How to be a Great Leader (Career advice for Managers)
Develop a “thick skin” for yourself (have a healthy ego and work to let stuff roll off your back) but keep a “thin skin” for others (think hard before you criticize, be quick to empathize). Focus significantly more of your effort on being a champion for others than on being a champion for yourself.
So how do I do this?
It’s remarkable to me how many bosses/managers don’t get that to truly champion someone you have to value them for their uniqueness & meet them “where they are” — not where you are or where you want them to be. Often I get asked a question like this:
- Peer/New Manager: “Your people really know you care. How do I do that?”
- Me: “Uh, you can actually care about them? You know. As individuals.”
- Them: “But besides that?”
- Me: 🧐
Conversely I’ve seen bosses say, “What besides how you’re asking to be recognized could I do to make you feel valued.” Loosely translated this is “Sounds hard/I’m stuck. I don’t feel like putting in the effort, so can you make my job easier and take care of yourself?”
“There are no shortcuts to leadership, retention or growing your best people” — Me
You want to be a big boss and do the big things? You need all your best people to know to a high degree of confidence they will more likely achieve their goals with you than with anyone or anywhere else.
Don’t like it? Tough. That’s why we pay you the big bucks — You can either understand for a big leader, being someone who can spot, harness, grow & nurture talent is now your primary job, or you can go do something else. Because this is the difference between management and leadership. To durably achieve the biggest business goals, we all need our biggest business run by the best, most inspiring and capable leaders.
But what if my best people still leave?
Do you wish them good luck and then wave goodbye? Or worse, give them the metaphorical (or literal) “boot” because they’re “disloyal”? Terrible idea, let me tell you why:
Your career and their careers will be long. You will run in the same circles. You are unlikely to have the same job forever. Maybe you’ll want/need to work with/for them again. People will only want to work for/with you a second or third time if they know you see/care about them full people don’t ghost them when they leave.
These people aren’t being “disloyal”. They just have different priorities right now. Maybe they’re right or wrong about what they’ll achieve at this other place, but that’s not for you to figure out. Also, don’t kid yourself — you’re not that busy. You’re just not prioritizing these great people over other things. So stop excusing it.
Like their LinkedIn/FB/Instagram posts. Send that SMS/WhatsApp message when you see something funny or interesting you think they’d like. Suggest a coffee or lunch or happy hour now and then — whatever makes sense. Refer a great candidate or client to their new company — and do it through them. Do this even if they don’t “return the favor.”
I get it. I’m busy at work and at home too. But I make staying in touch with great colleagues a priority for one simple reason: I know that I am only going to be a successful leader in a durable way if I have great people around me — not the other way around.
I’ve had former colleagues follow me/come back 4, 5 even 15 years after we worked together because I stayed in touch/interacted as little as twice/year. Then when the time was right, my reach-out didn’t go into the ether because it sounded like spam. On the flip-side, I’ve had former colleagues suggest to their bosses that I’d be perfect for a job (in fact that’s how I got my previous and current job).
Staying in touch helps me spot recruiting opportunities — like when I noticed a veteran Amazon employee was on a sabbatical and so I reached out to say “What’s next?” — and now she’s talking to peers in AWS I love about roles in their orgs. Win-Win and so easy.
OK, why does this all matter?
The more senior you get, the less success is about you, and the more it’s about your ability to be a force multiplier. I don’t believe in 10x engineers but I believe in 10x organizations (and 1/10th-x as well, but that’s a different post) that are created, nurtured and sustained by truly great leaders.
So be that leader/boss/manager who can do both — focus on the now and the future. Grow your best people & grow yourself while you’re also delivering on your business results. Connect with your current and ex colleagues and directs while you’re also interviewing people for open positions.
Trust me, you’ll find this worth the effort.
Some disclaimers
Like everyone, I’m a work in progress. I don’t always get this right in my own career/jobs. While these ideas are entirely my own (in the sense that they’re not my employer’s ideas) they have been shaped by the great bosses in my life — those who really listened, and whose advice I continue to refer to years or decades later.
As well, I’ve benefited from the advice in two excellent books. First, Kim Scott taught me how to give truly constructive, positive, inspiring feedback while still getting things done in her book “Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity”
Second, when you’re in bigger and bigger management roles, you’re asked to do more than you’ve ever done before. On this, I highly recommend the book by Marshall Goldsmith, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful” The framing isn’t “you are bad at X, so do Y” but instead “you got where you are by being great at X, but to get where you want to be you need to be great at Y.”
Hope this was helpful!
And if you liked this and somehow made it to the end, follow me on twitter @joshuaseattle
