Management
We believe in the value of managers to drive results for the company, support teams and enable growth for individuals.
A manager’s job therefore can be divided into two areas.
- Making the company successful
- Taking care of their people
Making the company successful means delivering on company goals.
A manager has to deliver results with their team. They have to set the right context for their team. The other nature of your role is being a consultant for the company; when you are an engineering manager, you get questions about engineering and need to be able to have or get the answers.
Taking care of their people is the other part of the role.
You can have great goals, but what are goals without a team to help work towards them? As a manager, you have to build and retain a performing team by growing individuals, fostering collaboration, and recruiting talent. Taking care also means affording the team enough freedom to do their best work.
These areas are not only connected, but they depend on each other. Making the company successful is the WHY and taking care of their people is the HOW.
It doesn’t help if the company is successful, but its employees are frustrated. But there is also no value in having a happy team when the company is underperforming.
One manager should not have more than 8 direct reports over a longer period of time. This limit makes it possible to build genuine and trusting relationships.