I mentioned in PEDAGOGY that my preferred teaching style mirrors my personally preferred learning style, and that I’d write a bit more about how this probably also seen in how preferred management style mirrors how you like to be managed, how you mentor others mirrors how you prefer to be mentored yourself, etc. I never actually got to that in the EPILOGUE to that post, so maybe we tackle that today.
Much like a teacher-student relationship, mentor-mentee relationships and manager-managee(?) relationships have an inherent power dynamic and status imbalance. I think there’s quite a bit of good advice out there on how to be a better manager or mentor, and I think there’s also a lot of good advice about taking charge of your own development, like individual development plan (IDP) templates. (I love IDPs, I just don’t know if I would fit IDPs in here. Maybe later.) So instead I’m going to write about managing up – how you can manage your own supervisor and/or mentor to make the most of the relationship.
Sometimes I think “managing up” as a concept gets twisted into somehow manipulating your manager. That’s not really what I mean. Because of the power dynamic, though, I think a lot of focus is put on optimizing “top down” management/mentorship and how to improve being a manager, which is very valid and of course crucial to strong leadership. But there are also things that a mentee or direct report can do to build the relationship with their manager for the benefit of everyone involved. (This, of course, assumes your manager or mentor isn’t jealous or somehow in competition with you, their junior, or otherwise sabotaging, since that brings a whole layer of dysfunction to all of this. I’m assuming a healthy relationship, where there’s an inherent power dynamic or hierarchy, but everyone is generally a good person.)
By understanding how your own mentor or manager prefers to be mentored or managed herself, you can get some pretty powerful insights into their motivations in how they mentor or manage you. This can help color your interactions with more context and perspective. For example, I know that I myself prefer a “pacesetting” management style, where I’m generally trusted to do my own thing and make my own decisions along the way, and will proactively reach out for help when and where I need it. But that management or mentorship style can seem to my reports or mentees that I’m too aloof or hands-off, and not delegating tasks clearly. To me, it just feels like I’m avoiding being a micromanager, but to my coworkers it can create confusion and lack of clear expectations. So establishing a two-way communication stream between mentor and mentee, even in light of the power dynamic, can really help ensure that everyone is on the same page and getting what they need or want out of the relationship.
I haven’t always preferred the “pacesetting” management style. My preferred management style (the way I like to be mentored/managed) has evolved over the years, for sure. Early in my training and career, I craved a high-touch, frequent-communication style as I built confidence in my skills. I wanted a lot of feedback and I wanted it often, since I was unsure of my work. I still reach out for input more often than usual when I’m plunging into something I’ve never done before, but most often I want to be left to my own devices and be trusted to reach out with updates when I’m ready to give them.
Anticipating what my manager needs from me is helpful, too, though. A big moment for me in my career was the moment I realized that my managers were just people with their own careers and their own personal development trajectories. Basically just realizing I’m not the main character, and while I’d love for everyone around me to mold to my exact needs and desires, it was probably going to be a lot easier to meet my managers halfway. One of my first managers, for example, was working on writing some high-profile manuscript at the same time I was picking up my first independent project, and looking back it would have been an amazing learning opportunity if I had asked if I could help them, even if just by reading drafts or asking questions that would help them plug in the next block of text. I certainly couldn’t write the paper for them, even if we both wanted that, but instead of just doing my own thing, I could have reached out a bit more to see how I might help them like they helped me. As another example, you might see how your manager is gauging their own productivity to get an idea of what they might be expecting from you. If their own measure of success is submitting reports, then making sure your own reports are thorough and timely is probably going to impress them. If their measure of success is some output metric like lines of code written, then they’re probably going to be checking your commits. Stuff like that.
It’s not all altruistic. Making your manager look good usually makes you look good. Understanding where you fit in your manager’s trajectory can help your own trajectory. If your manager is gunning for a promotion, and gets it, that can in turn help you in the future by having a more senior network to pull from. Your manager doing well can mean more opportunities that you might not have gotten, especially if you’ve proven yourself trustworthy and capable of representing them. (I’m thinking especially of scientific lab settings, where your PI might get invited to give a lot of seminars or conferences and, not having enough time in their schedule or desire to travel, can pass some of those opportunities to you.)
I don’t have a real “manager” at this stage of my career, since I think of my co-founder as more of a colleague or peer than a true manager even if he’s “above” me on the HR org chart. But in the past, I’ve been able to leverage some great opportunities by taking an interest in the things my mentors and advisors have been passionate about, and figuring out how I could help them with their own professional goals. It’s also really helpful for me to get an idea about what motivates my mentors and advisors these days; sometimes, there’s opportunities to help them look good that makes me look good, too. That kind of bi-directionality in the mentor/mentee or manager/report relationship is helpful for build deeper mutual respect and I think managing “up” like that helps you to get more out of your manager, too.
ASIDE
A lingering thought on pedagogy: I meant to write more about learning objectives, since that’s the point of “Step 1: Decide on the 2-3 main things you want the participants or students to remember” since the 2-3 main things for a lecture may be the 2-3 learning objectives. Specifically, with setting learning objectives, there’s a hierarchy of subject mastery. The lower tier is rote regurgitation of facts; the higher tier is applying the materials learned to make something new. I usually try to avoid the lower tier of regurgitation, because in the real world, most of my participants will always have an “open book” to look things up, so I try instead to set learning objectives that are more applied.
Lindsay K. Pino 