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How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

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Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#31

Post by lifeisstillgood »

The first part was good, then it kind of fell apart when it hit management by objectives, and the "fill in a email we send you with 'achievements this week', 'plans for next week'"

That's kind of nice, but really this should be auto generated - we should be building systems that pop out "Bob closed two sales this week, and needs one more to hit quota" - this is just a sales funnel so it's not hard - it may get fuzzier with "alice wrote the monthly report or alice completed the redesign of the home page" are just formatted git comments ?

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#32

Post by kolpa »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #20
jph wrote: post #12

Great article IMHO especially suitable for new teams, new managers, and top down understanding. Kudos! For people who are stepping into existing teams, I suggest writing ground rules. Ground rules are clear explanations of team expectations. Ground rules can be simple, bottom up, and help improve teamwork: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Obje…

Core-hours are 9am-5pm? Aren't those just the normal busines hours for white-collar work?

Wow. "core hours" is full time, but there's also mandatory overtime. Anyone not in the boss's timezone has to to work weird hours to satisfy the micromanager's desire for fiefdom face-time. Work starts before 9am every day, to prep for a 9am dressing-down.

This is not a place where anyone with a choice would want to work.

> * Each workday has a team standup meeting. We choose 9 a.m., because it sets the tone for the day.

> * The workday has core hours when we expect people to be together. We choose core hours 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in our team's main time zone, because these are typical business hours for typical offices.

> * Beyond the workday core hours, we expect people to do their own schedule

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#33

Post by kolpa »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #25

Having read through the piece, I'm a little confused about why "leader" and "manager" are being conflated. They're very different roles. The former is a navigational role and the latter is a facilitating role. Given the differing dominant archetypal personality traits required for those distinct modalities, it's unlikely they'd be strongly expressed in a singular person, and there's some reason to think they may be n…

"leader" == "manager" is a bright flashing warning light for a toxic work environment with self-important ladder-climbers.

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#34

Post by gregskloot »

jph wrote: post #12

Great article IMHO especially suitable for new teams, new managers, and top down understanding. Kudos! For people who are stepping into existing teams, I suggest writing ground rules. Ground rules are clear explanations of team expectations. Ground rules can be simple, bottom up, and help improve teamwork: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Obje…

The ground rules idea is awesome. In the article I refer to something similar as "team customs"... I like your name better!

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#35

Post by viridian »

jph wrote: post #30
LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Core-hours are 9am-5pm? Aren't those just the normal busines hours for white-collar work?

Yes and I'll detail that in the repo now, and emphasize that these are examples gathered from many teams. Can you try reloading the repo page and see if it makes better sense now? Thanks for the feedback!

As Kolpa said, your core hours mean a lot of mandatory overtime. Why would anyone want to work under these conditions?

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#36

Post by im_down_w_otp »

nomel wrote: post #28
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #25

Having read through the piece, I'm a little confused about why "leader" and "manager" are being conflated. They're very different roles. The former is a navigational role and the latter is a facilitating role. Given the differing dominant archetypal personality traits required for those distinct modalities, it's unlikely they'd be strongly expressed in a singular person, and there's some reason to think they may be n…

I’m a bit guilty of confusing the two, as well. Could you describe the differences in personality?

This is a very abbreviated form as I'm heading out the door, but typically a "leader" is more likely to be lower on agreeableness than a "manager". It's a component of pushing boundaries or navigating challenges/obstacles. A "manager" biases higher on conscientiousness than a "leader" because their role as a facilitator is in no small part to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.

Likewise a good "manager" is probably motivated by community-building and completion. A good "leader" is probably motivated by the challenge and the path itself in addressing it.

Now, to the airport!

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#37

Post by gregskloot »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #25

Having read through the piece, I'm a little confused about why "leader" and "manager" are being conflated. They're very different roles. The former is a navigational role and the latter is a facilitating role. Given the differing dominant archetypal personality traits required for those distinct modalities, it's unlikely they'd be strongly expressed in a singular person, and there's some reason to think they may be n…

Fair point. Coming from the perspective of an early stage team (i.e. a startup), often the founder is the leader, and by necessity, he/she needs to manage the early team. That means working to develop some of the traits needed to manage AND lead effectively. Ideally, that founder will grow and be able to continue to lead/manage the team as it grows.

At most organizations I've been in, we'd struggle if the person in charge of a team (whether the CEO or a functional leader of say Marketing) was unable to both navigate and facilitate.

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#39

Post by ramses0 »

nomel wrote: post #28
im_down_w_otp wrote: post #25

Having read through the piece, I'm a little confused about why "leader" and "manager" are being conflated. They're very different roles. The former is a navigational role and the latter is a facilitating role. Given the differing dominant archetypal personality traits required for those distinct modalities, it's unlikely they'd be strongly expressed in a singular person, and there's some reason to think they may be n…

I’m a bit guilty of confusing the two, as well. Could you describe the differences in personality?

Leadership is outward facing, attracting followers by sharing a vision, inspiration, goal and working with the team to achieve that goal.

Management is inward facing, paying attention to the people you are responsible for, and knowing the right thing that's needed at the right time.

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Leadership is building the boat, management is making sure the boat gets built, on time, on budget, with the proper permits and inspections, training and safety gear, along with bi-weekly status reports to customers.

Some people confuse one with the other, but to me they're distinct and this is a rough sketch of how I see them as different.

Re: How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team

#40

Post by [deleted] »

LgWoodenBadger wrote: post #20
jph wrote: post #12

Great article IMHO especially suitable for new teams, new managers, and top down understanding. Kudos! For people who are stepping into existing teams, I suggest writing ground rules. Ground rules are clear explanations of team expectations. Ground rules can be simple, bottom up, and help improve teamwork: https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ground_rules I agree fully with the author about writing objectives. Obje…

Core-hours are 9am-5pm? Aren't those just the normal busines hours for white-collar work?

[deleted]
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