Building Your Leadership Style - Strategies for developing your management approach
Table of Contents
I'm speaking at the Prospanica 2023 National Conference. A more punchy title of this talk could "How to be a Better Manager."
Why become a manager?
I’ve told people considering entering management that if they want well-defined problems, know precisely what they need to do, and want to put the job on pause when they go home at night, don’t go into management. If you want to have interesting problems that vary all the time and feel like you’re making a difference, go into management. I don’t mean “management consultant” but an actual manager of people, situations, products, and projects.
Don’t become a manager to boss people around. Do it because you can do the job better, take care of the team better, or make the right decisions considering everyone (the team, the clients, and the firm).
In this talk, I cover the Five Pillars to Out Manage: People, Execution, Communication and Collaboration, Organization, and Finance. This is a framework I've used for many years as I've coached managers.
- People - Do you have the people in place to deliver? How can I support their career and put them in the best position possible?
- Execution - Are we on track for delivery, and can we give the firm the desired outcome? What’s the plan to get back on track if we're off track?
- Communication and Collaboration - How do we let other teams know our status? How do we inform stakeholders? How do we manage all the input coming into the team?
- Organization - Do we have the right teams to support our delivery? Do several teams need to work together to deliver this product?
- Finance - What’s our funding runway given our burndown? Do we have enough funds to hire the people we need to deliver?