Do you know how “one size fits all” really means it fits no one well? The same occurs when we try to lead everyone in the team the same way. Making the adjustments—from either side—will help ensure your efforts pay off and your team takes off. Here are the most common tweaks I’ve found helpful with my clients.
Delegate and Trust
Situation: When you’ve got people who are more senior and capable than you believe or used to work with, or when you’re so overwhelmed you cannot keep all the plates spinning. To spot the former, assess how useful your frequent meddling and helicopter management really are. Is the impact of your involvement worthy of your time investment and the fact that your senior people are feeling mistreated? The latter case, of simple overwhelm, is easier to spot. You’re probably not reading this article if that’s the case, though.
How to apply: Start by defining specific tasks and responsibilities that you delegate to your team and only monitor in general. If this feels too scary, decide on a small experiment. The important thing is that you start making progress. Will something inevitably go wrong at some point? Sure, but I’m betting that’s already happening now as well. The point isn’t perfection, but moving forward while always improving.
Don’t Desert People
Situation: You’re used to working with senior people and people who know how to ask for help. However, your team is (no longer?) that simple. Some of your ICs regularly feel like they’re drowning, neglected, or making progress, unaware that they’re going in the wrong direction.
How to apply: No matter how much you believe in delegation, it makes no sense to do that with engineers who aren’t ready for it. Realize that being more involved in their work doesn’t mean that you’re a bad manager or do micromanagement, it just means you’re tailoring your approach to their current situation. Some might need help breaking down their tasks, or benefit from more frequent syncs.
Give Managers Guardrails
Situation: Similar to the previous situation, but at the level of your managers. Do you have issues with some of your managers making overly optimistic commitments, miscommunication with their business peers, or having conflicts with some of their teams? They might need some more supervision.
How to apply: Again, it’s not micromanagement if they need that support. You can, in fact, provide too much autonomy and “empowerment” to someone who’s not prepared for it. Decide on healthy “defaults” and guidelines for them to know when they can go ahead by themselves and when they should consult you.
Use the Coaching Dial
Situation: Using the same approaches in your management, you see that some people are growing and improving, yet others with similar backgrounds and experience are not. This is not merely about pure task execution, but about also regarding soft skills like providing feedback, speaking up, participating in hiring and interviewing processes, etc.
How to apply: Imagine there’s a coaching dial that you can turn. This article so far is about understanding that the dial should be adjusted individually because each person is different. However, in specific skills coaching, I find in my work that often people require an adjustment to that dial depending on the specific matter at hand. That means that someone might benefit from you shadowing them in the planning of the next project, even though they’ve done it successfully in the past because it requires collaborating with colleagues in marketing and they’ve never done it before. Perhaps their own coaching abilities with their teams worked well till now, but now they’ve got a new hire that’s different. Good management always keeps you alert.
Turn It Around
Lastly, I want to stress the fact that there might come a point where you realize your management style is incompatible with someone. I rarely suggest that’s the case right off the bat and believe in giving people chances to improve with proper feedback and adjustments from our side. And yet, it happens that people require more attention or different approaches than you can muster or have the freedom to (e.g., the time required to help that person perform well by you would put other important things at risk).
When that happens, you should consider the ability to move people around. They might flourish in a different team or reporting to someone else. And there’s always the possibility of realizing they are not a fit for your organization. As harsh as it may sound, it’s better than letting that go on for months.