[2021-11-10] Your job as a manager
I chatted with a friend today about a challenge she is having with one of her employees.
I listened carefully as she provided the context. She was neutral in her description of the issues. She was balanced in her perspective, thinking not only of the interests of the employee but also of the interests of the employee's colleagues and clients. She sounded committed to supporting the employee and helping her to succeed while being willing to address problematic behaviour. In short, she had the right mindset: positive but also realistic.
I provided a few suggestions, chief among them this one: Your job as a manager is to make every employee you supervise better than they were before you managed them. Granted, you're not trying to make D students A students. But you are trying to make D students C students, C students B students, B students A students, and A students A+ students. It's all about incremental improvement and realistic expectations—moving employees up the competence continuum.
I've seen some managers cause employees' confidence and performance to dip. And I've seen some leaders turn struggling employees into stars.
How can you make an employee better?
- Help them do more of what they love and what they're good at—use their strengths.
- Ask them about their goals; learn where they want to go and have conversations with them about what it will take to get there.
- Praise them often, using concrete language about how they are contributing to the team and its objectives.
- Acknowledge their weaknesses and help them work on their shortcomings.
- Talk to them about any self-defeating behaviours—things getting in the way of their achieving their goals—and support them in overcoming them.
- Approach every interaction with an employee with their best interests at heart.
Not all of these actions are easy. In fact, some are downright hard. It's easy to praise an A+ employee. It's hard to have a frank discussion with a D- employee about their performance. But it can be done if you go into the conversation with the right intention.
If you ask yourself, "How can I help this employee be the best version of themselves?" you can't go wrong. Even if you need to have a conversation with them about where they're falling short, you will find them open to the feedback if they believe you have their best interests at heart. When employees are confident that their bosses truly want to see them succeed, they experience something called psychological safety.
A manager gets into trouble when they approach an employee with anger, frustration and disappointment in their head. The employee will pick up on these negative emotions and will most likely defend themselves rather than listen. To avoid this, a manager should take the time they need before they sit down with the employee to deal with any resentment they have towards the employee, to remind themselves that their job as a manager is to help all their staff members succeed, and to get into the mindset that they want to help this employee perform at their best.
My most successful performance discussions with employees focused on the future and not the past. When the conversation focused on looking back, the employees were often afraid that they would hear criticism about a past error, which they couldn't change. However, when the conversation focused on looking forward, the employees and I could concentrate on the skills they already had that would help them reach their goal and the barriers that could get in the way of their achieving their dream. These barriers included additional education and experience they would need as well as behaviours they may want to change. When our focus was the future, the possibilities—and employees' ears—were wide open.
Following our conversation today, my friend sent me an email, saying: "I was so stuck and discouraged. Thank you for helping me see the way ahead."
She had the right instincts and was already pointed in the right direction. I simply provided confirmation that she was on the right path.
