Managing by example

What does it mean to be a good or even a great manager? How do you evaluate the performance of such a role?

These are questions that I have often ask myself. Because my first job is being a manager, not a CMO/VP REVOPS/COO, not a member of the management team. I took some time to reflect and here are my insights.

A dedicated track

“Manager” is a different track from being “Contributor/operational”, not better… not worse, just different.

Not everyone can or should be a manager, it is not a necessary step in your career. Especially since it requires 3 unique ingredients:

• willingness. Because too often people end up becoming managers since this is what is expected from them. I like to say that you need to have experienced a good manager to get this desire of becoming one;
• empathy. You need to care and love working with human beings, sharing their pains, their successes, and failures. Even the one that are not related to their jobs. No need to behave like a fatherly/motherly figure, just be there and listen. A quiet sit down is often a powerful tool;
• leadership. Your team will look up to you to make some sense out of everything that is happening in the organization. This is about vision, authority, legitimacy and many other traits that require a lot of confidence and assertiveness (or a bit of a leap of faith).

You need to have experienced a good manager to get this desire of becoming one.

One style many shades

We typically say that a manager must adapt to his.her team. Sure, this is a must, since expectations and needs differ widely within a team. Some need constant reinsurance and pat on their shoulders, others prefer wide autonomy, and so forth.

But even if you make adjustments depending on your team members, you need to define your style to do so you can simply answer the following questions:

• How much autonomy do you want to give?
• How much are you willing to delegate decision-making?
• Are you setting high or low level targets and objectives?
• Is achieving goals a strong requirement, or do you value the effort first?
• Are you focusing on the "how" or the "why"?
• Is your trust gained or given?
• What is the proximity you are willing to build with your team?

Of course, you can find online archetypes of management style, but I'd rather go for something more practical… and ideally shared with the people you manage to ease relationships and manage expectations (Look at my User Manual article)

You need to define your management style and rules of engagement

Delivering for your team

You want to be a manager, you have what it takes, and you have defined your way. Now it is time to start delivering on what is expected from a good manager.

I often say that, as a manager, my role is first and foremost to get people (from my team but also others) to grow. To bring them my expertise, my experiences but also my vision (as a specialist, as a team member and as an employee too).

Here is a run-through of everything that can be expected from you (from your team, but also management and other departments):

1. Effective communication: you will ensure that communication flows correctly within the team and across the company. Communication should be organized and frequent, whether it's planned or a reaction to a situation. Of course, you are just one of the many voices in your team, but yours might be carrying more, and people will be expecting you to represent them. I still recommend that you make sure that your team members get a chance at showcasing what they have done and get a share of the spotlight.
2. Setting clear goals and expectations: you will clearly communicate what is expected of your team and ensure that everyone is working towards the same objectives. I usually set a first layer of macro objectives (similar to the "O" part of OKRs) and let the team split those into their own objectives (the "Key Results"). In addition, I enforce that topics not related to the objectives are postponed.
3. Prioritizing tasks and delegating responsibilities: you will help your team prioritize projects and tasks. This is essential since the manager is the person with the broad vision and ability to plan in advance. You will also make sure that responsibilities are clear between each member. This is crucial to being able to delegate tasks and topics to your team along the way.
4. Providing support and resources: you will provide the necessary resources and support to your team to help them achieve their tasks effectively and efficiently. You are not the expert of all topics, far from it, but you can help with methodology and challenging the thinking process and the execution. I often stick to asking question to help them find a way to solve their issues.
5. Providing feedback: you will give constructive feedback to your team members in a timely manner, both to help them improve and to recognize their efforts and achievements. Always make sure that your feedback frequency is adapted to your team expectations. I always remind people that feedback works both ways. They need to feel as comfortable to receive feedback than to give them (even to their manager).
6. Building and maintaining relationships: you will build strong relationships with your team members and other stakeholders. This will allow you to get more honest feedback, better support and will vastly simplify your day to day. The manager is a bit like an ambassador that builds and maintains bridges between departments. I always make sure that I spend the same amount of time with people outside than inside my team.
7. Managing conflict: you will be able to effectively resolve conflicts within the team and maintain a positive and productive work environment. Like any coach, you are expected to make sure the team works well together, clarifying the scope of everyone, ensuring fairness in treatment while helping the team leverage each other ability. I recommend making the strength of each member clear for everyone, having a round-robin leadership on projects and a set of common goals / metrics to limit tensions.
8. Building, communicating and consolidating the vision: you will provide guidance to your team by being a lighthouse in the storm. You have a responsibility to help them understand the company strategy and vision. Usually, I make sure that I share with them my vision, the team mission and what I understand from every decision made in the Executive Committee or Board. Keep in mind that business acumen and the understanding of the dynamics in an organization are not the same for everyone.
9. Making decisions: you will be able to make well-informed and effective decisions, taking into account the needs and goals of the team and the organization. I typically tell my team that I'm here to help them make the decision, but they need to provide me with options, context and their own recommendations.
10. Leading by example: you will demonstrate your leadership by setting an example for your team and walking the talk. It is important since you will have a direct impact on the way your team will perceive management and managers. I often say that, as a manager, you are the product of your managers. You need to embrace your experiences and pick what suits you to define how you will behave in your role.

My role is first and foremost to get people to grow

Feedback and KPIs

So how do you measure that you are delivering on this promise? What should be your KPIs?

Let's be honest, this is not an easy task. To assess my performance as your manager, I usually make sure that:

• My 1:1 dedicated to career and development (+ other HR topics) includes employee feedback
• The yearly review includes a section to evaluate my role as a manager and that we discuss my involvement in the other sections (what was my role in the achievements and the failures, for example).
• I send regular survey (yes, really) to get a sense of how my team is reacting to what I deliver: training sessions, team building, kickoffs…
• I evaluate the growth of the team through a skills grid that is used to define individual plans

Ultimately, some other signals help me feel good about my performance: former team members still contacting me after some years to discuss a career or work issue, members of other teams coming to me for guidance or asking to participate in my trainings/meetings and lastly, other managers sharing with me their challenges. I'm also blessed with the career that my team members are pursuing, the promotions and roles they are able to get. :)

My 6 tips

Good things come in threes.

Yes, I could have started with that, but I'm not a B2B influencer and I felt that this article was worth a read in its entirety. :)

• Open up: Explain who you are, how you work. Mirror what you expect people to share with you, so they feel at ease with sharing with you while making sure that you strike the right balance!
• Don't be a showstopper: Work for your team. Make sure that you are not a bottleneck when it comes to decisions or feedback. Make your team a priority to keep the ball rolling. This will also reduce the burden you might feel on your shoulders.
• Be demanding: It is easy to become comfortable and forget that to help your team grow, you must push them to excel in what they do. Setting challenging targets, pushing the envelope and giving detailed feedback will help them thrive. Most of them expect this from you.
• Defend transparency: Trust is central to a performing team, and you must make sure that honesty and transparency are everywhere. Of course, some information must remain confidential, but if you explain decisions (yours and others) and the process behind them, you will support a transparent environment.
• Autonomy is dynamic: Depending on projects, people and context, your delegating will change. You must embrace that and make it explicit to your team, so they don't feel frustrated when you jump in or enforce a lot of control.
• Don't be alone: Organize managers chats. Within your organization, there are multiple managers who might be struggling with the sames topics and dealing with similar issues: trust, empowerment, delegating, handling low performers, etc. Having a safe space to discuss these topics is essential to be a highly performing manager. The plus: it creates a management culture within the company that is shared between managers; meaning that people can expect the same behaviour from any manager.