How can we tell if our manager supports our success and growth?
A friend of mine who experienced many manager changes gave me some tips. Our manager's support can show up in four critical aspects of our work.
- The manager is transparent about priorities among projects in the team.
- The manager gives us high impact and high priority projects.
- The manager gets us the needed resource for success, such as human resources, needed time for the project, or budget for the right tools and equipment.
- The manager gives us visibility and credit for our accomplishments.
A manager who is not supportive can do the complete reverse of the above.
- The manager hides the team priorities from us.
- The manager consistently requires us to work on low-priority projects.
- The manager does not provide us with the needed time and resources.
- After we complete a project, the manager gives credit to somebody else.
When we find a new job, we should find a supportive manager and team. As soon as we join, we need to set up a career plan and build trust with our new manager. This way, we hopefully avoid running into a situation where our managers do not support our development and success.
What can we do if we get into a situation where our manager is not supportive? Many people immediately consider finding another job. However, there are better ways to resolve them, leading to stronger relations and a better work environment.
- Improve ourselves: Try our best to understand the need of the team, and see if there are better ways to work and contribute.
- Talk to our manager. Every 1-1 meeting opportunity with our manager is valuable for us to build trust and relations our manager. We can collect suggestions to make the team more successful, volunteer what we can do, and advice what we like our manager to do. If our manager is not supportive, we could point out the situation. People all can make mistakes, including ourselves and our manager. A good manager will quickly realize their mistakes and own up to the problem of correcting them.
- Talk to other coworkers. Do they share our experience? We can take collective actions to voice our concerns and improve our work environment.
- Talk to upper management. Most executives want to help the leaders and teams within their organization to be successful. When they gather data from lots of people, they can take corrective actions.
- Explore new job opportunities. If we have tried all the above steps and still cannot resolve the issue, our work environment may not fit our growth. Finding a good opportunity can be our next step. We have covered several possible situations in a previous post.
Ming Dao School uses 1-1 coaching and group events to help high-tech professionals grow their careers and handle career transitions. Contact us for more information.
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