Your manager’s job is to make YOU more money.
Common sense shows that successful managers work for their direct reports. #
Here’s how.
If you work on planet earth, with other people, the most important thing you can have is a strong, cohesive, well-functioning team.
Sadly, wanting said dream team is usually not enough - the best managers will actively work to help turn a group of people into an effective team.
In my first 1:1 meetings with direct reports, I explain simply,
“my job is to make you more money.”
Isn’t that what we all want?
Someone whose goal is for you to be able to afford more guacamole toast?
Any manager’s primary responsibility is to help their team succeed and thrive, such that they create more value for the company.
So, when you do a good job for your company, your manager looks good too - obvious win-win.
Sometimes however, managers feel their sole management duties are to solve problems, or bestow knowledge upon their reports (and sometimes mentorship is a part of it). That simply by their title, they are some senior elder who commands respect. They may even fear that they might not be as skilled as their reports. So they resort to bossing and asserting their title and power in other unhelpful ways.
So for any of you insecure managers who feel that way, it’s perfectly ok to be straight up dumber than the people you manage.
And for those of you who already feel that way, and are doing no management at all, thats not the solution either.
Your job isn’t to do their job. It’s to help them succeed at their job. #
- ask what their goals are.
- if they don’t have goals, help them define some goals that you can help them reach… that is the track to getting paid more if they haven’t figured it out already (it’s easy to use goals someone has set and met as support for a raise or bonus).
- do this every time you talk management setting, and keep track of it (people change, goals change)
- learn what matters to them
people are motivated by their own goals. #
Maybe they want to work from home more, maybe they want to lead a project, maybe they want to build open source software, maybe they want more mentorship, etc.
Armed with this knowledge, go out and do your team’s bidding!
When your team recognizes there is a person who is actively spending time to help them succeed, and get what they want, they will value the job itself - because it is not some unchanging rock - but an ever improving part of their life.
Everyone wants to feel cared for. #
So if you want some rockstars on your team, start making them - and it will be 1000x more effective than any impact you would have as an individual contributor (unless you hate management) - and will in turn make you much more effective and valuable as a manager.
feel free to share this if you’ve ever worked with a manager who should read it.