This is an old post of mine, but still a favorite:
In my first job out of grad school I was told, in a performance evaluation no less, to “do my hair and wear more lipstick.”
When it comes to management, that definitely goes in the “don’t” column.
Over the years, that lesson and a number of others have made their way into my consciousness as a (previously unwritten) set of “rules” I use to guide my behavior as a manager.
People are at the heart of any change. To make change happen, you have to have people who can make change happen.
So consider this a tribute to all of those people I’ve known—whether as manager or the one managed. This is what you’ve taught me:
- Understand that your primary job is to remove obstacles from your staff’s path. That includes you. If you’re in the way, move.
- Empower them. Give them authority, give them confidence, give them space to do their job.
- Be their best advocate. Your staff always gets the credit for a job well done. You take the blame when things don’t go well. This is a conscious decision. Never throw your staff under the bus.
- Be empathic. Empathy is required, and can’t be taught. Improved, yes. Taught, no.
- Don’t give anyone a task you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself. And if it’s a real crap task, make sure you acknowledge that. Bonus points if you apologize for it, too.
- A corollary: Don’t establish (or enforce) rules you don’t follow yourself. What’s good for you is good for them, and vice versa. Different sets of rules for management and staff breed discontent.
- People will reach the bar wherever you set it. If you set the bar low, don’t be surprised when they don’t aim higher.
- Set expectations, not executions. Your way is not the only way—and their way could be better.
- If there’s a problem, address it. Right away. Privately. Problems don’t just go away. Respect your staff enough to give them a chance to correct what’s wrong. Shame doesn’t motivate.
- Go for “no surprises.” Just like a performance review shouldn’t be the first time your staff hears about a problem, the day of a deadline should not be the first time you hear something’s not getting done. Don’t blindside them, and they won’t blindside you. But set this expectation up early.
- When hiring, temperament is more important than experience. Typically, we hire for skills and fire for personality. But skills can be taught, fit can’t.
- Your staff don’t belong to you. You have succeeded as a manager when you coach someone into a higher and better position—whether in your organization or out of it. Don’t be selfish.
- 99% of the time people do the right thing without being told. Don’t manage to the 1%. Trust people to do the right thing. They will.
- Tell them what you know. Tell them what you don’t know. And tell them what you know but can’t tell—and why. Overcommunicate. Lack of information causes many more problems than too much.
- Praise in public. Critique in private.
- Only critique the professional, not the personal. Yes, that’s hard to do when you’re addressing a personal behavior, but you have to do the work of figuring out how to relate that to the professional environment. Otherwise you’re in the realm of telling people to “wear more lipstick.” Not acceptable.
- Respect their time. Especially when they’re meeting with you. Be punctual. Be relevant. Be useful. If you meet over lunch, feed them. If you ask them to work late, let them have that time somewhere else.
- Let them vent.
- You don’t have to know how to do what your staff does. But you do need to know what they need from you, what they care about, what gets in their way, and what their goals are. And you need to know why they consider what they do important.
- Don’t micromanage. Goldfish will grow as big as their tank can accommodate. Give your staff an ocean, not a teacup.
- They don’t have to like you, but they do have to respect you. But you have to earn respect. You can’t legislate it. Oppression breeds rebellion, especially if it seems arbitrary. You’ll get as much respect as you give.
- Mistakes are fine. Just not the same mistake, and not more than once. The first mistake is usually your fault. The second is theirs. Or yours, if you didn’t address the first one.
- When something goes wrong, blame is useless. Find out what happened only so you can help your staff figure out how to avoid repeating the mistake. If you use the discovery process to lay the basis for punishment, you’ll never, ever get the real story again.
- Your staff will do what you do, not what you say. Your staff is a reflection of you. If you don’t like what you’re seeing, look to yourself.
- You are nothing without them.
What’s on your list? What would you add?
I’d like to think I characterise many of these attributes, Tamsen. (Indeed, one of my staff sent me this link saying she thought I showed “most, if not all, of these characteristics,” so I must be getting at least some of it right.)
The most rewarding outcome of this kind of approach is a high-performance team. I had the happy experience during a company retreat a few years back of asking my team to select between four distinct styles for various attributes of our company. The point of the exercise was not that any of the four styles was better or worse but that the company ought to be aligned on the same style across all attributes.
One of the attributes was leadership style and this was the only attribute on which their choice did not align with the others. In discussing it with them, I learned that they saw me as more of an inspirational leader (bless their hearts) rather than as the standard-setter that aligned with the rest of the attributes.
The reality is that I do set a very high bar for performance within my company. The reality also is that my team members consistently clear that bar by such a wide margin that they are unaware of its very existence.
That’s a pretty good place for a manager to find her or himself.
I’d like to think I characterise many of these attributes, Tamsen. (Indeed, one of my staff sent me this link saying she thought I showed “most, if not all, of these characteristics,” so I must be getting at least some of it right.)
The most rewarding outcome of this kind of approach is a high-performance team. I had the happy experience during a company retreat a few years back of asking my team to select between four distinct styles for various attributes of our company. The point of the exercise was not that any of the four styles was better or worse but that the company ought to be aligned on the same style across all attributes.
One of the attributes was leadership style and this was the only attribute on which their choice did not align with the others. In discussing it with them, I learned that they saw me as more of an inspirational leader (bless their hearts) rather than as the standard-setter that aligned with the rest of the attributes.
The reality is that I do set a very high bar for performance within my company. The reality also is that my team members consistently clear that bar by such a wide margin that they are unaware of its very existence.
That’s a pretty good place for a manager to find her or himself.
It’s always interesting, isn’t it, to get an assessment like that from your employees? Clearly they hold you in high regard — congratulations on that. That’s never an easy task.
Make nap time obligatory.
Amen! I have regularly suggested my employers install a nap room of some sorts. Sadly, that’s yet to happen. 🙂
Best choice 🙂
Make nap time obligatory.
Best choice:)
Thanks for sharing this list, Tamsen. I love this post. Mentoring and management is so important to me and I think this is something that people talk about in our fast-paced world, but don’t always focus on. Something that I would add to the list is being sincere. Say thank you, but be specific about why. I try to always be clear on what the team did really well so they can repeat it in the future and teach others.
Sincerity an simplicity are both *excellent* additions. Thank you!
This is a classic. One that I will bookmark and link to frequently.
G’day Tamsen, while most of your points may help build and maintain relationships, I’m not convinced this is a list about either management or leadership.
The fundamental nature of management is that it is an activity in an organisation. An organisation is something that is formed by people with shared values and a vision, and in the business world that vision should be about delighting the customer/client.
There is nothing in your list about creating a framework around delighting the customer. For example, this is how to avoid the blame game – approach fixing the problem from the starting point of needing to delight the customer. If you do this, you’ll be amazed how many times you realise you’ve actually identified a success barrier to be removed from the way of yourself and the staff, rather than a real problem requiring an individual solution.
I’m afraid that I can’t adopt any list that doesn’t have the word LISTEN written in caps, bolded and massive point sizes at least once for every point on the list!
Perhaps the list also needs greater recognition of Anita Roddick’s great adage, “We went looking for employees, but people turned up instead.”
The list also includes the “earn respect” approach. I’ve disagreed on this one before with your colleague Amber and we’ve been having a great discussion on it at the Australian Institute of Management LinkedIn group. In my view, trust and respect should be starting points. If you feel you need to earn respect from your people, then you will (consciously or unconsciously) feel that your people need to earn your respect as well. You will usually as a result be put into the “action don’t match the words” category. Remember, they’ve become your people in the first place which means that somehow they already shown that they should be there. More importantly, trust and respect as a starting point in your life is a fundamental basis for avoiding and eliminating discrimination in a society. Again, you can’t speak one way in the broader world and act another way at work.
It’s interesting that you do have a starting point of trusting your people to do the right thing but see a different approach to respect. If you approach both as things that can be lost instead of earnt, you’ll find a major change to how you approach people and manage performance.
So while the list is ok (although I’d have to say very micro), I would suggest that the frameworks and foundations for making an approach like this work aren’t identified.
Cheers, geoff
Geoff– Thanks so much for your thoughtful response. To your first point, the post was more about one-to-one management of people, not management or leadership of an organization. I completely agree that, on a macro level, management is about leading and organization (and it’s people) to serve the customers it both has and wants. Personally, I believe that process works from the inside out, that — with a macro vision in hand — the execution of a vision happens at the micro, one-on-one level. Even the best visions can fail at the level of actual execution, and that relies on the effective day-to-day management of the people responsible. This list was intended to better inform those specific interactions.
You’re absolutely correct that listening is critical to good management, both at the macro level (where you’re listening to the marketplace) and the micro (where you’re listening to your staff, management, and colleagues and their day-to-day challenges). While I believe listening is inherent in most, if not all, of the points I listed, you’re right to point out that it’s *so* important that it likely requires it’s own specific callout.
I would also suggest that *every* point supports the view of employees as people first, employees second. I’ll think hard on how I could make those points stronger in any future versions of these thoughts.
On the point of respect, which for reasons of brevity I didn’t go into in this particular post, I believe there are two types of respect: granted (the authority and respect that are inherent in one’s position in an organization) and earned (which is respect given above and beyond that granted). My approach has always been to start with others from a position of respect — they are people first, after all, and deserve respect for that alone.
I trust AND respect first, always. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Thanks again for reading — and for taking the time to comment.
Thus is an incredibly incisive list. Thanks for reposting this gem.
Great post Tamsen! Many line and staff employees can also apply these to their daily routines and longterm goals as well.
These are all very important lessons learned. Two that hit home for me are “empower them” and “don’t micromanage.” A former boss was a chronic micromanager, and I learned from her that I never want to be that type of manager! But thanks to former and current bosses who empowered me to spearhead projects and learn through trial-and-error, I feel like I’ve learned more than I could have ever expected after five years. I’ve also learned managing is no easy task! Thanks for sharing what you’ve learned. 🙂
Sadly, I work in an office which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of every single item on this list. I’m not exaggrating. Every. Single. Item.
Oh, no! Time for an exit strategy?
Definitely. I’ve only been there a few months. I’m hoping to make it through a full year so my resume doesn’t make me look flighty. Been keeping my eyes and ears open, though.
Great concise list on management principles. I wish the application were as easy as speaking them out. I re-posted this list on my blog.