It is essential to pick your manager very wisely, a fortiori at the early stages of your corporate life, as a good manager can make a huge difference in your career and be a strong enabler. Your manager should be your number one ally, mentor and best advocate.
Characteristics of a good manager
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Your manager is familiar with the bureaucracy of the company. They know how to play the game and can get the attention of important people. As a liaison, he knows how to effectively work toward what is expected from the organization and which areas you need to focus on in order to grow expertise and bring satisfaction. He knows what matters most. There are fantastic models to learn from.
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As a mentor, he can point out and evaluate opportunities, identify, assign and stretch projects where you will learn things that matters for your career. Thus, helping you gathering important knowledge, achievements and skills to help you get that promotion. Via his strong network of peers across the board and companies, he can pinpoint at any experts, mentors, conferences or resources that might be relevant for you to get in touch with.
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He helps you understand the value of your work even though it is not glamourous at the first glance or provides guidances on how to resolve conflicts occurring within the team. He his trustworthy and reliable.
Note: one thing to keep in mind is that your work should speaks for itself. If your line of work is appreciated by your team i.e. you are a valuable contributor, social driver (bringing people together instead of fueling dissensions), and possess an extreme sense of ownership, automatically, chances are high that your manager will likes you too. Remain yourself. And if you are striving toward expertise (ultimately, truth) and what is commonly seen as good, you cannot do anything wrong. Are you Senior Engineer provides a checklist moving that direction.
Skills matrix
A good manager:
- Helps you to play the game and navigate the corporate ladder;
- Points out opportunities and help you focus on what really matters;
- Knows what is important and maintains a productive environment;
- Helps you achieving “mastery“;
- Provides feedbacks early on to help you grow;
- Schedules regular, predictable and dedicated 1-1s;
- Do not uses 1-1s as status meetings to discuss about critical projects;
- Allows vulnerability in front of each other to develop necessary trust;
- Praises your work in public and keeps the criticisms for your 1-1s;
- Possess strong communication skills;
- Advocates your work and uses his network to support you;
- Possess strong technical foundations giving him credibility;
- Performs as mentor.
In contrast, a bad manager:
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Avoids meetings with you, always reschedules or replaces the agenda at the last minute.
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Micromanages you, questions every details and refuses to let you make any decisions.
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Assigns without consultation high visibility projects destined to fail from the beginning, shifting responsibilities on you; literally throwing you under the bus to avoid accountability. E.g. “Olivier is happy to assist you” sent to your 3rd-level manager. Yeah, thank you, good luck with that!
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Gaslights you, presenting false information making you doubt your own memory, perception or sanity e.g. “As discussed in the last meeting…” or “This is not what we have agreed upon“.
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Do takes part in the office gossips or speaks evil of other employees. E.g. “You will see, John Doe is a low performer” is a no-go (on your first day and targeting a colleague with a cancer!).
Notes:
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Even if we are not used to received behavioral feedbacks other than from our parents, do not be disoriented. Inevitably, everyone will screw up in some fashion and those are the fastest way to learn and progress.
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Your manager remains human and strives toward what is best for the company and the team first. He will sometime be stressed, make mistakes, be unfair, harmful or say silly things.
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Should this be a repetitive pattern though, bring this to his attention. If not possible, I would recommend you to speak to your skip manager, address a note with data points to your HR department or try to change team or company whenever possible. Depending of the circumstances (it is hard to build generalities), you might also wait as those kind of managers – if not supported by a deficient hierarchy – won’t last long. Those job switchers generally only focus on building a portfolio and leaves after 1.5 years.