The surprising ways bad bosses shape our self-worth, the empathy I gave my former manager, what we translate constructive feedback into, and the three questions I ask my clients in coaching sessions.
When the movie The Devil Wears Prada came out, it was one of my favorites. I related to Andy Sach’s drive and I wanted the New York job, glamorous office, and the dramatic transformation from college student to young adult. Then I graduated, moved to New York, and at age 23 worked for my own version of Miranda Priestly. I quickly realized that it was much more entertaining watching Anne Hathaway than living it in real life.
Formative experiences I look back on include:
Day 1: My first-time-manager told me “Your only job is to make me look good.”
Year 2: When I mustered the courage to ask my first-time-manager about development opportunities I was met with “This is the point when you millennials get itchy. Keep your head down and stay put.”
Year 3: After accepting an offer for another role on another internal team, my first-time-manager was upset and said, “You are a subject matter expert in nothing.”
Years later once I started coaching more first-time-managers, something unexpected happened. After hearing so many of them say they didn’t know how to manage performance, keep a team motivated, and effectively recruit, all while meeting their own targets, I asked myself:
Had anyone trained my first-time-manager how to be a leader?
Was it an unfair judgment to think they were bad at managing?
I quickly went from wondering why I got the terrible manager to thinking about how they were expected to deliver flawlessly on Day 1 in a role they were never trained to do.
Oftentimes, companies will promote the great engineer to Engineering Manager, or the stellar sales person to Sales Manager. But becoming a manager requires a skillset that isn’t nurtured as an individual contributor. Being great at your job and helping someone else become great at theirs are two entirely different skills. Yet, in corporate life, this happens all the time. Overnight, a high performer gains direct reports alongside an expectation to effectively navigate conflict, coach careers, deliver difficult feedback, inspire a team, manage burnout, make difficult decisions, and also meet their own goals. Often, this happens without proper training and yet we still expect them to become fantastic people managers instantaneously.
Nobody would expect someone to become a great therapist, accountant, or pilot without training, but assuming that exceptional individual performance equals exceptional leadership is damaging. Most employees don’t walk into work thinking, My manager has never been taught how to coach, develop, or lead people. They walk into work assuming that because someone has the title of manager they are qualified to evaluate their performance, and oftentimes their potential too. So when that manager dismisses an idea, withholds encouragement, avoids difficult conversations, or confuses criticism with coaching, we often don’t question their leadership. Instead, we question ourselves which is the part I wished we talked about more.
Some questions to reflect upon:
Would your opinion of yourself change if you knew the person evaluating you wasn’t qualified to define your potential?
Whose opinion are you still working for?
The Hardest Part Isn’t the Manager
The hardest part of a bad manager isn’t always the manager. Sometimes it’s the story you keep telling yourself years later. In the paid section, I share how to identify those stories, the surprising ways they show up in ambitious professionals, and the coaching questions I use to help clients let them go.
