Leadership Effectiveness

In a friend’s early career, he was promoted to be a manager. Eventually, he rose to manage a group of almost 200 people. His first promotion was a significant increase in his professional status, but he never had any training in this.

He was an engineer and very proficient in what he did, was well-liked, and was evidently fully knowledgeable about the company’s vision and mission. The promotion was not expected to be so soon in his career, and he had some trepidations about it. He asked his boss what was expected of him and how he should handle his new responsibilities. His group consisted of high-performing scientists and engineers that were all technical experts. He was told that his job was to see that his people got good raises and promotions.

He thought about this, and that’s what he did. Anytime he saw someone doing something that might inhibit a raise or promotion, he spoke to that person. He also saw that there was a lot of interaction of his staff with people from other groups, and the managers had regular update meetings to discuss progress on interrelated projects. So, the highest-performing people were well known.

He made sure that his people “volunteered” for high-profile projects or papers, made group presentations and served on joint committees. Without meaning to, he became each person’s mentor. They, in turn, came to him with their concerns making him more effective as a leader, not just a manager. He taught his people, at one-on-one meetings, what they needed to do to manage their careers, and he frequently spoke to them about how they were doing in that regard. He always nominated his stars for awards or citations. If one of the other managers seemed to not be as familiar with one of his stars, he coached that person on some soft skills that would make them better known. One example was to suggest that they always smiled and said hello when passing someone in the hallways or in the cafeteria. Another suggestion was to notice what the other managers were reading and engage them in conversation about that book or author or a similar book. A third idea was to send article clippings to managers and others on topics they appeared interested in. Not brain surgery, but simple common courtesy tips.

He did not micromanage but provided oversight on their projects. His people were fully empowered to get their projects done as they wanted to as long as they remained focused and held to the cost and time budgets. He was generous with his compliments and specific, terse and right to the point with his criticisms about how they were performing and always directed it to the work at hand and not the person.

His people got good raises and were promoted at a better rate than the staff of other managers. He did well. The original advice he got covered everything he needed to know: His job as a manager was to see that his people got good raises and promotions.