First, Be a Great Manager
Every new manager will have a moment when they discover that their theory of how to approach their job runs smack into a harsh reality: human beings are complicated. And as much as you’d like to hope that everyone would always act professionally and be a team player to achieve shared goals, the reality is that you are going to spend far more time than you expect dealing with people’s emotions.
It is not your job to play therapist to your direct reports. “Managing people can be incredibly intensive, time-consuming, and at times highly emotional,” said Nina Link, the former CEO of the Association of Magazine Media. “And for people who want to be liked, it is really hard. But I often tell people that these are not your friends and they’re not your children, and you are not in the social work business. There is a difference between being liked and being respected.”
While people are indeed complicated, you will notice that there are certain patterns for why direct reports come to you. Understanding them will help create some emotional distance for you as a manager so that every interaction doesn’t feel like a brand-new problem. You will say to yourself, “I’ve seen this movie before,” which will contribute to your sense of calm and confidence. Mike Nichols, the legendary director whose film credits include The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, said that every scene in a film typically falls into one of three categories: a seduction, a negotiation, or a fight. In the same vein, it’s an interesting exercise to ask, What are some of the most common reasons people want to talk to their manager?
Given how hungry people are for recognition, why don’t managers do it more? “Managers can feel overwhelmed by the thought of ‘now I have to recognize my people,’ as if it’s another thing on their long to-do list,” Shafer said. “The fact that they feel like they don’t have the time is a myth. It only takes less than a minute, and it doesn’t cost anything. But the main reason people don’t recognize other people is that they have not been recognized themselves enough to know how to do it well for others, and so they don’t. They don’t know the difference that their recognition will mean for other people. They think, ‘We’re paying these people, so why should we have to recognize them?’ Or they think sometimes that it will show favoritism and they don’t want to get caught in that trap. They also might think that other people are already recognizing them, so why do they have to do it? They think it will set a precedent or be seen as an instant performance review that might be invoked when a tougher discussion has to occur. But the net of it all is just that people want to know, do I matter?
You will discover over time, if you haven’t already, that most of the problems that come up when you work with people are caused by miscommunication or lack of communication. Emails, while certainly useful for many things, are often fraught. Tone is lost, and people read hidden meaning into them—often that the sender is sterner than they intended. The solution? Pick up the phone, walk down the hall, or jump on a video call. A good rule of thumb is that if you’re writing an email to quickly make a problem go away, then that’s precisely the kind of message that you should deliver verbally.
Having the conversation—having lots of them—is also the best guiding principle for coaching people about their work. If you make feedback part of the daily conversation with somebody so that it’s just part of the mix, then people will become somewhat desensitized to it and less likely to get their back up.
Carol Bartz, the former CEO of Yahoo, had a memorable shorthand about the importance of in-the-moment feedback. “When a puppy pees on the carpet,” she said, “you say something right then rather than saying six months later, ‘Remember that day, January 12th, when you peed on the carpet?’ That doesn’t make any sense. Better to say, ‘This is what’s on my mind. This is quick feedback.’ And then I’m on to the next thing.”
Win Promotions without Asking for Them
It may seem like a paradox, but the best way to get promoted is to focus on the job you have and to do it really well. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t let your bosses know about your ambitions—and it’s about striking the right balance. Every organization is filled with workhorses and show ponies. The workhorses keep their heads down, grinding it out every day without complaining, while the show ponies focus more on managing up, always searching for credit for work they did (and didn’t do). Yes, there may be times when you need to get in touch with your inner show pony, but know that workhorses win the long game. Being reliable and dependable, and someone that your bosses can always count on to deliver, will set you apart. “The world is not necessarily run by geniuses,” said Ron Kaplan, the former CEO of Trex, which makes outdoor decking materials. “It’s run by people you can count on.”
Bosses want to work with, and promote, people who have a steady and quiet work ethic, who take pride in doing their job well, whatever they are asked to do, and focus on how to best contribute to the team. That’s not an either-or proposition. We are all a mix of doing things for the team and for ourselves, but your bosses are paying you to do a job, to solve problems for them, and they don’t want to be always hearing about what you want to do next. It’s good to be ambitious, and to let people know about your goals, but don’t let your ambitions overshadow your commitment to delivering in the job you have now.
What if it’s not your dream job? Again, it’s about shifting your mindset, your attitude. The job you found yourself in may not have been part of your career plan. But see it as an opportunity to learn as much you can, to transform it, to do it better than anybody has done it before you or will do it after you. You may ultimately decide you won’t like it, but give it a shot. “You have to be willing to treat any job as if it’s your dream job,” said Ken Lombard, the CEO of Bridge Housing Corporation, a nonprofit developer and manager of affordable housing. “My approach has been that if I performed in any opportunity I was given, I always found that there would be other opportunities that would come up.”
It is just as important as establishing a track record of performance in a variety of roles. “When you talk about getting to the most senior levels, it’s less about the work and more about the network and your impact and how you market and brand what you’re working on,” said Mary Elizabeth Porray, global deputy vice chair for client technology for EY, the consulting firm. “So make sure that you’re focusing 50 percent on what you know and 50 percent on who you know.”
You may work for a company that already offers mentoring and sponsorship programs. By all means take advantage of them. But don’t stop there. Don’t outsource this all-important part of your career to someone else’s program. There are a lot of approaches to recruiting mentors and sponsors, and you’ll have to choose the one that feels right for you.
think of it as another relationship that you build slowly over time, but one that could potentially be more meaningful to your career than someone who is part of your broader network. Too many people jump ahead and pop the big question—“Will you be my mentor?”—too soon, before they build a solid foundation of getting to know each other.
Make the Leap to Leader
Early in their careers, people are taught to hone their elevator pitch. Typically, those pitches are meant to answer one of two questions: What are you working on? Or what do you want to do? Because you never quite know who you’re going to run into, you have to have these tight scripts ready to make the most of those chance encounters with a senior leader at your company or with a prospective employer. But as you move into leadership positions, you have to have another elevator pitch ready that answers the question, “Who are you as a leader?”
Imagine moving into a new role with a new team, and you sit down for the first meeting to get to know each other. Yes, they will want to know your plan for the group. They will be curious about your work style and preferences, the kinds of things that you might want to share with them from your leadership user manual. But there is a bigger question that you should be prepared to address: What values are important to you?
If you spend time developing a meaningful answer to this question, it will contribute to your authenticity as a leader. By making clear what is important to you, you draw lines in the sand for behaviors that you will encourage and will not tolerate—for yourself and others. A big part of developing trustworthiness as a leader is that you are predictable, in the best sense of the word, because you are clear about your values.
As you move up, the decisions you face will get harder, and the problems you encounter will grow more complicated. “I didn’t understand at the beginning how much of my job involved not having a good day,” said Todd Rovak, recalling when he moved into his first CEO role at Fahrenheit 212, a consulting firm. “People are not usually coming to me to high-five. My job is to get into the problems and make decisions. When I started, it felt like I was having these dark meetings every day, and I felt like I wasn’t doing my job well. But when I accepted that as part of the job, I was so much better at it and felt so much more positive within it.”
This is how leadership becomes lonelier, and it is true for every leadership position. You will become more accountable for the decisions you make, and you will have to make more gut calls, because the tougher problems often have less data to guide your thinking. As much as the business world likes to wrap decisions in the trappings of analysis and precise forecasts, make no mistake—you are making bets, and you have to become more comfortable in the uncertainty of whether they will pay off.
You can find plenty of decision-making frameworks with a quick internet search, such as doing a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and separating out decisions that are reversible and those that are not.