If you report to me, I recommend reading this document to understand
how I think of my role as a manager, and what you can do to make the
most of our professional relationship.
My Philosophy
A set of insights gained through personal experience. I make no
claim about their universal applicability.
A: Setup is a big determinant of success
While ICs are largely responsible for delivering work assigned to them,
leadership and management are largely responsible for enabling
others to succeed. An underappreciated component of how leaders enable
others is setup, which includes providing:
- The right motivation (aka problem statement)
- A clear definition of success
- A roadmap
- An execution plan
- Measurable intermediate milestones
- Ownership and processes for tracking execution, and
- Course corrections along the way.
While projects with good setup can fail, projects with bad setup will fail.
B: Always Over Communicate Change
If you’re setting up a new process, or making changes to
an existing one, and if this change is not landing like you thought
it would, it’s not necessarily because the people affected are not
doing a good job of adapting to it. It could very well be because
it wasn’t communicated well. Social inertia is real, and overcoming
this inertia requires an extra push.
C: The manager IS the company
A manager’s words and actions have an outsized impact on their
reports, and the relationship with their manager largely determines
people’s experience at work.
- Corollary: As a manager, I make it a point to get to know
my reports as people, and I put myself in their shoes to understand
what they may be going through. In conversations, I’ll make it
a point to practice active listening.
D: Feedback is a gift
This is a cliche, but also true. Timely, constructive feedback
can supercharge growth.
- Corollary: As a manager, I regularly and proactively share
feedback with my reports. I always share constructive, critical
feedback in private 1:1s, and positive feedback in a more public
setting, depending on the situation. Once I’ve built enough trust
with a report, I’ll almost always share my feedback in real-time
(and not wait until the next 1:1), e.g. via DM, in person, etc.
I’m also all about
awkward 1:1s:
if you can talk about something with others present, then that
might not be a good topic for a 1:1.
E: Trust is best built by working together
There is really no substitute for the kind of trust that’s built
when you go through the trenches with someone (e.g. working together
on delivering a project by a deadline, putting out a production fire,
etc). Controlling for interpersonal dynamics, professional trust is
linearly proportional to the amount of shared, meaningful hands-on
work experiences.
- Corollary: As a manager, I try to work with each of my reports
on at least one task (but on larger features and projects when
possible).
F: What’s Best for The Company Is Also Best For You
This might seem like a cliche, but I’ve definitely seen instances
where people optimize for personal advancement over doing what’s
right for the team and for the company. Doing so might benefit
you in the short term, but is counterproductive in the long run,
not just to the company, but also to yourself.
What You Should Expect From Me
Based on the philosophy I outlined above, you can expect that I will:
- Treat you with respect, empathy, and professionalism: I’ll take
the time to get to know you as a person. I’ll actively listen to your
opinion, your preferences, and concerns, and do my best to take them
into consideration. I’ll hold a high bar for myself professionally
in our interactions.
- Create the right setup: Like I mentioned above, it is the
responsibility of leaders to define the setup for the team and
projects. I’ll work with Tech Leads, Product Managers, and other
stakeholders to continuously create and update this setup.
- Support you with your professional goals: I’ll give you the
opportunity to share your professional goals, career plans, and
goals with me. I’ll take that knowledge into consideration to
regularly create opportunities for you on the team. If I cannot
do so because of factors beyond my control (e.g. project de-scope),
I’ll proactively let you know, and I’ll also support you with
whatever you may choose as next steps.
- Set clear expectations, and hold you accountable: We’ll regularly
work together to set and update expectations aligned with the team’s
needs. I’ll hold you accountable to meeting those expectations.
For my part, accountability includes defining success in a
measurable way, defining milestones towards these expectations,
regularly checking in on progress, and course correcting (if necessary).
For your part, executing on these expectations is what I’ll hold
you accountable for.
- Clear roadblocks and hurdles regularly: This is part of the
setup, but is worth calling out separately, as it is probably the
more significant value-adds of a manager. It is my responsibility to
ensure that you (and the team) have the resources to do your work.
When your work is blocked, I’ll either unblock you myself, and/or
provide pointers on how you can do so. I also commit to cultivating
the right relationships outside of the immediate team (and Org)
to make this more efficient.
- Provide regular coaching and feedback: In addition to what
I said in Insight D above, I commit to regularly coaching you on
your performance, based on the situational leadership model.
- Be available: See the similarly titled point in the section
below.
What I Expect from You
Here’s what I expect from each person reporting to me:
- Own Your Career: As your manager, it is my responsibility
to give you opportunities to advance your career, but it is your
responsibility to take those steps. This starts with being open
and honest with me about what you want to achieve professionally,
on an ongoing basis (because this can change over time!).
If you don’t know yet, that’s OK! We can figure it out together
(or you can take the time to reflect on your own). Beyond that,
you’ll need to commit to put in the (often) uncomfortable work
needed to grow.
- When In Doubt, Share: the manager-report relationship is
structurally imbalanced, and it can be nerve-wracking to share
your fears, and insecurities (professional or otherwise) with
someone who holds real power over you. But being strategically
vulnerable with a competent manager can actually be a benefit!
I’ve been able to tailor opportunities for reports because I
knew their situation.
- Be Intentional: Make a plan to deliver on your expectations
(and run it by me if you want). As engineers, it’s very easy for us
to get distracted, but time is absolutely the one resource that is
not elastic, so prioritize ruthlessly.
Learn when and how to say no.
- Take Accountability: We’ll regularly work together to set
expectations. Take accountability for delivering on them, and
be open and honest with yourself and me when you cannot. I’m
more than willing to give people chances: life is a lot more than
just work, and we cannot all always be 100%.
- Be Available: Availability is a key component of being
accountable to each other. It is mostly reactive (as opposed to
something done proactively), and includes (but is not limited to)
the following behaviors:
- Responding in an appropriate and timely manner to requests by
your colleagues (over email, chat, task comments, design docs, etc)
- RSVPing to meeting invites (even if to say no).
- Being on-time to meetings you have accepted, etc.
You can also proactively share your availability with the team, and
set expectations on when/how you will respond. For example,
I used to mainly work with teams in Japan, so I used to set my
Calendar availability to be between 11am – 7pm PT.
- Own Your Work-life Balance: People should not need to sacrifice
their personal lives to be productive, at least not regularly.
If you need to work more than 40 hours/week, don’t do so unilaterally.
At least not more than as a one-off. If you’re planning to, or
when you do, flag that to me. It’s my job as a manager to provide
the right setup that lets everyone contribute without burning
the midnight oil, but I cannot do that if I don’t know what’s up.
- Give Me Feedback: I make mistakes. Let me know if/when you
see an opportunity for me to improve, especially in those scenarios
where my actions affect you.