101-Management

School’s in, suckas, and it’s pop quiz time:

You are a manager. Your job is primarily to:

1. Get things done.
2. Get your career in line.
3. Help others get things done.
4. Help others get promotions.
5. #1 & #2
6. #1 & #3
7. #2 & #4
8. #3 & #4
9. #3 & #4 & #1 as necessary.

Answer at the end of the post.

Here’s a hint:

Upshot: your job as a manager is no longer to get things done. You have people working for you whose jobs are to get things done. Stay out of their way. Your job is not to manage your own career now, either. If you are going all the things you are supposed to be doing, meeting people and recruiting people and helping people and negotiating with people and selling people and building trust with people and communicating openly with people and helping others spread their wings… if you’re doing all that, then career development will happen automatically.

Now, all that said, the buck does stop with you, so if something’s not happening the way you’d like it to, you’ve got to get in front of it and make it work, even if that means stepping in and rolling up your sleeves… from time to time. If you find yourself directing traffic more than 5-10% of the time, you’re too involved and/or your team’s too weak. Or, you’re a manager in title only.

As a manager, this is the most important thing for you to understand. It’s more important than time management, project management, negotiations, communications, listening, giving feedback, writing performance evaluations, or anything else you can think of. Your perspective comes first. Always. If you don’t look at your management responsibilities the right way, then you will not be able to capitalize on the competencies you develop.

(For instance, take giving feedback: if you see your job as to get things done, then you are likely to give direct feedback with little regard for how it’s taken. To a get-it-done person, who cares if others struggle with the truth? The hell with them—you’re cleaning up their mess as it is, they deserve to feel a little of the pain! On the other hand, if you view your management job as supporting others in their attempts to get things done, that perspective automatically presumes a degree of supportiveness and empathy. The criteria you use to determine a “successful” feedback session will be different. So you have got to get the perspective piece right!)

Back to the quiz: the answer is #9.

How’d you do?

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.