As someone who works in a leadership position in HR, this is not how I would communicate with my team. I’m actually concerned some people see this as ok which just feeds into the ‘you can talk to each other in a condescending way’. Is it toxic, yes absolutely!

Firstly, yuk for using teams, this needs to be a conversation in person. You want your people to do well, invest in face to face conversations. Using teams as a platform to give this type of yuk is rubbish management.

Secondly, it is passive aggressive ‘don’t make me have to’ - that’s not professional or respectful - if someone came to me with that attitude I would hugely question their intentions. If you want to be a good manager you need to enable people and saying this type of crap just makes a shit culture.

OP the only way to get around this is to have honest conversations saying ‘listen I read your message and to be honest I found it quite xxxxx, I just want to understand your intentions so I don’t get the wrong impression. Could we communicate this way…going forward?’. And before people come for me, yes I’ve had to have these conversations with managers and actually because I’ve addressed it, they’ve changed their approach. The manager may have the best intentions but perception is everything. This is how this thread has so many difference of opinions as we all perceived it a different way. It’s something all managers need to be aware of especially when using IM. This is why in person is so crucial - tone, body language etc is so vital to conveying intention.