Green eyed monster - help me please?

[BillStickersIsInnocent]

Returned to work to a job I love.

One of my team acted up during my ML, she is an exceptional team member and did a brilliant job.

Just found out though that she has been awarded the highest possible rating at her annual performance review (I have never achieved this), and my manager has now asked her to attend Departmental Leader meetings alongside me.

This is my second return to work after ML and I know it took me a while to get back into the swing of things last time. I'm trying to be kind to myself and not feel paranoid, but I feel so undermined.

My team member is utterly brilliant and will go far, I'm obviously delighted as I've played a part in her development, but my goodness I'm jealous. How can I stop being so silly?

[Herrenamakesagreatwelshcake]

Firstly, well done for acknowledging it - you sound like you're determined to be reasonable and that's always a good start!

My only advice would be to continue as you are, really. If you haven't had a discussion with your colleague re-establishing what your responsibilities (and hers) are then I might do that too.

Logically, if you aspire to that high performance rating then it would probably be sensible to find out exactly what she's been doing and how/if it differs from your approach. Hard to do, I know! I had a friend at uni who always got firsts on essays whereas I got much less and I took to reading her work to try and work out what the difference was. It wasn't an ego-booster but it was the logical thing to do....

I hope some of that helps :)

[BlueyDragon]

I love your username, Bill!

Is the person in question a more junior grade than you? That might explain the performance rating, given more is expected of senior grades.

I'd also question, gently and subtlely, why a particular meeting now needs two of you. Maybe as part of the bounds setting conversation above. Unless it's for a particular development purpose, surely it's wasting someone's time to have both of you go.

[BlueyDragon]

Also maybe help your team member work out how she can continue her progress, whilst you still continue yours. Maybe there's some of your work she can pick up whilst you can get involved in higher things?

[BillStickersIsInnocent]

Thanks Herrena and Bluey, really useful advice.

I was planning to have a conversation with my manager about how I could improve my performance based on my ML cover - I may need to wait a little while until I feel tougher though!

Good idea about properly re-establishing areas of work too.

Bluey - yes she is a grade lower than me, received an acting up allowance so performance wasn't compared like for like. That's made me feel more relaxed about it, thank you.

Good idea about how to question meeting attendance, I will pursue.

[BillStickersIsInnocent]

Fantastic idea about developing team member further - win win

[Samnella]

Just out of interest, how do you know about her performance rating? Did she tell you this?

If I were you, I would decide on boundaries, as in questioning why she needs to be at a meeting and maybe look to hand something on to her to aid her development whilst taking something higher up your self thereby helping yourself as well. I think it's easy to come back from ML and feel insecure, and it will be in some peoples interests to exacerbate this feeling if they think they can.

There should be room for both of you and you are the one with the experience.