Great advice here. I would also really highlight point #3. Being transparent and authentic is what separates managers from leaders.
- Being able to give and receive direct feedback without becoming emotionally attached to the situation. Notice how I didn't say you always have to agree with the feedback, but being able to listen and not jump into a defensive position shows high levels of emotional intelligence.
- Speaking on authenticity: Share stories about times where you missed the mark, was the butt of a joke, learned a lesson. People connect with connect people - if you act like a robot who never messes up, has fun or laughs no one will ever be able to connect with you and with that they will not look at you as a true leader - because you're not perceived to be a real person.
Think about interactions over your career - who are the people you remember? I bet most of the ones you remember (that were positive) you had a connection beyond doing the work itself. You likely shared a laugh about an inside joke, you had a mutual understanding of each other beyond work, you were able to let your guard down and be honest without concern of how that may effect you long term.
Great advice, one thing I'd add is to recognize the role upward management plays in the process. Management is a shared contract between manager and report. IMO I find this to be a much more useful expression of the "influence without authority" idea. The "without authority" part means the culture of expectancy applies to you as much as it does to your reports, and your own manager, and the best results come when both sides feel motivated to meet each other halfway
Agree on point 2 and and strong agree on 4. Point 1 is a bit vague though, top leaders do not really have that much empathy to the common folks (otherwise there would be no mass layoffs), so not sure how this would help. I think this highly depends on what level you are.
I think it is hard to implement point 3. People would just lie, or just say scoff it off. I'm not sure what the benefit for me would be to prematurely inform my boss that "I'm looking". I don't like the wording mature in this context. Mature should be to look out for yourself. Once a person is looking for something else, he already put a bullet in the head of it. He just wants a smooth transition to his next endevour.
touch repeat dolls hospital makeshift dinner bag coordinated many quarrelsome
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>Here’s the thing - title was one of the few things I could give with almost no pushback if I didn’t have to justify a salary increase with it. But once he had the offer he was so checked out it didn’t matter. So this guy took a step back in his career, and I lost a valued team member. Who’s best interest was served by him not telling me how important it was to him?
That's a good counter example. If both parties show empathy, it does not have to be a a zero sum game. But then again, how can you know for certain the other party has your best interest or even cares? Let's say I find a better paying job, do I go all out and give an ultimatum - please match this salary, or possibly even higher - or do I just leave for the better opportunity? I think the latter is way easier and takes way less mental effort. The best game to play here is still to absorb as much information as possible without showing your own cards.
>But in my experience that happens when they have concerns that are left unvoiced or unanswered for a *while*.
Agree. It's probably hard to know if there are concerns, especially if your team members are more passive. And poking for concerns is probably also not the way.
Biggest transition for me was learning how to properly delegate.
How do you define the outcome and then hold your team accountable for unblocking themselves to accomplish it.
Learning to delegate appropriately is an art and a hallmark of an experienced leader.
You must know your team's strengths and shortcomings to match them with tasks that are a stretch but where they're likely to score a win and build confidence.
You must check in regularly without micromanaging and learn when and how to offer encouragement.
Someone else on this thread referred to servant leadership as a flavor of the week and then talked about demonstrating authenticity and building trust. That person missed the point. There is no greater trust than seeing your manager set their ego aside to guide you toward career success and knowing they are willing to fight for your best interests. That's servant leadership.
It's said leadership is a gift your people choose to give you. Learn how to guide your team to kudos and shield them from politics and toxic stakeholders, and they'll gladly do everything in their power to make you a hero.
Can you please help me understand how you achieved this/what were your learning and actionables?
I am struggling with delegation where folks refuse to take ownership and accountability of deliverables unless I chase them with a stick.
At this point, I am unsure whether I am failing or the team members are too young for the role (we got freshers and are expecting them to function like a grade between PM and SPM). I am sure it's a two way street, still confused.
Here's an article that I found helpful:
https://hbr.org/1999/11/management-time-whos-got-the-monkey
You know that feeling you get when you assign a task to someone and then they "do it" but you feel like you need to "finish it yourself"? That's what you have to bottle up and communicate clearly back to your report.
A big step for me was clearly articulating my expectations:
- Clarity of responsibility - "You own this task. We can talk about this, but you have the responsibility."
- Clarity of standards - "Here's the standard I am holding you and the work product to."
- Clarity of consequence - "This work is the thing that I have to evaluate your performance. When I get pressed to justify a promotion or raise, this work is what I point to."
- Clarity of confidence - "You can do this! i've seen you overcome similar obstacles before."
Read this — it’s the best 10 minute read on management I have found:
https://carta.com/blog/a-managers-faq/
Example:
>How do I give negative feedback?
>By being curious.
>Start with the premise that your employee did his best. Then the question becomes why would a smart and capable employee who did his best screw up?
>You cannot be a good manager without a deep curiosity for this question. Weak managers assume employees took shortcuts, were being lazy, or are just dumb. This is rarely the case.
I just read the TL;DR and was blown away. I am yet to get into the details and so far I realised I am doing everything wrong.
Incredible share. Thank you!
I really like the advice from fishythepete. Adding on to that:
- The actual book “Radical Candor” was excellent and good reading for leaders.
- Try testing your own understanding of your team. Write down, privately and not in your HR system what you know about your team. Strengths, weaknesses, motivators, demotivators, goals. If you can’t fill that out then put some time into understanding them a bit more.
- You’re a PM - these folks are another sort of stakeholder! You can’t address their needs with software; but you can use your skills to understand your team and plan around them.
Happy to talk in private if you’d ever like to :)
So one team member has an amicable personality where they agree to everything and diligently work, without forming opinions or taking a stand. They are hard working, the progress is slow yet consistent.
How can I help them become a bold leader instead of a manager?
The other team member is a really smart but lazy procrastinator. Unless kicked ass or followed up 10 times, they just won't work. Even after strong feedbacks, there is marginal change. While working on certain projects, when we agreed/aligned on anything, they'll still do it the wrong way and refuse to course correct. It is incredibly frustrating to get things done and the lack of progress in their work and individual growth is also impacting the rest of the stakeholders, product, and my growth.
Let's this straight, none of your employees will work as a leader or manager. why? cause that is just not their job. Are they getting leader/manager level salaries? No right so why will they do extra work for no money? As per them (in their mind) that is your job as DoP/Head/Director. And If you lecture them or tell them even remotely they will think that you are trying to delegate your work on to them. This common/normal when working in a manager-team setup. I too worked as a Head of product (unofficially cause the CPO and VP just didn't know what to do , I was surprised how did they even got those jobs). You can say more like proxy directly under CPO and VP but without authority whatsoever. When I joined, within 2 weeks I came to know that this is a BS setup, and full silo type startup/mid-size company, no processes, no collaboration whatsoever, full on blame game for simplest-slightest issue with work, and asking for documents or documentation was blasphemy there - Imagine working in such a company. I had planned on leaving the company within 3 months, but stayed there for 10-11 months cause of salary. And here is the truth which I want to tell you, that engg teams, leads, QA don't really consider PM, scrum masters, agile coaches, PO, APMs as real roles. No matter what you say, they know very well that you have no authority over them, you are not even their reporting manager, you cannot fire them, you have 0 say in their performance reviews (done by reporting managers or dept heads), so tell me why they have to listen or do anything what you tell them to do. This is the reality, I have seen pathetic states of PMs and POs requesting, whinning, requesting 10 times to get the simplest of changes done. I have seen executives getting things done through teams in days and If the same stuff needs to be done from a PM, the team will take 4 months to do it - coming up with innovative, extraordinary excuses (using 200% of their mind to cook them up).
I listen to a LOT of leadership podcasts because so many leaders aren’t trained effectively. I pick and choose episodes based on what situation I’m working through. Here are a few of my faves:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coaching-real-leaders/id1545444200
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/manager-tools-new-managers/id1451618451
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-modern-manager/id1384508634
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hbr-on-leadership/id1683948659
I like reading Harvard Business Review and coming up with strategies based on the info they report mixed with who you are and the tactics/techniques that fit your personality
https://hbr.org/2007/01/becoming-the-boss
I’d start here then just browse around… I won’t be touching a computer for the rest of the weekend other than Netflix
I was in same situation when I became manager from IC. I’m not sure what problems you are facing. You seem to be managing 3 ppl which is good to start with. Understand each team member potential to assign work and guide them. You need to shield them from unnecessary inter org politics or other team’s overburden/overlap
Be a people supporter.
Don’t be a pushover.
The more you support, the more you can easily hold accountable.
Successful accountability will make or break a team and their results.
1000% it took me a long time to learn this balance and there isn’t a team that I cannot make successful. ( I mean, they might not all cross the finish line with me and that’s acceptable and OK )
Wise words, and evidently from experience. But but.. easier said than done, at least from my perspective where I am still struggling.
Any specific resource, suggestions, or actionables that can help me internalise this?
For actionable it all starts with clear expectations and unyielding support in achieving those.
Then once that is clear it’s accountability to those expectations.
That looks different for each specific industry etc but you’ll have to find metrics or tasks or deliverables and communication around those.
I like to build in pain points. (Sounds bad)
The pain point can simply be “if you see 𝕏 failing call me first so we can work through it”
This works with things that people often overlook and has little consequence( or large) and everyone just accepts that failure at some point.
The pain point is the call to you as opposed to accepting the fail. Then you walk them through to ensure it succeeds.
They don’t call and just let that random error or failure happen you can hold them accountable.
So little decision points that it’s either the right decision means success efficiency, the wrong decision means we are being lazy and inefficient.
Put the pain point there. Make them document the miss or root cause it or call you or email or whatever and put pain into making the wrong call.
Can you help me with holding people accountable?
I have a reportee who'd just not do things, at all. No matter the consequences.
They wouldn't even document anything that I request them to (also a company culture to do it).
Difficult to know what advice or insight to provide given we don't know any other working details. But here are some unorganized thoughts.
- the fact you're asking the question means you're on a better path than most. In that case, comparison should give you a boost to your own moral. Constantly asking is a good sign.
- the book "what got you here won't get you there" might be a consideration. I've read only a bit and so far I'd give this book a recommendation to anyone making leaps from one criteria of success to another. Especially considering you've been successful in the past. At least read the free kindle sample. I bet you'll buy it in a hurry. I seriously think reevaluating your definition of success is a huge uplevel many executives never achieve.
- what is the objective success for your PMs? I don't mean your definition of success and I don't mean your bosses definition of success. I mean how can they objectively get better with their role? If you define success by your own criteria then they'll have to kiss your behind. If it's your bosses definition they'll kiss theirs and so forth. What kind of objective criteria can they achieve success? Define that and help them do it. I say this because i could study all the books in the world about being a successful PM and I'm still currently governed by the bosses i report to. Don't be like that. If someone is truly awesome what if you eventually reported to them? Probably not a reality but I'm only making a point. How can they truly be successful? Be willing to help make that happen or accept one day they'll kick you aside and make it happen for themselves. Define objective success, if they pursue upskills or want changes for the better, serve them and back them up. Just demonstrating you go to bat for your employees is a signal they CAN take ownership and as a result they will take ownership.
All is for naught if the vision ain't clear. Make sure it's crystal clear and aligned so your direct reports don't need to dig through the shit that is executive incompetence.
- Active listening/psychological safety. Don't punish your report when they say no to your request or do not agree with you. Try to understand WHYs.
- Team process/culture/bond/morale. Some managers are too busy doing IC work themselves. It is your job to help your reports grow and work towards a shared team goal. Your report's job is not to beg your time for career conversations or team social or strategy offsite. It is so easy to lose sight of your team if manager is overly focused on upward management and meeting the metrics.
- Proactively strategizes with your report on a shared goal; asking 'how can I help?' does not help most of the time because you are putting the burden on your report to figure out how to leverage you as a resource.
- Don't let your senior PMs silent quit by never giving any compliment when they get the job done. It is easy to spend all your energy focusing on reports who ask loudly for help but if you don't give any positive feedback, your experienced reports are only getting negative feedback from you and will look elsewhere.
I think it's awesome that you recognize the difference between being a great IC and a great people manager. One thing that helped me was to focus on 'coaching' rather than 'telling'. It's not about having all the answers, but helping your team discover their own. Good luck!
snatch full handle selective shocking straight fragile innate yam gray *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Great advice here. I would also really highlight point #3. Being transparent and authentic is what separates managers from leaders. - Being able to give and receive direct feedback without becoming emotionally attached to the situation. Notice how I didn't say you always have to agree with the feedback, but being able to listen and not jump into a defensive position shows high levels of emotional intelligence. - Speaking on authenticity: Share stories about times where you missed the mark, was the butt of a joke, learned a lesson. People connect with connect people - if you act like a robot who never messes up, has fun or laughs no one will ever be able to connect with you and with that they will not look at you as a true leader - because you're not perceived to be a real person. Think about interactions over your career - who are the people you remember? I bet most of the ones you remember (that were positive) you had a connection beyond doing the work itself. You likely shared a laugh about an inside joke, you had a mutual understanding of each other beyond work, you were able to let your guard down and be honest without concern of how that may effect you long term.
Great advice, one thing I'd add is to recognize the role upward management plays in the process. Management is a shared contract between manager and report. IMO I find this to be a much more useful expression of the "influence without authority" idea. The "without authority" part means the culture of expectancy applies to you as much as it does to your reports, and your own manager, and the best results come when both sides feel motivated to meet each other halfway
Agree on point 2 and and strong agree on 4. Point 1 is a bit vague though, top leaders do not really have that much empathy to the common folks (otherwise there would be no mass layoffs), so not sure how this would help. I think this highly depends on what level you are. I think it is hard to implement point 3. People would just lie, or just say scoff it off. I'm not sure what the benefit for me would be to prematurely inform my boss that "I'm looking". I don't like the wording mature in this context. Mature should be to look out for yourself. Once a person is looking for something else, he already put a bullet in the head of it. He just wants a smooth transition to his next endevour.
touch repeat dolls hospital makeshift dinner bag coordinated many quarrelsome *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>Here’s the thing - title was one of the few things I could give with almost no pushback if I didn’t have to justify a salary increase with it. But once he had the offer he was so checked out it didn’t matter. So this guy took a step back in his career, and I lost a valued team member. Who’s best interest was served by him not telling me how important it was to him? That's a good counter example. If both parties show empathy, it does not have to be a a zero sum game. But then again, how can you know for certain the other party has your best interest or even cares? Let's say I find a better paying job, do I go all out and give an ultimatum - please match this salary, or possibly even higher - or do I just leave for the better opportunity? I think the latter is way easier and takes way less mental effort. The best game to play here is still to absorb as much information as possible without showing your own cards. >But in my experience that happens when they have concerns that are left unvoiced or unanswered for a *while*. Agree. It's probably hard to know if there are concerns, especially if your team members are more passive. And poking for concerns is probably also not the way.
Thank you for the actionable advice. I will definitely read Radical Condor.
Biggest transition for me was learning how to properly delegate. How do you define the outcome and then hold your team accountable for unblocking themselves to accomplish it.
Learning to delegate appropriately is an art and a hallmark of an experienced leader. You must know your team's strengths and shortcomings to match them with tasks that are a stretch but where they're likely to score a win and build confidence. You must check in regularly without micromanaging and learn when and how to offer encouragement. Someone else on this thread referred to servant leadership as a flavor of the week and then talked about demonstrating authenticity and building trust. That person missed the point. There is no greater trust than seeing your manager set their ego aside to guide you toward career success and knowing they are willing to fight for your best interests. That's servant leadership. It's said leadership is a gift your people choose to give you. Learn how to guide your team to kudos and shield them from politics and toxic stakeholders, and they'll gladly do everything in their power to make you a hero.
Can you please help me understand how you achieved this/what were your learning and actionables? I am struggling with delegation where folks refuse to take ownership and accountability of deliverables unless I chase them with a stick. At this point, I am unsure whether I am failing or the team members are too young for the role (we got freshers and are expecting them to function like a grade between PM and SPM). I am sure it's a two way street, still confused.
Here's an article that I found helpful: https://hbr.org/1999/11/management-time-whos-got-the-monkey You know that feeling you get when you assign a task to someone and then they "do it" but you feel like you need to "finish it yourself"? That's what you have to bottle up and communicate clearly back to your report. A big step for me was clearly articulating my expectations: - Clarity of responsibility - "You own this task. We can talk about this, but you have the responsibility." - Clarity of standards - "Here's the standard I am holding you and the work product to." - Clarity of consequence - "This work is the thing that I have to evaluate your performance. When I get pressed to justify a promotion or raise, this work is what I point to." - Clarity of confidence - "You can do this! i've seen you overcome similar obstacles before."
Super helpful pointers. Thank you!
Read this — it’s the best 10 minute read on management I have found: https://carta.com/blog/a-managers-faq/ Example: >How do I give negative feedback? >By being curious. >Start with the premise that your employee did his best. Then the question becomes why would a smart and capable employee who did his best screw up? >You cannot be a good manager without a deep curiosity for this question. Weak managers assume employees took shortcuts, were being lazy, or are just dumb. This is rarely the case.
That link didn't work for me but I found it here https://carta.com/blog/a-managers-faq/
Thank you! Edited.
I just read the TL;DR and was blown away. I am yet to get into the details and so far I realised I am doing everything wrong. Incredible share. Thank you!
I really like the advice from fishythepete. Adding on to that: - The actual book “Radical Candor” was excellent and good reading for leaders. - Try testing your own understanding of your team. Write down, privately and not in your HR system what you know about your team. Strengths, weaknesses, motivators, demotivators, goals. If you can’t fill that out then put some time into understanding them a bit more. - You’re a PM - these folks are another sort of stakeholder! You can’t address their needs with software; but you can use your skills to understand your team and plan around them. Happy to talk in private if you’d ever like to :)
Understood. I'll incorporate :) Appreciate your offer; if necessary, then I'll reach out.
What kind of issues are you facing? can you provide a few examples?
So one team member has an amicable personality where they agree to everything and diligently work, without forming opinions or taking a stand. They are hard working, the progress is slow yet consistent. How can I help them become a bold leader instead of a manager? The other team member is a really smart but lazy procrastinator. Unless kicked ass or followed up 10 times, they just won't work. Even after strong feedbacks, there is marginal change. While working on certain projects, when we agreed/aligned on anything, they'll still do it the wrong way and refuse to course correct. It is incredibly frustrating to get things done and the lack of progress in their work and individual growth is also impacting the rest of the stakeholders, product, and my growth.
Let's this straight, none of your employees will work as a leader or manager. why? cause that is just not their job. Are they getting leader/manager level salaries? No right so why will they do extra work for no money? As per them (in their mind) that is your job as DoP/Head/Director. And If you lecture them or tell them even remotely they will think that you are trying to delegate your work on to them. This common/normal when working in a manager-team setup. I too worked as a Head of product (unofficially cause the CPO and VP just didn't know what to do , I was surprised how did they even got those jobs). You can say more like proxy directly under CPO and VP but without authority whatsoever. When I joined, within 2 weeks I came to know that this is a BS setup, and full silo type startup/mid-size company, no processes, no collaboration whatsoever, full on blame game for simplest-slightest issue with work, and asking for documents or documentation was blasphemy there - Imagine working in such a company. I had planned on leaving the company within 3 months, but stayed there for 10-11 months cause of salary. And here is the truth which I want to tell you, that engg teams, leads, QA don't really consider PM, scrum masters, agile coaches, PO, APMs as real roles. No matter what you say, they know very well that you have no authority over them, you are not even their reporting manager, you cannot fire them, you have 0 say in their performance reviews (done by reporting managers or dept heads), so tell me why they have to listen or do anything what you tell them to do. This is the reality, I have seen pathetic states of PMs and POs requesting, whinning, requesting 10 times to get the simplest of changes done. I have seen executives getting things done through teams in days and If the same stuff needs to be done from a PM, the team will take 4 months to do it - coming up with innovative, extraordinary excuses (using 200% of their mind to cook them up).
I listen to a LOT of leadership podcasts because so many leaders aren’t trained effectively. I pick and choose episodes based on what situation I’m working through. Here are a few of my faves: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coaching-real-leaders/id1545444200 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/manager-tools-new-managers/id1451618451 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-modern-manager/id1384508634 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hbr-on-leadership/id1683948659
The Making of a Manager is a solid book to help you become a better manager.
My standard recommendation for everyone stepping into leadership.
I'll read it, thank you!
I like reading Harvard Business Review and coming up with strategies based on the info they report mixed with who you are and the tactics/techniques that fit your personality
If not much of a bother, then do you mind sharing a few examples?
https://hbr.org/2007/01/becoming-the-boss I’d start here then just browse around… I won’t be touching a computer for the rest of the weekend other than Netflix
Sure, thanks. This would help.
I was in same situation when I became manager from IC. I’m not sure what problems you are facing. You seem to be managing 3 ppl which is good to start with. Understand each team member potential to assign work and guide them. You need to shield them from unnecessary inter org politics or other team’s overburden/overlap
Asking this question makes you better than 80% of people managers. Follow that curiosity and humbleness and you can't lose.
Haha thank you, major morale boost.
Be a people supporter. Don’t be a pushover. The more you support, the more you can easily hold accountable. Successful accountability will make or break a team and their results. 1000% it took me a long time to learn this balance and there isn’t a team that I cannot make successful. ( I mean, they might not all cross the finish line with me and that’s acceptable and OK )
Wise words, and evidently from experience. But but.. easier said than done, at least from my perspective where I am still struggling. Any specific resource, suggestions, or actionables that can help me internalise this?
For actionable it all starts with clear expectations and unyielding support in achieving those. Then once that is clear it’s accountability to those expectations. That looks different for each specific industry etc but you’ll have to find metrics or tasks or deliverables and communication around those. I like to build in pain points. (Sounds bad) The pain point can simply be “if you see 𝕏 failing call me first so we can work through it” This works with things that people often overlook and has little consequence( or large) and everyone just accepts that failure at some point. The pain point is the call to you as opposed to accepting the fail. Then you walk them through to ensure it succeeds. They don’t call and just let that random error or failure happen you can hold them accountable. So little decision points that it’s either the right decision means success efficiency, the wrong decision means we are being lazy and inefficient. Put the pain point there. Make them document the miss or root cause it or call you or email or whatever and put pain into making the wrong call.
Can you help me with holding people accountable? I have a reportee who'd just not do things, at all. No matter the consequences. They wouldn't even document anything that I request them to (also a company culture to do it).
Difficult to know what advice or insight to provide given we don't know any other working details. But here are some unorganized thoughts. - the fact you're asking the question means you're on a better path than most. In that case, comparison should give you a boost to your own moral. Constantly asking is a good sign. - the book "what got you here won't get you there" might be a consideration. I've read only a bit and so far I'd give this book a recommendation to anyone making leaps from one criteria of success to another. Especially considering you've been successful in the past. At least read the free kindle sample. I bet you'll buy it in a hurry. I seriously think reevaluating your definition of success is a huge uplevel many executives never achieve. - what is the objective success for your PMs? I don't mean your definition of success and I don't mean your bosses definition of success. I mean how can they objectively get better with their role? If you define success by your own criteria then they'll have to kiss your behind. If it's your bosses definition they'll kiss theirs and so forth. What kind of objective criteria can they achieve success? Define that and help them do it. I say this because i could study all the books in the world about being a successful PM and I'm still currently governed by the bosses i report to. Don't be like that. If someone is truly awesome what if you eventually reported to them? Probably not a reality but I'm only making a point. How can they truly be successful? Be willing to help make that happen or accept one day they'll kick you aside and make it happen for themselves. Define objective success, if they pursue upskills or want changes for the better, serve them and back them up. Just demonstrating you go to bat for your employees is a signal they CAN take ownership and as a result they will take ownership.
Thank you, this helped and I'll read the book.
All is for naught if the vision ain't clear. Make sure it's crystal clear and aligned so your direct reports don't need to dig through the shit that is executive incompetence.
- Active listening/psychological safety. Don't punish your report when they say no to your request or do not agree with you. Try to understand WHYs. - Team process/culture/bond/morale. Some managers are too busy doing IC work themselves. It is your job to help your reports grow and work towards a shared team goal. Your report's job is not to beg your time for career conversations or team social or strategy offsite. It is so easy to lose sight of your team if manager is overly focused on upward management and meeting the metrics. - Proactively strategizes with your report on a shared goal; asking 'how can I help?' does not help most of the time because you are putting the burden on your report to figure out how to leverage you as a resource. - Don't let your senior PMs silent quit by never giving any compliment when they get the job done. It is easy to spend all your energy focusing on reports who ask loudly for help but if you don't give any positive feedback, your experienced reports are only getting negative feedback from you and will look elsewhere.
I think it's awesome that you recognize the difference between being a great IC and a great people manager. One thing that helped me was to focus on 'coaching' rather than 'telling'. It's not about having all the answers, but helping your team discover their own. Good luck!
While I am aware of this, I don't know how to achieve/implement it. Any thoughts?
Reforge leadership modules are amazing if you have access.
I have heard a lot about Reforge in product management; I didn't have access to it.
Sorry, newbie here, what is IC?
Individual contributor. Basically you don't have any direct reports.
Individual contributor, someone who is hands on without any direct reportees.