Managers: Before You Move Your Team Forward, Take These 3 Steps Back
Jami Zakem Coaching & Consulting
Customer Success Consulting, Leadership Training and Executive Coaching
Forget about your title, for a moment. Instead of a Director of Product or Sales Manager, think of yourself as simply, people leader.
This is where I always start when training first-time managers or revisiting the basics with people who have been managing for years. It’s helpful to clarify what a people manager is and isn’t. Since no one really spells it out for you, I want to walk you through this foundational exercise. What follows may surprise you.
Step 1 — List your responsibilities
Think about the people who report to you. What are your role and responsibilities as their leader? Take a couple minutes to list all the things that you are responsible for as someone’s manager.??
Typically when I do this with a group of managers, I end up with a list that looks something like this:
It’s a huge job, right??
Step 2 — Categorize your responsibilities
How would you categorize these responsibilities?
I’ve found that?responsibilities logically fall into these buckets.
领英推荐
The column headers give you a good sense of what your responsibilities are:
This isn't a definitive list but it helps to organize the wide ranging responsibilities.
Step 3 — Prioritize your responsibilities
Since you can’t tackle all of this at once, where do you start?
The topics highlighted in blue are what I’ve identified, and know to be true, as the necessary building blocks to be a strong manager. This is what ManagerBASICS is all about.
The blue blocks are the foundation—the make-or-break skills that you need to know out of the gate as a manager. Without these building blocks, I’ve watched many managers fall short of their potential to be great. The rest of these responsibilities are no less important but ones you can learn over time.
Ready to move your team forward?
Now that you have a sense of your role and responsibility as a people manager, let's take a look at the five things you need to know about the people you manage.
Email [email protected] to book a ManagerBASICS workshop for your company. If you’re a manager and your company doesn’t offer a program like this, sign up for one of our upcoming cohorts.