181–190 of 218 posts
Leadership and management are fundamentally different things. Leadership is about making sure the ship is sailing towards the right spot — management is making sure people keep rowing effectively. You can have the best team of rowers, but if no one is focused on where the ship is actually headed, you’re not gonna get where you need to be. Therefore, speaking like a leader means being more focused on principles, goals…
Leadership and management are fundamentally different things. Leadership is about making sure the ship is sailing towards the right spot — management is making sure people keep rowing effectively. You can have the best team of rowers, but if no one is focused on where the ship is actually headed, you’re not gonna get where you need to be. Therefore, speaking like a leader means being more focused on principles, goals…
We don’t know you or how you talk or bring problems forward, so we’re pulling very general examples. Good managers should not speak in ridles, if you don’t understand what they’re asking ask them. This isn’t a problem you have to go and solve, you’re not trying to devine meaning from tea leaves.
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Some generic thoughts, cause well this is an ask. :)
1. Bringing problems to your manager. Are they of the right level or could you have solved it yourself? As you move up the career ladder/responsibility you have more responsiblity which means you deal with problems that have larger scope. My Jr guys solves (and creates) problems in functions, my Sr guy solves problems in systems, I solve problems that affect product lines accorss departments, and my VP solves problems that can affect the future of the company. But don’t bury problems that can’t solve quickly. The judgement is knowing which is your problem and which is theirs.
Ex: My manager is worried about the next generation systems and how to improve companby operation by adding new widgets faster, cheaper etc. I’m worried about the next few quarter of road map and how to transition from current development to the new system, how to hire for growth. My Sr guys are worried about getting the next firmware release out, planning for the one after, and making sure we hire engineers they want to work with.
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2. Options, don’t always bring problems bring options to help fix them and allow them to add their own. I have a project that needs to be done June 30th, if I bring him “it’s impossible” a good manager will go “but what if we hired contractors?”
So what options can you bring forward for the impossible project:
a. Shift the end date (generally something you can’t do, but make sure you understand why it’s June 30th and not July 31st. Did you promise this date earlier before unstanding scope? Doy you understand the ramifications of missing it?)
b. Redcuce scope, work overtimes/long hours/burn out the team, other engineering direct solutions.
c. Can you find new resources, how much would it cost? Are they internal, external? Could you shift someone from another low priority project? What’s your projects priority?
d. What’s the cost of your various options compared to being late/early, etc.
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3. Think of the organization not just your project. How does your work fit into the whole and what’s its importance, etc.
4. What people issues are you bringing your manager? Are you making sure to understand people aren’t computers/resources. They have feelings, different drives and desires, etc.
Anyways, ask your manager what they mean!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given the support for this answer I will likely get downvoted for this, but I disagree with this advice. I am a co-founder (and CTO) of a small company myself and hence get to talk to the folks in my company quite regularly. I disagree with the notion that passion or personal preference doesn't belong in a decision-making process. Not only does it belong there, it is even a critical part of it, assuming of course tha…
I disagree. Talking about options is _not_ a black-and-white issue, and I feel that seeing this as being indifferent is somewhat of a stretch. Why not outline the options and their respective consequences (as far as you can observe them) as objectively as possible? Here's an example: 'One option is to do it this way. This has the following advantages. Moreover, we could also do it that way. This will likely result in…
Outlining options with consequences helps them make the right decision in the macro. I've have many decisions from the technical side that made sense but we're absolutely the wrong choice once I had more context around what other teams planned or the business constraints.
A piece of simple, concrete, implementable advice I read recently that I really like is "communicate in the language of options , not demands, imperatives, requests, or preferences." Imagine yourself having a conversation with your manager or someone in a relatively similar position about a decision or suggestion you have. How often do you say things like "we have to", "we need to", "we really should", "can we", or "…
When you give options, you can still have a strong preference for one or the other. Like logo A v. Logo B. It can be passive agressive to make one option looks very good and the other looks like shit. Whereas a transparent conversation will be, I really like option A, but at the end of the day is your area of responsability and if you want to do option B it’s perfectly fine.
That's easy champ, let me help. First, litter your conversation with baseball metaphor. You want to be fielding questions, starting sales plays, being the biggest swinger, and touching base. All this right off the bat of course (to get the ball rolling). Second, make prestige noun/verb mistakes. After goaling your IT spend, you'll want to incent team members. Share your learnings from a go to market perspective. This…
Has your manager offered any specific feedback? Ask him what he perceives as talking like a leader. Are those your are leading having issues with your communication style?
He didn’t offer any feedback. I went to him with a problem of my reportee’s salary concern. Where in, I cannot take a call and do false promise. But, he says that I need to come with a solution. And says he can’t spoon feed me on how to solve the issue.
If this is accurate, you left a lot of details out of your first post. Most of the responses won’t help you at all with this specific situation.
This seems like a budgeting issue. What did you promise your direct report?
1. Don't pass technical info up the food chain 2. Executives only wanna know, why and what and who, not how. 3. See Engineers are minions whoes work is to handle complexity for the company in return of payment, if you've to think about the complexity yourself as a manager or executive, your engineers aren't doing a very good job at it and someone must be fired, adopt this view. 4. You and executives are on another le…
One of the core tenets of the company I’m currently working for is to acknowledge, share knowledge, and own the “what” and the “how”. This is codified in explicitly those terms, as well. It’s a large and old company in the radio technology and communications space. (Note that there’s plenty of criticism to level at it, but that area is one where they’re very good)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
toastmasters - especially the improv "table topics" activities - has been indescribably valuable for me. It helped me go from being too shy to give a presentation in front of one person to giving talks to hundreds of strangers at a time. Pro-tip: you can attend the first one or two meetings of each toastmasters group for free so if you're a broke student like I was at the time, just rotate the groups since there are…
+1 on the table topics. IMO it's the valuable part of Toastmasters. Toastmasters in general was too much of a cult-like environment for me, I wish there was a toast-masters 'lite' with just the table topics.
The thing about table-topics is you can't simulate it. People think they can do it until they get up in front of an audience of strangers. It's like that Mike Tyson quote: "everyone has a plan until they get punthed in the face" (couldn't resist)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jokes aside, some of this is just normal communication used in business and that's not a bad thing. The consistency is actually useful when communicating between businesses. Makes it easier to integrate and speak the same language so everyone stays on the same page.
Except that many of these terms exist not to make communication clearer, but to obfuscate, to hedge. It's a type of obscurantism. It also sounds like a bunch of shibboleths, secret handshakes of the C level people. Why do we accept terms like re-structuring, downsizing etc? Can't we just call it what it is: "Firing people?"
All downsizing involves firing people, but not all "firing people" involves downsizing.
True, people can abuse those terms for a doublespeak effect, but they have legitimate uses.