"You're the best manager I've ever had."
These words from an internal transfer surprised me. They had been working for me about a month when this came up. This person had been in industry for over 10 years. I was still new to being a manager with direct reports.
You may be wondering what prompted this statement. A few days earlier I had assigned them to a challenging task. It was a electrical engineering task - I'm trained as a mechanical engineer and consider all things electrical akin to voodoo - so I was relying on this person with an electrical background to help determine the path forward. I gave them a high-level overview of the problem to be solved, suggested (not required) a starting point and empowered them to dig in, with a promise to follow up couple of days later to see what questions they had. It was about 5 minutes into that follow-up conversation that the declaration was made.
Setting clear expectations and providing support to my employee made me the best manager they'd ever had. Wow, what a low bar!
This exchange made me sad for the employee - they were a hard worker who strove to contribute to the team to help move the project to the finish line. They were the type of employee any leader would dream about. The kind of person a leader wants in their pipeline to develop for future needs.
As a leader, I feel very strongly that it is my responsibility to set my employees up for success to the best of my ability. This is not the same as having all the answers, far from it. If a leader had all the answers, they wouldn't need a team. Setting a team up for success means giving them a framework that allows them to work together to find the answers.
The following elements are key to setting people up for success:
- Clear Expectations - Clear expectations set your team on shortest path to the best results. As humans in the 21st century, we excel at doubting ourselves and questioning if we're doing the right thing the right way. Lack of clarity is a sure-fire way to set your team on the path to major swirl, and the bigger the team the higher the swirl-factor.
- Assume Good Intent - Most folks are motivated to do a good job. When things are not going well, many leaders are quick to point fingers or blame the team. If I'm not seeing the results I'm expecting, the first thing I do is check my messaging. Turns out I'm not always as clear as I think. I know what I expect, so I'm going to be biased towards thinking I'm giving clear direction.
- Naming Challenges - We live in an increasingly complex world, so chances are folks are tackling complicated projects. When I'm asking a team member to do something challenging, I like to acknowledge that up front. I've found this to be akin to a permission slip to ask for help. We're conditioned to think we should have all the answers and that something's wrong with us if we can't do something all on our own. Every single day I see evidence of the truth of the adage about the whole being bigger than the sum of the parts when it comes to teamwork.
- Open Door Policy - It's not always obvious up-front what kind of support will be needed, so it's imperative that your team members feel comfortable reaching out - for questions, for guidance, for a sounding board, etc.
- Knowledge-Sharing - Sharing key information that the rest of the team may not possess is an important element to setting folks up for success. Perhaps you have bigger picture context to share with the team, or knowledge of a downstream pitfall of what initially appears to be an ideal approach. Maybe your role puts you in a position to connect folks with experts on key topic. If your team needs additional resources, you may be in a position to advocate for adding staff.
The bad news is that the bar is pretty low, the good news is that we can work together to collectively raise the bar and provide people with the supportive leadership they deserve!
What do you do to set your employees up for success? Which of your techniques has yielded better than expected results? Is there something you could do to better set your team up for success?
I'd love to hear from you. Please comment below or send me a note via the Connect section of the home page.
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