The Best Management Advice I Ever Received
By Rob Cahill, co-founder and CEO, Jhana
When I first started managing, I thought a lot about myself: how I was doing with my team, how I didn’t want to be a terrible manager, things I could do to become a great manager. Yet when I first started out, the advice I got was “it’s not about you anymore.”
As an ambitious, career-driven, oldest-child, this advice was puzzling. I believed, as many others do, that when you become a manager, you’re finally in charge. You finally get the control you’ve always wanted. You can finally implement all your ideas, like I did with two younger brothers growing up.
That’s not what management is about. It doesn’t have anything to do with how much code you write in a day, or how terrific your new design for the website is, or how many deals you close. It has to do with how much code your team writes, how terrific your team’s new design is, how many deals your team closes. That might sound like a minor difference, but it isn’t. Getting great results out of a team of individuals requires a completely different skill set.
This advice, plus a lot of research and conversations with managers, has spawned six invaluable lessons for newly promoted managers.
- Acknowledge that you’re starting over. Management requires a completely different skill set from what you may have done as an individual contributor. You need to make the mental leap to manager.
- Expect that everyone will be watching. As a new manager, everything you say and do — and don’t say and don’t do — will send a message. Your new team members will be listening nervously and closely, because what you say and do will shape the trajectory of their careers. Your new boss will be wondering if you’ll live up to your potential. Other managers will be gauging their progress relative to yours. You need to be ready when the curtain goes up.
- Don’t rock the boat — at least not right away. It’s tempting to make big changes and decisions on day one. Not so fast. Even if you were promoted from within and understand the culture and politics of your company, you don’t know what you don’t know yet. Ask good questions. Listen more than you talk. Get the lay of the land.
- Learn the law. New managers aren’t always trained about the legalities of their positions. Are you familiar with discrimination laws? Do you know what you can do and say — and what you can’t? You’d better. Managers can be held personally liable for their actions, as well as their inactions. It’s not enough to be a good person or have common sense (although that helps).
- Manage up, down and laterally. New managers understandably tend to focus on managing their direct reports. But it’s just as important to manage up (i.e., your boss) and laterally (i.e., other teams and peer managers). You and your team are not an island. A successful manager has good field vision.
- Balance confidence with humility. Management is tough — tougher than many people realize. While you have every right to feel confident (after all, your company and its leaders have shown they are confident in you!), don’t fool yourself: this isn’t supposed to be easy.
I could tell story after story affirming just how important that original piece of advice was — it’s not about you. It’s about the people on your team. And people are complicated. People are difficult. People are more powerful than they realize. Your sacred job as manager is to enable them to achieve their potential.