As a manager, you need to look out for the wellbeing and output of the people in your charge. And it lives up to the hype – both in terms of level of stress and fulfillment.
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At the beginning of this year, I started a new job at a new company. Not just any job, mind you – a supervisory one. I now manage a small team of creatives and, oh boy, has the last half a year really been something. Beyond the chaos that the media industry is notorious for, the learning curve for being in a position of leadership has felt less like a roller coaster and more like a drop tower.
When you’re an individual contributor, your primary concern is your assigned work. Once you take a step up the ladder and go from junior employee to middle manager, what you have laid out at your table is a full course meal consisting of: ensuring the quality of output of your underlings, your own assigned projects, defending your team’s output to management without throwing anyone under the bus, and explaining upper management’s position to your team without them thinking you’re a slave driver.
It’s a lot, truly. Some of it expected, and a lot more of it either not so or not to the degree initially thought of. Here are a few things I’ve learned over the past few months.
Congratulations! Now everything is your fault
Rule no. 1 of being a leader: everything that happens is now your fault. Being given a position of leadership is a great honor. And in the famous words of Uncle Ben: with great power comes great responsibility. Since you have the power to call the shots, naturally when shots are missed it’s your lookout. Not everything is within your control, of course. But the ability to foresee trouble areas and plan for them, or otherwise learn from your mistakes and implement procedures to prevent similar occurrences, is part of what a manager is meant to know how to do.
You’ll get the beatdown every time something happens. Most of the time it will feel like you can’t do anything right. But as long as you’re giving it your best and creating an environment where your team feels comfortable enough to operate with guidance, you’ll at least accomplish part of your ever-growing to-do list.
A High-Stakes Game of Telephone
The ability to give clear and timely instructions might be the single most important skill of being a manager. Directing work and resources depends on it. When your people are unclear about their marching orders, they will waste time making mistakes. Then deadlines are missed, money is lost, people are miserable.
So be clear, be decisive, and be consistent. We’ve all experienced having a boss who changes their tune every time a project is up for discussion and then gets mad at you for supposedly “not following their instructions” or for being late as a result of directions changing while deadlines remain static. Don’t be that boss. Nobody likes that boss.
Even as a Manager, you need a Makers Schedule
via tylerdevries.com
If you’ve been working as a professional for a while or spent any amount of time on LinkedIn, you may have come across the “Makers vs. Managers schedule” concept. In case you haven’t, the idea is that the way workers carve out their time is going to be drastically different from the way their superiors do. With the former, large chunks of uninterrupted working time is best. For the latter, the need to be able to shift quickly between tasks is emphasized. This is because supervisors normally oversee a wider scope of projects that are not always related to one another, and you’ll need to be able to provide input or clarity as needed.
This is one of the biggest differences you first notice when you make the shift from junior employee to supervisor. The number of times you get interrupted in a day and the number of things you need to hold in your head all at the same time is not even funny. The biggest favor you can do for yourself? Mix the makers/managers schedule. Especially if your job description includes some creative output on your end, you need to block of time in your calendar where you don’t entertain interruptions so you can focus. When I first started, I hadn’t realized that, for a time, I’d lost the ability to go on work benders – my mind would constantly wander about, wondering if there was something I’d inadvertently left hanging. Giving yourself a part of the day where you handle administrative tasks and then another part where you can really sit down and get creative is the best way to manage both ends of your workload.
The Emotional Labor
For the longest time, it felt like I wasn’t accomplishing nearly as much as I was when I was an individual contributor. A part of that can definitely be attributed to learning on the job. But a good chunk of it had to do with the “invisible time” spent on mitigating my team’s stress.
Media can be an extremely demanding job, and one of the things you need to actively fight against is people quitting as a result of the stress. As a manager, the authority afforded to you to direct work must be wielded responsibly – you have to plan things in such a way that people don’t feel like they’re up against a wall all the time. But, alas, things rarely ever go according to plan and people end up getting squeezed anyway for a variety of reasons.
So you have to set aside time to talk to your team and listen to their concerns, then act accordingly to address them. You have to show them empathy and also motivate them. And when there’s the added complication of in-group fighting where you have to remain objective while also making sure everyone feels heard. And this part of the job may not be productive per se, because there isn’t a tangible output you can point to when all is said and done. But it’s just as important and just as exhausting as the rest of it.
Having Difficult Conversations
If you’re a pathological people pleaser, the idea of giving orders and providing feedback and setting boundaries – basically anything that may involve even the slightest bit of friction – can make you want to cry, scream, and throw up. But it has to be done. The best way to go about having a difficult conversation? There isn’t one.
Getting to know your team on a level deeper than you would ordinarily go if you were on the same level is a non-negotiable. You have to learn how everyone works, what their strengths are, how they best respond to critiques, and pay attention to the small things about their working personalities that will help you work better with them. And every person is different, so you’ll have to change your approach accordingly.
Some things that remain the same no matter who you’re talking to: respect, honesty, and empathy. If you come from a position of understanding and explain from a place of sincerity, you will survive that difficult conversation.
You’re still an employee
At the end of the day, unless you are the owner of the company you’re working at, you are ultimately an employee. You are accountable for things and answerable to things. You have to take input from various places and make decisions on the fly. And even if you were the owner, you would still be accountable to stakeholders – and accountable to your employees to make good business decisions so they don’t lose their jobs!
So is the lesson here that we are all slaves to late-stage capitalism we call modern-day living? Maybe. But greater than that is learning that you don’t have control over most things you touch. There’s a famous Zen proverb that goes “Let go or be dragged”. While being a manager can fool you into thinking that you have more control over how things happen – and to an extent, sure – sometimes you have to let stuff happen and then just react as needed.
You might also feel a very pronounced sense of personal responsibility for things. And, again, yes. But you also need to stay connected to who you are outside of your identity as a manager. If you find yourself constantly thinking about work even when you’re lying in bed at the end of a long day – and even having nightmares about potential work crises – then it’s a sign you need to relax, bestie.
Continue reading: Why Is It So Hard to Understand That “It’s Just a Job”?
