Career Management Tips – Smart Lemming – Career Management Guide

As a worker, do know how you need to be managed? As a manager, do you direct reports know what to do with or without you? Are you a new manager, wondering how to manage your team and direct reports to your company’s goals?

If you need answers to any or all of these questions, check out Larry Bossidy’s article,“What Your Leader Expects of You,” that provides a thoughtful and thorough list of what managers’ expect from their direct reports and what direct reports should expect from their managers.

What Managers’ Expect from Direct Reports

Below are Bossidy’s lists with my additional commentary:

1. Get involved: like Bossidy says, “good managers know when to delegate…but more importantly, they know when to get involved.” As a knowledge worker, it’s easy to get off track on a deliverable or project without knowing it. A good manager should know when to come in and course correct while teaching the knowledge worker why the course correction is necessary so they can learn, hopefully not reading it in the future. By getting involved, direct reports expand and master their skill sets.
2. Generate ideas: direct reports should provide ideas rather than playing it safe. Don’t offer random ideas that you haven’t thought about, but ones you’ve considered and have merit. Knowledge workers should also see their managers’ ideas that benefit the customers, company, department, or workers and model to be a model for direct reports.
3. Be willing to collaborate: direct reports sometimes work in cross-functional team where collaboration is required.
4. Be willing to lead initiatives: direct reports should take initiative rather than avoiding the risky projects for the sake of having a good track record. How else will direct report learn to take initiative on their own if they don’t think it’s of value?
5. Develop leaders as you develop: good managers are constantly developing leaders and future managers out of their direct reports. For the good of the company or for the good of the direct reports, leaders and managers coach, mentor, and manage their direct reports to be leaders and future managers.
6. Stay current: there’s nothing more embarrassing than seeing anyone, direct reports or managers, not know what going on in their own industry, the market, or with customers. Managers should scanning and watching the environment for opportunities or competitive threats.
7. Anticipate: after staying current, all parties should anticipate what the industry, market, competitor, or customer changes mean for the company and department.
8. Drive your own growth: Direct reports should want to learn more and take initiative without waiting for the manager to hand out growth opportunities. Find the white spaces in your job function that allow you to learn something new or expand on existing skills.
9. Be a player for all seasons: Business is good. Business is down. Direct reports need different shades of the same skills sets for good times and bad times. For example, it’s one thing to know how to define action plans against the competition when you’re the market leader. What happens when you lose market share? What competitive moves can you take? Be a well-rounded player for any business circumstances.

What Direct Reports Expect from their Managers

1. Provide clarity of direction: the direct reports should understand the scope of work, deadlines, deliverables, and dependencies of the deliverable or project.
2. Set goals and direction: managers must communicate why a deliverable is required or a project is launched. Does the direct report understand the corporate strategy and department tactics and how their work is aligned to these priorities?
3. Give frequent, specific, and immediate feedback: managers should provide feedback in context. Nothing is more frustrating to get delayed feedback out of context. For example, a direct report can be doing well or thinking their doing well, then all of a sudden get hit out of the blue by feedback on something that happened weeks ago.
4. Be decisive and timely: ditto, see number three.
5. Be accessible: managers are busy people. They’re working meeting with their peers, boss, and stakeholder, almost every one accept their direct reports. However, managers must carve time to spend with their direct reports. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day management activities and not meet with direct reports. I used to ask my direct reports to pop in my office when they needed something from me. They were so committed to keep the trains running on time for our department that they devised an email strategy so they could communicate urgent action items that were dependent on me. I loved reading my emails that had the subject line: “Lori task: review x, y, and z by EOD tomorrow” complete with flags that popped up if I didn’t take action!
6. Demonstrate honesty and candor: if your manager can’t be candid with you than who will? Your manager is accountable for your performance and results. Hopefully, you won’t have to ask them to be upfront with you.
7. Offer an equitable compensation plan: managers do the best they can with compensation. Hopefully, as a direct report, you know how the bonus will be weighted and distributed for company thresholds, department goals, and individual performance.

Managers and workers should read Bossidy article to understand how each can work with one another for an effective and productive work relationship. For additional resources on execution, check out Bossidy’s books, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Doneand Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right.

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