if you’ve addressed something twice in a more casual medium like chat or email, it’s still happening, and you find yourself about to write it out a third time, that’s a flag to have a real conversation. And with more serious things, you might need to move there faster.
None of that excuses Annie’s “mom” framing, though, and you should address that head-on. Approach it like anything else you’d coach her on that she needs to change to succeed at work. For example: “I appreciated our discussion last week on tone. I did want to follow up with you on one piece of what you said — the ‘mom tone.’ That’s not framing you should use at work. It’s normal for managers to assign you work, give you feedback, correct mistakes, and talk to you when you need to do something differently. That’s not about parenting you; it’s a standard part of having a manager and you should expect it in every job you have, regardless of your manager’s gender. Framing it as ‘mom energy’ undermines you — it makes you sound young and inexperienced and like you’re not using a professional frame of reference. It also plays into harmful stereotypes about women and authority. I know you wouldn’t intend it that way and probably didn’t realize how it came across, so I wanted to flag it for you. You’ll be much better served in your career by thinking ‘manager,’ not ‘parent.’”
You could add, “If there are ways we can communicate more effectively, I want to hear about those. But let’s leave the parent references out of it and stick to an employee/manager framework.”
And with that mumbled “yes, mom” comment? If you hear anything like that again, shut it down immediately. Say, “Excuse me?” or ask to speak with the person privately and address it there, but don’t just let that go. If you do, you’re letting people think it’s okay — the person who said it plus anyone else who heard it — and disrespectful, sexist snark should not be okay on your team. (And if they take that habit to their next job, they’re likely to quickly learn how not okay it is, so you’re doing them a favor by shutting it down now.)
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