Manager Advice #1- Your Role

So despite my wanting to rebrand, I have so many thoughts and learnings in my life from trying so many things, that instead of using my energy to explain and complain, I figure maybe I’d start some series that’s more advice than just confusion.

ie - I think too much and need a space to present my thoughts, experiences, and hopefully someone will learn. I would love for future managers to understand their role and expectations, because most companies just don't do a good job of training and educating us.

Much to my dismay, I found out a little too late in my management career what management was all really about than what I wanted it to be. That’s a fight a bet a bunch of management often has on the daily. You want to lead. You want to be successful. You want your team to be stars. You want to see people grow. You want to help your company grow. The funny thing is, directorship often tells you this is exactly what management will be, inspire you to go, and then you’ll rush headfirst into conflict and challenges, only to realize you have no power, HR actually controls what happens, and your leadership has the final say in just about everything you want your team to achieve.

You've got ideas. You've got drive. Yet, it's quickly disappearing the more you settle into the role. There’s a reason it’s called middle management. Here’s my attempt to help you settle in a bit before you try to be successful at it.

Management is preached as if you run the ship; you're the captain, sailing the seven seas and you've got a team at your disposal to help achieve all your amazing goals. Except... you're not. You lead a team the way you want, but your actual job and execution isn't about running the ship - it's about making sure your part of the ship is running well.

Most companies have some sort of authority chain like CEO —> Executive Leadership —> Senior Leadership —> Directors —> Managers —> Individual Contributors (IE - "employees"). Here's the thing for you to understand; you sit between the employees (what happens on the ground) and the directors/leaders above you (what happens in the clouds). So let's say you're a director, over 5 teams, who have a total of 35 employees working in all different areas. There's no real way you can do everything. You can lead by direction, you can filter some work, you can create goals and send them downward... but you can't be in tune with every team and what they are doing.

Managers do exactly that. As a manager, your role isn't to change the team and direction and what we're trying to achieve; rather it's to filter that direction and make sure it happens. On the other hand, the employees can't rely on a director to manage their day to day progress, their workload, or understand how to communicate to them in ways they can understand. As a manager though, you can do that, and really be in the weeds with them, while also being visible in higher leader's presence for a variety of reasons.

If you're a kitchen manager, the restaurant owner decides what we need to do to be successful. They determine the style of food, they buy the equipment, they make sure the menu and filter between front of house and kitchen is smooth. As the manager of a kitchen, it's your job to make sure the owner's systems are working, to make sure the equipment is clean and used properly, to ensure the food is quality and what the front of the house expects.

Let's say you're a tech manager. Your job is to listen to directors and leadership and understand what they want to do and make plans to achieve it. Meanwhile, the team's overhead, maintenance, support, and general planning is all in your hands. You're aim is to assign things to the right people, make the right moves, to accomplish the goals of your leadership.

You've probably heard this a hundred times, but what does it really mean? Well it means that when you were a worker/IC/employee, you likely did what you did very effectively and know your way around the area you are now leading. That's fine and all, and it's useful information, but you need to use it in a different way.

People first often is preached as if it's love and care of the employees you are over. Okay true, but what they don't tell you is that "people first" also means communication around your area, sometimes further. It means talking with HR appropriately. It means translating to upper management or ownership/investors in a way they can understand. It means working with leaders in your department, or who routinely need your team.

It also means the way people interpret and read things - which is where documentation, forms, training, and all that also come into play. There's a high degree of working with each other that is required. Yes, that does mean your "hands on" work degrades, but you should grow in these other areas.

As a leader, you see things beyond the curtain. You get insight to a lot more than you probably ever wanted to. You become a go to person, a face, and the rewarded individual for your team/area, but with all this new stuff you need to take care of, and all these people you need to interact with, that means that you can no longer be the end-state of everything.

I've been through several management and leader trainings, and they preach delegation, but putting it into practice is very difficult. You want to feel useful, you want to be rewarded for your work, you want to directly help... but you just can't without completely burning out... and rather quickly at that.

It took me a long time to realize this, but as a manager, your job isn't actually to get the work done, but rather to process it. Much like the "in between" section, you filter everything that comes in and out of your team. When you start adopting that mindset, delegation becomes a heck of a lot easier.

You are responsible for all of it, but there's also accountability below you as well.

This is hands down the most vital part of being a manager more than nearly everything else; making sure that work is flowing smoothly - both in and out of your team and individuals. If your team is slow, full of friction, can't handle new or old work, and is constantly in a pit of negative light, then you're workflow is probably the root cause.

It isn't really about the output or the productivity of your people; it's about how much resistance there is from entry point to completion. For example, in tech we receive tickets. Those tickets come in, they have to be triaged, determined if they're valid and in what time frame they need to be completed. Then they have to be assigned, prioritized, and worked accordingly, sometimes involving validation and deployment. That's a generic, simple, and frictionless workflow right there. Well understood, easy to talk about, and sits well with everyone.

For me, the workflow is everything. Not only a good workflow, but one that's well understood both internally and externally. It's like having a well oiled machine - the oil being what you provide as workflow.

There's something to be said about those managers that work with you and not over you. While yeah, you've probably worked with a manager that is great, but has no clue what you do on the daily, there's something to be said when you're working and your manager pulls up beside you with their sleeves rolled up. In tech where I work, they're called "technical managers" - IE managers who need to be both good with people and technology leaders. Think of it like being a lead and a manager all in one.

After you've settled well into management though, it will and should be no surprise, that you no longer have "tasks" to do; you just have this nebulous world of management with no real direction. Here's how you tackle this situation - fill the gap. Your team is short handed? Try to ease that pain. Your team suffers through paperwork and crap? Do your best to eat it. If you're corporate and their time is being eaten away by meetings, then take some of those on yourself, be a filter, or something. A certain type of work is falling behind? Overhead is killing the team? Too many projects? These are all ways you can feel "productive" whilst still being a manager at your core.

You'd be surprised how many ways you can insert yourself.

Here's some quick lessons I learned as a manager -

1. It's not a task based role and your value is no longer determined by what you can accomplish. It's a hard to pill to swallow.
2. People only truly recognize you when you screw up. If your team is not part of a conversation, it's probably a good thing, but don't expect positive reinforcement.
3. Clarity is a luxury. Often you're told to simply "get this thing done" with no real idea about what they want, or what you're supposed to do, how extreme or soft, who to connect with etc... but that's now part of your role to figure that out.
4. You are at more risk of being let go than an IC. As a manager, who you are and how you operate determine your usefulness to the company. If they change direction, you could be screwed, whereas an IC would have a chance to adapt.
5. Take direction, don't make it. As a manager, it's not your ship - you must take direction well, otherwise you're a rebel and a risk.

Being a leader is stressful by nature. It's not meant to be a walk in the park. You'll feel useless at times, you'll feel unheard, and you'll be lost more often than you want to be... but that's okay. A manager's job is to create the vision set by those above you, not to just perform runbooks or be a creative free artistic mind. It truly is an "in between" role.

I understand why we need managers, however, I have a motto as a manager - which is "if I could automate myself out of a job, then I win." If you're team runs smooth, you're probably not really even needed. It's not pointless job, but it's definitely one that's not needed in the case of near perfect processes and communication.

Anyway, as I start this series, I think understanding your role is very important. I hope this helps. See you in the next one!