As a manager, being available is one of the most important responsibilities. When your team knows you are accessible and ready to support them, it builds trust and strengthens their confidence in your leadership.
Moving from an IC where, "I will look at the request later", to EM where "I have someone who can help with this right away", feels to me like the most important transition.
Getting to this kind of outcome requires many adjustments, including letting go, rewiring the the own work satisfaction centres, allowing for imperfection, and actually having people to eagerly support the lonely EM role.
Being "unreachable" is rarely a calendar problem. It is usually a context problem.
When a team is constantly pinging a busy manager, it is a sign that they do not have the information or the permission they need to move forward alone. We focus so much on the manager’s "Deep Work" that we forget about the team’s "Deep Uncertainty."
As leaders, our goal shouldn't be to manage our Slack notifications better. It should be to build a system where our presence is a bonus, not a bottleneck.
If your team cannot function while you are in a two-hour deep dive, you haven't built a team. You have built a dependency.
I like this statement "being responsive IS the job". As an EM, every decision waiting on you slows progress down or leads to suboptimal solution. When I'm super busy and don't have an optimal answer myself, I just reply "what's your recommendation?"
As a manager, being available is one of the most important responsibilities. When your team knows you are accessible and ready to support them, it builds trust and strengthens their confidence in your leadership.
True for marketing team leaders as well :)
Thanks - I'll read this article later and get back to you.
Moving from an IC where, "I will look at the request later", to EM where "I have someone who can help with this right away", feels to me like the most important transition.
Getting to this kind of outcome requires many adjustments, including letting go, rewiring the the own work satisfaction centres, allowing for imperfection, and actually having people to eagerly support the lonely EM role.
Yeah, it definitely takes some time to get there (especially learning to let go)
Being "unreachable" is rarely a calendar problem. It is usually a context problem.
When a team is constantly pinging a busy manager, it is a sign that they do not have the information or the permission they need to move forward alone. We focus so much on the manager’s "Deep Work" that we forget about the team’s "Deep Uncertainty."
As leaders, our goal shouldn't be to manage our Slack notifications better. It should be to build a system where our presence is a bonus, not a bottleneck.
If your team cannot function while you are in a two-hour deep dive, you haven't built a team. You have built a dependency.
I like this statement "being responsive IS the job". As an EM, every decision waiting on you slows progress down or leads to suboptimal solution. When I'm super busy and don't have an optimal answer myself, I just reply "what's your recommendation?"
Love the approach :)