Yes. Indeed. There should be clear guidelines and discussions as to roles. Possible consequences for meddling among roles( never seen or know of reprimands hardly ever). But it doesn’t feel good to be usurped of your role.

David you brought out some very clear behaviors and attitudes that are displayed by these ‘takeover’ individuals. They are very superficial, high energized and many lacking indepth knowledge about existing work place culture , wanting to use your experience and knowledge while pretending that they know it all. Many are not very smart but try to ‘look the position.’

Yes, I have been on both sides of that equation. I was hired to “fix the staff” and told who my staff were. They were not who I was told and it took me about 2 1/2 weeks to figure that out, but I had offended and isolated some of the staff by that time and it took months to fix.

On the other hand, I had a coworker who was brought in from the outside and felt he had more to teach us than learn from us. He then got promoted to be my supervisor, and subsequently my manager. He had never taken time to learn how we did business in a holistic way. I had worked through the ranks and had achieved my position by learning how the company did business. I was pegged as the go-to person until he became my manager and insisted I get all my information from him rather than the customers and those who were in operations. He made it his mission to “fix” me in a very harsh and unproductive way. I failed on many projects because of lack of information that he felt I didn’t need to know. Then I got my first negative review ever in my over 50 life.

So, as I said, I’ve seen both sides.

Sorry, didn’t finish my comment! Discussion about the roles would be a good starting point so the volunteer and the ED can understand each other better!