It Was Me : On Responsibility

A confession: I used to be the kind of manager of people who had a hard time taking ownership of some of the news I had to communicate to my team. I definitely more than once reported internal information as if it came "from on high" and from "them." I had yet to really understand the importance of the role I played, and even more, the importance of owning responsibility for my section of the business.

Two Stakeholders to Please

When you manage, you have a team that counts on you for guidance and support. You also have people above you in the hierarchy that count on you to lead that team towards executing the needs of the business. A good manager must strive to facilitate their team's success. A great manager does so while staying aligned with the intentions of the larger organization.

I understand why it sometimes feels difficult to do this. Sometimes, we don't fully agree with a decision. Many times (and I know this only now that I sit at an executive level), something just doesn't make sense, usually because you can't be brought in to understand all the facets of a decision.

I'll give you one I hear a lot as an example: people tend to mistake "revenue" with "money we can spend on things we want and need." We're making all this money, someone will reason, so why can't we just hire a few more people to lighten the load?

But this is a letter to you about responsibility, and I'll get back to that by talking through a manager's role in all this.

A manager interprets the organization's directions and guidance and then aligns their team with that information. They explain the larger story as much as they can and then keep their team focused on the parts that matter most to their goals.

The "Buddy" Manager

I think where sometimes this falls down is when managers try hardest to preserve their perception of relationships with the teams they lead. I know that's what I used to do. I went out with my guys all the time. We worked all hours of the night together. We were a solid unit, company be damned.

Except while I was striving to be a great manager by being "one of the guys," I was rarely improving the team's ability to deliver in more effective ways. I also was, under the guise of hoping to shield them from "bad news," not telling them everything. (It wasn't scary or nefarious, mind you. I just could've shared more.)

Your employees don't want a "good friend." They want someone who can explain objectives clearly, who helps with prioritization, decision making, collaboration between departments, and with developing skills and capabilities to improve their current roles. And they want someone who will be straight with them.

I especially find this fascinating around feedback. I've seen more than a few managers wince while giving out feedback. You know, they'll say, "I really need to talk about your performance lately. It feels like-" >wince< "-you're slowing down a bit, and that's generally fine, but it's starting to really back up the process."

Why the emotional reaction? You're calling out something that needs addressing, to see if there's some other unknown reason as to why this is happening, and to ask for a different level of response. That's not "bad news." It's performance tuning. Can you imagine a professional tennis player's coach saying, "Everything you do is flawless and please don't change a thing." No one wants that.

Good Management is About Clarity

More than anything else, I think clarity and expectation-setting are the cores around which every other management skill must circle. When I ask a manager what the team's working on, I want to see an easy way to review their work streams. When an employee on a team asks the manager where they should be prioritizing their time and efforts, this should be an easy thing to answer.

When it comes to performance evaluation, this is all the same, also. "Hey, I really like the quality of the work you're doing, but I wonder if we can talk about how we prioritize it. I feel like you spend more time on your favorite projects, and not necessarily the ones that the company thinks are most important. Can we work on aligning this better?"

That's not a wrong thing to say. It's a responsible thing to say. And that's the point.

Own the Role

Some people are great team leaders. I'm so very fortunate to work with many right now. When I wrote the other day about every "Luke" needing a "Yoda," I had a specific pair of people in mind, but I work around a ton of great Yodas. (Now, that's a sentence that's weird out of context.)

A leader works for the team they serve, and they translate that to the people who look to them for guidance.

But even as I write this, I realize that another part of ownership is knowing what parts of the work are supposed to be in the hands of the people you work with. I had a talk with someone the other day who reports up to me a few layers removed. They asked for my opinion on something, and I had one. I just asked for theirs first. Theirs was right. I said, "You're the boss of this decision. I'm glad you ran it by me to confirm and gain confidence that you made the right call. And you did. So you can just own that decision the next time. Good by you?" And it was.

Meaning, owners also "let go" of having to micromanage things. Leaders at every level should learn how to empower their people, and take responsibility for that as well.

We owe it to the people we serve.

Don't you agree?

Chris...