Let’s be real – it can be very hard to know whether you’re actually a good manager or not. There can be a lot of noise, lots of variables, lots of things that you can’t control etc. Many of us ignore this question and just hope that we’re doing the right things.
Today though, let’s take a critical look at ourselves and try to get a better understanding of whether we’re being a good manager for our team.
Reasons why it’s hard to know that you’re a good manager
First, let’s look at a few reasons why it’s actually quite difficult to know whether you’re a good manager or not.
It’s hard to get good feedback
A lot of people find it difficult to give feedback to their boss. It really is that simple.
As a result, you may struggle to get feedback from your team on whether you’re doing a good job already and what you can do to improve. Even if you do get feedback, it can be hard to know how genuine it is because your team may be holding back a little bit.
There are ways to try and mitigate this. One of my favourite ways is to use the start, stop, continue method of asking for feedback which makes what you’re asking for very simple and very structured.
But even using this method, it can be tricky to get feedback that helps you understand how well you’re doing and how to do better.
We can conflate being nice with being good
You could be a super nice person and your team could absolutely love you. But that doesn’t mean that you’re a good manager! I’ve worked with a bunch of managers who have been super nice and well loved by their team, but they haven’t actually been very effective when it comes to driving performance.
I’ve also heard colleagues and peers describe their manager as “super nice but terrible at managing me.”
Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be nice! The takeaway from this article on being a nice manager was basically that yes, you should be – but that’s not enough. Not just that, but being too nice and forgetting about the bigger picture can actually make you a worse manager.
It’s hard to know if improved performance is because of us
Our team could be absolutely flying and smashing all of their targets, but how do you know if you’ve played a part in influencing them?
What if they’d achieve the same outcomes even if you weren’t around?
That’s quite a sobering thought isn’t it!
The ironic thing is that this is even more likely to be true when you have a really strong team of high performers – which is actually what you want! But when you have a team of high performers, it’s at least in part down to them just being individually very good.
Of course, when this happens, there are still ways that you can improve the performance of a top performer, but the same issue applies – how do you know that you’re helping and not hindering them?
You may have a happy team who aren’t actually performing well
Finally – in the same way that being a nice manager isn’t enough to be effective, your team being happy isn’t enough for them to be high performers.
I made this mistake earlier in my career. I over indexed on building a happy team and didn’t focus enough on driving the right outcomes.
Of course, I want people to be happy in their roles and to generally enjoy themselves. But it needs to be balanced against being clear on what you expect of them and what good performance looks like.
The signals of you actually being a good manager
Now, let’s move onto the positive stuff – what to look for to have a stronger idea of whether you’re doing a good job or not.
I should say, these aren’t foolproof and a lot of knowing the answer to this question is intuitive. Also, you’ll probably never know 100% for 100% of the people you manage. So all that you can do is try to know that you’re directionally doing the right things, which I’d describe as the following.
Your team are with you when things go wrong
I firmly believe that you grow the most as an individual and as a team when times are hard.
Anyone can be a good manager and anyone can be a good performer when everything is easy and going well.
What about when things get hard?
Inevitably, they will at some point in your career as a manager and if you’re a good one, your team won’t run away and leave you to fix things.
Instead, when you’re going through a tough period as a team, your team will:
- Listen to you carefully to understand the problem(s).
- Ask questions when they don’t understand something or want more information.
- Ask how they can help and how we will fix things.
- Take accountability for their actions and the role that they play in helping solve the problem(s).
- Worth with each other, not just with you to solve things.
It’s the feeling of “we’re all in this together” that you’re looking for here. If you feel it, then the chances are that you’ve done a good job of being a leader who the team respects and wants to follow into tough situations.
Conversations aren’t awkward or difficult
If you’re a good leader, your team will find it easy to talk to you and share things with you. This signals that they trust you and feel comfortable in your presence.
Now, not everyone will want to fully “open up” about things such as their feelings or what may be going on in their lives outside of work. And that’s okay.
What you’re looking for here is open and easy communication when it comes to their day-to-day work, especially the challenges that they face and what they need help with.
You see your advice being passed onto others (without you being involved)
This is a big one. However, you may not see this very often and when you do, it may take many months or even years before you see it.
Having said that, I saw it a fair few times when I was running my agency and they rank amongst my proudest moments – even though I was probably the only one who noticed!
In practical terms, what you’re looking for here is the people who you’ve managed passing on your advice to other people. For example, if you’re taught someone how to manage their calendar and to-do list and then you see them teaching the same method to someone else, you know that you’ve been effective as a manager.
Can your team handle problems without you?
This is a weird one and may sound counterintuitive, but I think it’s actually one of the biggest signals of an effective manager.
Let’s say that you go on holiday for two weeks, would your team fall over? Could you relax and go on your break knowing that you’re not going to come back to a dumpster fire when you get back?
What about if a big problem comes up and you’re in a meeting for a few hours, will the team crack on and start working on it? Or will they need to wait for you to finish your meeting?
For me, your team being capable of solving these kinds of problems without you is really important.
The thing is, we do face a similar problem to what we spoke about earlier – could your team do this anyway? Even if you weren’t their manager?
It’s a fair challenge.
My advice here would be to assess your team’s current capabilities and confidence to solve problems without you. If they aren’t very capable or confident right now, meaning that they clearly still rely on you, then you have some work to do to fix that.
Over time, if you can get to a point where you’re not needed (or needed in a very minor, supervisory way), then you know that you’ve done a good job because you’ve influenced change and improved your team.
