| Workplace toxicity's impact on your career increases the higher your title gets. Never assume your manager peers will do you a favor for free. No good deed will go unpunished. If your role will include hiring and firing people on your team, start having regular 1:1's with your direct reports. Make it clear 1:1 time is for your direct reports to talk to you about whatever they want, and for you to listen. Not your time talk about their tasks. If you have to give critical feedback, give it sooner, rather than wait for a 1:1. The absolute worst time to provide feedback is during a performance review. For folks who struggle, make sure the performance bar is clearly defined for them and let them know you are there to help them, but it's their responsibility to meet that bar. Develop your team. You'll have your all-stars, your role-players, and your under performers. A majority of your time naturally goes towards your best and worst people. Your goal is to move everyone on your team to the all-star category. That means not short-changing time with the people who are performing. When you get promoted to the next level (managing managers) you'll be glad you can tap that bench of all-stars to take on additional responsibilities allowing you to take on bigger challenges. Under performance is typically a motivation issue or a communication issue. Make sure you are doing your part to address your deficiencies in each (trust me). Learn to delegate, but not just the crappy work. People leave companies because of bad managers. Remember that. No matter how great of a manager you think you are, someone will ultimately lump you in as a bad manager. It's easy to deal with under performers if they also have personality clashes. Dealing with under performers who you personally enjoy working with is a lot harder. I have no advice on how to deal with this. Firing people you have a personal connection with is tough, and it comes with the job. Communicate often. My rule was no company news hit my team through the rumor mill before I got a chance to speak to them. The moment I had news I could share, I would share it. Here is the top tip I can tell you to engender loyalty: talk to your team about promotions and career growth. Rarely ever do managers talk to their teams about career growth. Take an interest in the individuals on your team, and it will pay off immensely. Source: My experience having built the 5 top performing software engineering teams at my last company. |