The Top 5 Phrases That Molded Me as a Manager

We are constantly influenced by the world and people around us. I am no exception and, in this article, I am going to share my top 5 phrases which influenced me as a manager:

“To be an optimist is part of the manager’s job description”

In the early days of my formal leadership career, I struggled with a challenging project with tough deadlines, many problems, and 2 sub-teams, which was quite a lot for a newcomer as a team leader or engineering manager. I remember staying late to help with the next delivery when we found a problem. Neither the first one nor the last one but it was frustrating as deadlines were coming and it was already late in the day. I went to one of my more senior managers and I sat back in the chair. “Another one, another problem!!!” - I said quietly but frustrated, and obviously, I sounded desperate. Then he looked at me and said: “It will be fine, we will fix it.” with a bit of a smile. I was puzzled, he knew it was neither that easy to fix it nor likely by the deadline. Then I realized that I was just a piece of the puzzle and this person had several more managers and teams to deal with. Then I asked: “How can be so optimistic?” and the answer stuck in my mind till now, more than 7 years later “It is in the manager’s job description to be an optimist, didn’t we tell you when we hired you” answered him with a wide smile. It made me smile, too but also to think about this. Very often, when I am overwhelmed by problems I remember this phrase and it cheers me up and probably gives me always the belief that we can get things better.

“You can do anything but you can’t do everything”

Continuing from the previous paragraph and thought. We all have had moments when we were overwhelmed with problems and things to do. At such moments, it is important for me that I stay calm, I don't give in to emotion, which is very important when you work with people. But how to be calm when you have tons of competing priorities and problems? Then I always remember this phrase, which is quite popular but I heard it first time ~5-6 years ago by one of my managers and mentors. “You can do anything but you can’t do everything”, Decide what will help you most to offload yourself and what is the most urgent and important thing that deserves your attention. Is there something you can delegate and is there something that only you can do? So what is the one thing that most deserves your attention, You can do it, but you can’t do everything.

“Think big, act small”?

A phrase that was often repeated by one of the people who was my mentor in leadership and management for the longest. Why did it influence me that much? Because I’ve seen it in practice and I start practicing it in many situations. No matter if you are a manager who planning the future of a department or a company in 3 or 5 years' time, or being an engineer starting from scratch a new solution, this phrase can help you to achieve your goals. It's hard to do everything at once (see phrase 2), and big, sudden changes are usually impactful, even if the end goal might require them. Then break it down into smaller steps. Think that each of these steps should bring you to the final goal and start acting. Think of the inspiring end goal and work on smaller steps to get there. This is very applicable in engineering when you need to start with PoC and MVP before you do a complete design and scalable solution.

“There is no failure, only feedback”

I was in a training session for personal excellence when I heard this phrase. I know it is famous and probably all of you heard it, but I like it because people accept very hard failures. And I like to say that it is about the perception. We always say - “Half empty or half full glass” or “Look from the bright side” and this phrase is just another similar example, but it is somehow more powerful for me. I worked for years in a blame environment where learning from mistakes was highly encouraged and this phrase really reminded me every time something goes wrong to give myself some time for self-reflection and think, about what I might do differently next time and what I can learn from what it happened. I love learning in general, but with this, you can only become a stronger and better version of what you are.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish and a vision without strategy is just an illusion”

When I became a manager of managers, I started exercising more strategic thinking and making plans for the future. While working on some ideas around how the area I’ve been responsible for can develop in the future, I was describing “desires”, “wishes” and “vision” in the future of great innovative ideas and solved problems. But when I started putting all these together, I remembered 'Think big, act small' and started thinking, how we can get there? Well, I needed a plan and strategy to achieve it. Funny enough, after working in workshops with my leadership team, I’ve started collecting everything in a slide deck and looking for quotes that can help me present better the thinking process and I found these two “A goal without a plan is just a wish”, “A vision without a strategy is just an illusion”. I really liked them and combined them and often remember when I see somebody excited talking about the future, but rarely had the thought of: “how do we get there?”.

What are the phrases that have most influenced you?