As my career has progressed, I have had the opportunity to manage teams, which I have found to be very rewarding and fulfilling work. During that time I have worked hard to develop my approach to management.
Starts at Hiring
One of the things I quickly learned was that the most effective thing a manager can do is to hire the right people into the right positions. And that means the entire pipeline, from sourcing to interviewing to onboarding needs to be geared towards hiring trained, trusted professionals who will succeed and thrive in the role.
• Build a job description, listing, and success criteria specifically for the role and skill set you need
• Tailor the hiring process to ensure you're getting and giving clear and helpful signals with the candidate
• Walk into hiring with clear goals for 30, 60, and 90 days after onboarding with how the new hire will be evaluated
The Platinum Rule
The golden rule tells us to "treat other how you want to be treated." The platinum rule, then, says to "treat people how they want to be treated." Many companies use an array of personality tests to try and help employees figure this out, but in my experience they all boil down to two things:
• Are you action oriented or structure oriented?
• Do you process internally or externally?
Example results of the Personalysis tests from my most recent team.
Personally, I process things internally, with a slight preference for structure over action. So when one of my direct reports needed even more structure, I learned to lean into that skillset and framing to help her feel supported, even when there was honestly very little structure to be had.
Trusted, Trained Professionals
Ultimately, if you hire right and manage well to outcomes and support, you can treat your team not as employees to manage but trusted, trained professionals to enable. This means understanding that life happens. People have commitments and needs outside of their work. My job as a manager is first and foremost to make sure the work gets done in a timely manner with quality results. As long as that is happening, I strongly believe in giving direct reports as much flexibility or structure as they need to be able to show up how and when they need to.