I jokingly borrowed an old Chevy Chase line in a recent interaction with a group of new managers, telling them, “It was probably your understanding that there would be no math in this session.” I then promised that the basic math of management success isn’t very complicated.
When we enter an organization in a nonmanagerial role, we are responsible for ourselves. Our personal success is tied to our individual results, whatever that job may be.
If it is a sales position, success is mostly tied to production. If it is a service position, success may be tied to customer reviews. If it is a back office or support position, maybe it is tied to successful audits or some other metric.
Whatever the expectations, we are individually responsible for our results. We add up our own pluses and minuses and hope we are in the positive column. It’s pretty simple.
Once we are given management responsibilities, the math changes slightly. Our personal success becomes the cumulative success or failure of the people we manage.
But it’s still basic math, and it doesn’t really change whether you manage two people or 2,000.
Of course, none of us can personally manage hundreds (or thousands) of people. The higher up the org chart we get, the more we manage people, who manage people, who manage people, and so on.
When sharing those thoughts, I realize that many new managers are still getting their heads around leading small teams. The idea of managing very large, multilayered teams is not something they feel ready to consider.
My point to them, however, is that the skills and mindsets they develop in leading a small team are much of the same they will need if and when they get larger opportunities. The way to get those larger opportunities is to be as exceptional as possible leading the teams they have now.
Beyond that, most successful leaders seem to understand something that others do not about org charts — they realize the difference between “reporting to” and “working for.”
The people’s names in the boxes beneath you on the org chart may report to you. But ultimately you work for them. You cannot succeed if they do not succeed.
I have long joked with banker groups that too many front-line employees seem to look at customers as part of the drudgery of their jobs, instead of the very folks who are funding their jobs. To be clear, everyone on the org chart works for those folks known as customers.
That said, there is no such thing as a successful manager at any level with “direct reports” who are failing in their jobs. Your personal success is tied directly to the personal success of the folks who report to you.
While that seems like a rather simple concept, I regularly see examples of folk — both managers and the folks they manage — not seeming to get it. Too often, there seems to be an unnecessarily cynical dynamic between the folks charged with improving performance and those ostensibly being coached.
The first bank president I worked for was not known for being the most gregarious fellow in the room. His feedback style would best be described as blunt. His comments were usually accurate, but did not exactly sound like a Tony Robbins speech.
Yet his people followed him willingly because he always communicated two things both in group settings and in one-on-one chats.
First, he regularly told us he wanted us to succeed. As basic as that sounds, it is a powerful message. People are willing to take uncomfortable feedback and coaching when they sense the person giving it sincerely wants them to succeed.
Second, he always ended conversations by asking if there was anything we needed from him, or anything he could help us with. That habit reminded us that leaders aren’t clairvoyant. We needed to take responsibility for asking questions and advocating for ourselves, as well as the people who report to us.
Our teams succeed when our individuals succeed. Folks have jobs of differing challenges and responsibilities, but there are no unimportant people or positions in our organizations.
I remind new managers that there are days in which the need to listen to, coach, provide positive feedback, and/or take corrective action with team members will feel like the hardest part of their days. On some days, it may actually be.
But it may well be the most important thing they do for their own success — and the bank’s.
