Managers in our knowledge economy have two core responsibilities. The first is obvious: stewarding the business towards agreed deliverables (a.k.a. “getting work done”).
The other core responsibility is to develop and grow the people who report to you as a manager.
This can can bewildering at first. And many new managers, not quite knowing what to do with their new responsibility, take refuge in what they know and trust: the quality of their own work. But this is not enough.
A good manager wears many hats. Are you a Subject-Matter Expert, explaining the best way to do things, based on your skills and expertise? Or are you a Coach, asking open-ended questions to help your direct report figures things out for him- or herself (or themself)? Or are you a Mentor, offering advice and connections?
The answer, of course, is that you are all these things and more—but not necessarily at the same time. The key is to know what kind of conversation to have at a given moment.
Based on decades of experience and research, Craig Laviano (CLO, Learn Interactive) offers a structured way of thinking about your new responsibilities as a manager. Craig explains more in the video below.
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