too much humility plus a little self interest

made w/ midjourney

Managers often get positive reviews from their reports and feel good about themselves when they are stunting the growth of their reports. These managers care about their people and want to achieve the team’s goals. The way they enact this is to make their people reliant upon them.

Managers in this mode fail to model and teach their own thinking. They remain “answer-havers” rather than “prompt-givers.” Often these same managers are striving not to condescend to anyone they manage with hands-on teaching and coaching.  

I suggest that this whole approach can be rooted in a) misdirected humility and b) self interest. Having the answers and sharing them when you’re asked for them feels good. You feel needed. Your expertise is affirmed. And refraining from preaching or teaching or coaching feels appropriately humble. You never risk implying that you know better and the discomfort that can arise on both sides from that implication.

But a great manager doesn’t focus on safeguarding egos and equanimity. A great manager focuses on achieving the team’s mission – doing the thing the team exists to do – by building the skill and autonomy of everyone else. That building is slow and unpredictable, if it happens at all, when the manager is the “answer-haver.” It can be fast and consistent when the manager is the “prompt giver” instead.

-ben