This is episode 284, and we’re going to talk about nine counterintuitive habits of effective managers. Stay tuned.

Here are the two questions. This podcast answers. One, how do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? And two, how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted, 

although the competition and the expectations get bigger. This show with The Manager Track podcast will provide the answers. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. 

I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is seen as a source of contribution, connection and personal fulfillment. And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead. So everyone wins and gross. In the show, you’ll learn how to think, communicate and act as a confident and competent leader. 

You know, you can be. 

Welcome to The Manager Track podcast. We’re gonna talk about effective habits that are counterintuitive. There’s a lot of conventional wisdom out there about what makes a good manager a good manager, be liked by people. Have the answers. Be strategic.

Think high level, don’t micromanage. But what if I told you that some of the most effective managers actually do the exact. Opposite of what most of us have been taught. So in this episode, I wanna explore nine specific habits that might surprise you.

Habits that are kind of against the traditional management books, but they actually work in practice. So if I look at all the leaders that I’ve personally worked with across the ranks from first time manager, frontline leader to executive, the top 10% of managers in terms of achievements, accomplishments, pace of promotion scope of responsibility.

Do all nine of them. Now, of course this isn’t, you know, statistically significant and I haven’t done the research or the tracking on this. This is intended to give you a bit of an indication of how prominent this is and how much this correlates with good leadership. And if they actually seem like common sense to you and you think like, oh, okay, I knew that. Great. Now, as I go through this, spend some time actually thinking about when you do it and how you do it.

Because knowing that there is something important there or something that you’ve heard before is one thing, but then actually doing the knowing is a whole other thing. So I hope that either this is going to change the way that you look at effective leadership habits, or it’s gonna help you hone in and feel maybe a bit validated that when you doubt yourself doing some of these or you’re hesitating or you’re not sure if you’re doing the right thing, but you have an instinct that you’re actually feel affirmed that.

When done right, these habits are effective. Okay, with that said, let’s get into it.

So let’s start with something that I think makes a lot of new managers kind of uncomfortable. Habit number one is that these effective managers don’t have all the answers, and they’ll tell you that straight up. So imagine this, you walk into your manager’s office or to your manager’s desk with a tough question, and instead of confidently rattling off an answer and giving you exactly what you were looking for, they look at you and say, you know what? I actually don’t know. Now most people think that’s a sign of weakness and especially if you haven’t let before, if you knew to management the idea of telling someone else in your team that you have no clue, that you don’t know

may seem like the wrong approach to take because you might worry that your employees think that you as their manager don’t know what you’re doing. So why should they trust you? Why should they believe you? But here’s the thing. The best managers understand that admitting that you don’t know something.

Isn’t weakness, it’s honesty, and it actually builds trust and credibility. It also, and this is most important, it’s an invitation for collaboration. So when a manager says, I don’t have the answer. What they’re really saying is, Hey, let’s figure this out together.

Or, Hey, go run with it. I believe in you. They’re actually modeling what we call intellectual humility. They’re showing their team that it’s safe to not know everything. Safe to be honest, and to let others know that you don’t know, and that then encourages honest communication across the board.

And if you just imagine being a leader of a team that honestly tells you when they don’t know or when something was wrong, or if they don’t understand, then they need clarification. That makes the job of the manager so much easier than if you as a manager are leading a team, or the team doesn’t feel that they can be open and transparent about that.

So you as the manager, you have to role model this and you have to lean into this humility to know that you can’t have all the answers. You don’t need to have all the answers. It’s counterproductive to have all the answers.

And to hone in this one more time, if you pretend to have all the answers, you are gonna set that standard. And when your team now is confronted with a situation where they don’t have the answer.

They’re probably gonna hide it or they’re gonna fake it. They’re gonna make something up. And then this obviously is when things start to go sideways. So this is habit number one.

Happy Number two, which is somewhat connected to this, is that they don’t hide their weaknesses. They’ll tell you directly, Hey, I’m not great at creating slides. Can you help me prep for the presentation tomorrow?

Or, Hey, I’m working on being more patient. In such situations or in our meetings, if you see me slipping, please call me out. Or, Hey, I am trying to be a better listener. If you notice me jumping in too quickly, call me out. This is something that I’m really trying to course correct.

This is radical transparency about their own development areas, and what it does is that it humanizes leadership. It creates this sense of like. Equality, and we’ve talked about this in previous episodes around horizontal leadership, the fact that we’re actually all the same. You have your development areas and your strength and so do I.

And when we acknowledge that and we can openly talk about it, it creates psychological safety on the team. When your manager can admit that they’re working on something personally, professionally, then you naturally feel more safe to admit that you’re working on something too. You might even become more receptive to feedback in the way that you are, you know.

Openly or explicitly receive it, but also how you’re reflecting on it. And you might start to think, yeah, where do I need to ask for help? Where am I not good at and, and who should know about this? And actually speaking of soliciting feedback, when managers are really confident with the fact that they have their positive and their strength, but they also have their weaknesses, then this whole idea of soliciting feedback from others is a lot less.

Emotionally charged are a lot less triggering to them. ’cause they know, obviously I’m gonna get critical feedback. I need the critical feedback. And it says nothing about their worth or their value. As a manager, it is part of the process to continuously grow and iterate.

So they actively seek that feedback and actually then use it. To improve. So they’ll ask, Hey, how did I handle that situation? Or What could I have done better in our meeting? Or, what can I do to make your work easier? And then when they’re being told what they could do better,

they decide, they take note and they look for the adjustments that they can make. They may not agree with all of it, but where they do agree and where they think this is easy to make an adjustment and it has a benefit either for the other person, the relationship, the team, the organization, even if not for them personally, then they improve their own performance.

They adapt. So acknowledging this weakness is a strength in actually the most practical form. So it’s a leader who continuously grows and models that growth mindset for the entire team.

Okay, moving on to the third habit. Let’s now talk about something that might make you a little uncomfortable.

Habit number three is to not always be liked. And yeah. Okay. We could argue whether or not that’s a habit or a mindset, but the point here is that they don’t do thing things to be liked.

So their habit is to not lean into decisions or practices or behaviors to be liked because the real truth is that as a manager, you are not running a popularity contest. You are not being voted into the position based on your popularity.

Sometimes being a good manager means to push someone beyond their comfort zone. It means to let them struggle with a challenging project instead of, you know, swooping in and saving the day every single time. It means having difficult conversations about performance that aren’t fun for anyone involved, and people will likely walk out of those conversations not liking you.

They’ll go to their loved ones, partners, family, friends, and they’re like, I can’t believe they said that or did that, or whatever that may be. And in those moments when you’re not liked. You are actually doing them or the team a benefit in the long term.

So even when they’re frustrated with you, even when they’re resent you for a little bit in the short term, if you are doing it in order to do your job and to develop the people, or to support the team, that then is an effective practice, an effective mindset. Being liked and being respected don’t go hand in hand.

Yes, we like to be respected and if that comes with being liked, then great, but sometimes in order to be respected, in order for someone else to actually develop and grow, we may not be liked. And I’m always careful with bringing in sort of family related terms, but just to use an analogy here. To different area in our lives.

If you think about parenting, and it might be with a small child where the small child asks you to help them get dressed or to tie their shoes, and as a parent you realize like, I’m gonna have to show them that they can actually do it. They’re gonna have to learn that they can overcome this. Then, you know, this is gonna be an important lesson to learn.

And even if it’s hard to watch. I saw this video on social media where they were talking about this Chinese classroom where they had an open door and they put see through tape in the doorframe. And what that basically means that when the kids tried to come back into the classroom, they would be sort of like hit with this tape that was right about their, no eye level. And the most of the kids realized like, oh, they just have to kind of bend down and go underneath the tape. But one child was crying and the whole point of the video was to say, none of the teachers went there to help that child because the message here was. Hey, calm down, think about the problem and come up with a solution.

And then when that child actually realized like, oh, I just kind of have to like bend down and get under it, and then realized that they overcame that challenge by themselves. You could see right at the end of the video their eyes lighten up, and you can see the pride that they felt in that moment.

So sometimes in management positions, we are at the situation where we wanna push the boundaries a little bit and we know that this is gonna be hard feedback or they’re not gonna like to do what I asked them to do. But is this part of the job part of you taking on and fully owning the manager position and understanding that development and growth and even.

Just the business world isn’t always comfortable and you cannot always be liked along the way. We’re aiming for success. We’re aiming for respect a lot more than likability. If you are into sports, and if you couldn’t relate that much to that, you know.

Parenting or child situation earlier. Think about a trainer. If you go to the gym and you have a trainer who never pushes you, who makes your workouts easy and fun, that is nice for having a good time, but

you’re not gonna develop. And the question is. Why are you here? And why do you have a trainer in the first place? You’re not gonna see results and you might actually start to pick up some sloppy habits or are not keeping up and with the changing environment like aging, you kind of have to push yourself just to be stagnant. So in the workplace, if you take this back, even if you say like, Hey, I don’t want a promotion. I don’t wanna go anywhere I am, I’m good. Just, you know, let me sort of clock in and clock out and do my job. If you are not.

Learning. And if your manager isn’t developing you, your stagnation is actually decline because the world around you evolves. People around you evolve, the company changes, processes, targets, goals, strategies, technology, all of that changes. So the trainer who gets results, those that are ones who push you to do that last rep when you want to quit.

And in that moment. You might not like them. But later when you see what you’ve accomplished and what you’re capable of, that’s when you realize they cared enough about your growth to make you uncomfortable. And just to weave in a quick personal story, I got physiotherapy a while back and my physiotherapist

went to town on my calves and it was so painful and she kept going and she kept doing, she walked out the room with these like vacuum things on on me, and I got so mad. I was like, why is she leaving me in here? I’m in pain. I’m gonna. Like yell out for her any moment. But of course I was too embarrassed to do that, but I did not like her.

And then she came back and she explained the whole thing. And of course the next day I felt so much better. And I was like, when can I come back? I loved this and I’m so appreciative of it, but in that moment when it happened, it wasn’t fun. I didn’t like her, and I got annoyed with the fact that she left me there in pain and left and walked outside.

Okay. But going back to the managers, that for of growth, even when it’s hard, is something that’s really important

Now, habit number four is that they actually micromanage. Yes. I’m being serious. I know you’re thinking micromanaging. What the heck? No way. That is sort of like the management sin, number one, but here’s the thing with micromanaging. Great managers are not micromanagers by default, but they are not afraid to micromanage when it’s called for. So I’m gonna give you some examples of when this makes sense. Let’s say you have a, a team member who is still learning the ropes and they need some guidance.

What do you do? You micromanage, you will ask them to CC you on emails. You wouldn’t walk them through the process. You will for eye their work micromanaging. Or let’s say you’re in a crisis situation and the stakes are incredibly high. One of the C-suite people or the CEO is asking you for something and you are asking a team member to help with that.

You might go and you double check and triple check their work before you send it on. It’s micromanaging. You are actually managing the details, the micro actions and decisions of that person because there’s no margin of error. So now those are short term situations where you’re gonna lean in and micromanage, but it could also be that someone on your team is consistently missing the mark and they need some intensive support to get back on track. And in those situations, you might need to check in more frequently. You need to review their work more closely.

You need to provide more detailed guidance and coaching. You talk to them more often, and so forth. Now, to make sure that this doesn’t turn into micromanaging by default, what’s really important is that you use this kind of approach and this leadership style. For a short term.

And strategically and intentionally, and you actually communicate it. So if you have someone who is underperforming. You might wanna say like, Hey, it’s really important for us to fix this for the next two weeks, or until this issue is no longer an issue. I’m going to be reviewing all of your work, or your peer is going to double check all of it, or you are going to CC me on all of it.

The intention is not to control you. The intention is to support you and being lockstep with you so that we can intervene quickly or we can improve performance in a quick manner. And you’re getting out of this loop where you’re back on track.

You are telling them that you’re going to micromanage and you’re gonna tell them for how long or until what milestone is achieved.

And when you then use this micromanaging tactic or style management style, you are doing it not because you are having a control issue or because you’re overly interested in all the details, you are doing it because you realize that the situation demands it, and you are not shying away because you are worried about how you’re being perceived and ’cause you know that you’re not supposed to micromanage.

So you hold back when you use this effectively. You go in. You micromanage very intentionally and for a limited time, and then you zoom back out and you give that person autonomy again. Now band managers micromanage everything all the time for everyone or for no good reason.

Great managers know when to use it as a tool in their toolkit, and they’re very selective about when they pull that out

and when to put it back into the toolbox. Okay, next topic, and I believe it or not, habit number five. This is related to the micromanaging, but not about a person. It’s about going into the weeds again, selectively. So we are told constantly that managers should be strategic thinkers who stay at the 30,000 foot view, right?

And sure, that’s part of the job. Effective managers also know when to get into the details, and they’re not afraid to roll up their sleeves and to understand the nitty gritty of what’s happening on the ground floor. Maybe it’s a technical detail that could derail an entire project, if not handled correctly.

Maybe there’s a customer issue that requires understanding the specifics to really solve it. Maybe there’s a process that’s completely broken and you actually to go in and see it in action to understand how to fix it. Now, two things that great managers do that use this habit is they, A, don’t stay in the weeds for everything.

Similar bit micromanaging. It would be exhausting and completely ineffective. They’re very selective about it. They identify sort of what matters most. What has the biggest I impact? And then they go deep into those specific things. But two, they also don’t do it alone. They always make sure that someone else is either in the weeds with them or they’re bringing someone else along.

Because the goal is not to get in there, understand it, solve it, and get back out. ’cause that wouldn’t be sustainable because then no one else knew what you did. Especially if you’re working remote. You spend two hours fixing something and then you come back to the team the next day, Hey, I solved it. Okay, great.

Next time something breaks, no one knows what to do or what happened or what was the reason for the issue? ’cause you took care of it by yourself. Managers who do this well will dive into the weeds and we’ll make sure that whatever they do, whatever they decide and investigate, there’s always someone sort of like going into the weeds with them.

So that creates then a more sustainable solution. Afterwards and also make sure that they’re not coming in with their high level lens, digging deep into it and ignoring what’s been going on at that lower level. So you wanna have someone who’s close to the issues, close to the work, sort of working with you in in collaboration.

Ultimately, this is not about control and it’s not about personal interests or wanting to be involved in everything. It is about understanding what’s actually happening in a particular area that you oversee so that you can make better decisions and ultimately remove or help remove obstacles for your team.

That’s a very different motivation that than just wanting to control every detail.

Transitioning from being an individual contributor. And IC into your first leadership role is one of the biggest transitions that you’ll make in your career because the things that made you successful as an IC will not be the same things that will make you successful as a leader. And especially in a new role, when all eyes are on you, when you know your boss wants you to succeed and is watching closely, your peers are having an eye on you.

Your team members are keen to figure out how to work with you and whether or not they can trust you during this time. By the way, whether or not you’re a first time manager or you’ve led teams in the past, but you are in a new role as a new manager to the team or even to the business, this is a time in which you don’t wanna wing it.

Go into such a situation with a plan and with specific tools that will help you build trust and gain the respect of your coworkers. In our New Manager Toolkit, we’ll give you guides, tools, checklists, and lots of things that are important for any new manager to keep in mind. Head on over to our cova.org/free-toolkits to grab your copy.

You can also find that link in the show notes or the captions. I’ll see you over there.

Okay, now let’s move on to the next habit. Habit number six. This is about something that I think really separates skip managers from truly great ones. They don’t clinging to their best performers. So most managers, when they find a star employee, 

They want to hold onto them pretty tight. They wanna keep them on the team. They wanna make sure that they never leave. They protect that talent to make sure that they’re happy and they actually think, not to their own fault, but because of.

What’s being taught in the sort of the management, the study of management and leadership is that you wanna keep your A players, so they actually think that is good leadership is to bring in a players, keep ’em on the bus, retain the talent. Right. We constantly hear that, but what what actually stands out with great managers is that they do the opposite.

And actually, let me just make sure, I’m not saying to reject or repel the A players, that’s not it. But they actively develop their best people to rise above them. And they encourage them to rise to their highest potential. And with that they actually often create what I call like an entourage. People who will follow them around if that manager leaves to another company.

These are the people who are like, I wanna follow them. I wanna go where they are because I can see how they are really invested in my career, in my growth, and they’re gonna. Not put a lid on it, but they’re going to be advocates on my behalf so that I can reach my highest potential.

Whether that’s gonna be with them or without them, it’s the independent of the actual relationship. So they know that these managers care about them personally and that the relationship is at the core and the sort of employment transaction that is temporary. But what’s really holding them together is the actual human to human relationship.

So they’re actually developing people who are ready to replace them, like they’re developing their number twos, they have them ready, that if they get a bigger role or if they go somewhere else, there’s someone else’s who can take their spot.

They’re also gonna promote them into bigger roles. They’re gonna advocate for them. If the high performer this a-player says, Hey. I would love to explore or learn more about this other team and what they’re doing, or I’m considering, you know, taking on a new position somewhere else.

Those managers will take a step back and actually support the employee at that time to look at what is actually the best path forward. Now, if that employee leaves because they got a better salary elsewhere, but you know that their growth potential here would be better.

Then, yeah, you as a manager, you would have to drop everything you’re doing and make sure that you do what you can to try to retain this employee. But if you realize that no, this employee has le reached a limit here, they can’t continue to grow here. The next step would maybe be my position. I’m not going anywhere.

So no, I’m gonna have to give them wings and let them go and support them in that decision. And this is what sort of changes in the dynamic where the employee sees. They’re in it for me. This is not just a transaction. A way to think about it is that when you consider what the mark of a truly great leader is. Then it’s, you know, not the results that they achieve while they’re in the role, but it’s often what happens after they leave. Does the team fall apart? Does or does it continue to thrive and even improve because they’ve developed strong leaders who can step up and take over.

What happens to the relationships that these managers build in an industry once that they leave the job or they go elsewhere? Are they considering that long-term play? Are they actually connecting with the human and supporting them in their evolution or they being very transactional?

So great managers constantly ask themself, who am I developing to take my job? Who’s ready for the next level of leadership? How can I prepare them for bigger opportunities within the team in a different team in the organization, or somewhere completely different? And kind of the beautiful paradox in all of this is that when you develop leaders who rise above you, it doesn’t hold you back.

It actually accelerates your own career. And I get that some people have this fear, like, oh my gosh, they’re gonna take my job. And I’m not saying that there aren’t such situations that hasn’t happened before, but in the vast majority of cases. That’s not what happens.

That’s simply a fear because in a vast majority of organizations, they promote people who can create more leaders, not people who, who talent and keep their best performers close to protect their own position.

So if you’re a manager and you feel threatened by your team’s success, that’s a bit of a red flag, right? You need to do some self-reflection there and really assess what’s real and what is just a fear that you have in your head, and then how is that impacting how you’re being perceived as a leader.

Now let’s talk about a habit that requires real wisdom and restraint. This is habit number eight, it’s something that might go against your natural instinct, and it’s definitely not something we associate with managers, great managers listen more than they speak. And this may sound simple and it might even sound like common sense.

Yeah. I’ve heard about the whole active listening thing. But it’s actually kind of shocking how rare it is when you actually look at how most managers operate. Most managers dominate meetings. They’re providing the agenda, they’re doing most of the talking. They’re the ones talking the most in their one-on-ones as well.

They’re really quick to jump in with their opinions and solutions before anyone else can even finish speaking.

They already have an answer and often lead with their opinion first, great managers flip this ratio in team meetings and in one-on-ones, they’re truly listening more than they’re speaking. Because they understand that they already know what they think. They’re already aware of what’s in their head.

So the valuable information, the insights that’s gonna help them make better decisions comes from hearing what others think, from understanding what’s happening on the ground level, from catching problems by listening to others before they become, you know, the full-blown crises. Sort of like to listen to body language nuances, like missing information, all of that.

Now, on top of being really good listeners, what kind of goes hand in hand with that Is that great managers also ask really good questions. Questions that help people think through problems. And I don’t mean the type of questions like, Hey, don’t you think you should do it this way?

Which is what we call, like, it’s a fake question. It’s a leading question. You’re basically telling them you should be doing this way, except you’re wrapping that whole thing in a question. What they do is they ask questions like, Hey, what options have you considered? What do you think is the best path forward and why?

And what would you need to make that happen? So they’re using their one-on-ones to coach and to develop, not to command and control or to give answers and do the talking. So they create the space for their team to bring solutions and to think through problems versus just dumping them on the manager’s desk.

So listen more than you speak now onto our next habit, our final habit. This is about when to do nothing. Yes. This probably goes against every instinct of a new manager, and many times also more experienced leaders because it’s against what we often value in our cultures more broadly, to be acting, to be proactive, to do things, to fix it, but sometimes the best decision is to do nothing.

It’s not being the decisive leader, not being the action taken, not being, not taking charge, not making things happen, but to understand that not every situation requires immediate action. Not every fire needs to be put out right away. Sometimes you do need to wait and gather more information.

Sometimes a problem will actually resolve itself if you give it time. And sometimes rushing in and taking action makes things worse because you don’t have the full picture yet. And it’s a controversial one, but I think it’s really important. Not all fires need to be put out at all.

Sometimes there’s a small fire burning somewhere in your organization or on your team. And if you let it burn for a bit, people learn from it, and the team figures out how to handle it themselves. They build resilience and problem solving skills. But if you jump in and put out every fire, what happens is that your team never learns to handle those fires themselves, and they probably become dependent on you, and then you also become the bottleneck.

Everything that has to go through you. People starting asking you for approval or validation or they just bring, bring it to you to say like, Hey boss, here’s the fire. And that then slows down the entire organization. So great managers, practice, strategic inaction. And again, really mindful here, this isn’t the constant inaction or the not addressing the fire because I don’t want to, or feels uncomfortable or I don’t know what to do with it.

It’s really important to distinguish between, oh, something is uncomfortable versus something is genuinely urchin and needs my intervention. And so if you have not only the awareness of what is guiding this urgency or this intervention, but also the discipline and the confidence to wait, then waiting is the right move.

And now we got one more habit. This is our final one, which is that great managers master filtering and prioritization. It kind of makes many of the other habits we just talked about possible. So great managers are pretty ruthless about prioritization.

They focus on what’s. Urgent and important. Other things, they delegate it or they ignore it, to stay focused on what actually matters. Now, what that means in practice is they’re not available to help their direct reports.

24 7. Unless it’s a genuine emergency, they may not respond to every Slack message within 30 seconds. They’re also not in every single meeting that happens in the organization just because it’s interesting. Many times we may think like, oh no, but I have to be present or I have to be engaged.

I have to be involved and I have to be available and supportive.

But if that, which is all nice and good and you’re probably actually being helpful, but if that comes at the cost where you now ignoring or not spending enough time on the urchin and important stuff, or just not even urchin, just important things, then that cost, that price you pay is too high.

I recently ran a survey. A team as we were doing a training and I asked, how much of your day are you spending on urchin, but not important tasks? And 50% of people said somewhere between 50 and 75% of their day is spent on urchin, but not important tasks. Really let that sink in now.

We probably can never get to a, you know, to it. There’s 0% of that. We always have to do things that are not important. May just be urchin or are not important. And not urgent. We still have to do them. But 50 to 75% of the time, that is a lot. And if the remaining 50%, by the way, it was almost like an equal split between 25% who did less than 50 the 50 to 75%, and then there was 25%

who did more than that? Meaning that they spent 75 to a hundred percent of their time on non-important things. So as much as with all the other habits where you are, role modeling things to the team, the way that you filter and prioritize, also role models to others, what is important, where your attention goes and allows you to be actually effective, not just supportive day to day.

And it’s totally a tight road that you have to walk and a balancing act for that matter that is difficult to navigate. This is hard stuff to figure out and you know, you are just trying to get it as close to ideal as possible. And sometimes we spend time on something that we think wasn’t worth it and then other times we might totally hone in on it.

But the idea of always being available, always saying yes to things and being involved in a lot of different things, that is the thing that often holds people that back from actually being effective managers, when you do it well, you then have the mental space and energy to actually think deeply about your problems on the team and the strategic issues, and you can, with that, lead the team effectively and give proper guidance, solve problems well.

So in essence, great managers understand that their attention and their focus is their most valuable resource. And they protect that fiercely. They filter ruthlessly, they prioritize constantly, and their okay with saying no, even letting some things go so that they can focus on what truly moves the needle for the organization.

And specifically that may mean to say, Hey, that is not a priority right now. I can’t take it on, or, can you handle this yourself? I am tied up , in something that needs my intention urgently. That may feel frustrating in a moment on both sides, like the person asking, but also the manager who wishes they could just drop it all and be supportive to the team. ’cause that’s often where sort of that sense of reward comes from. But it’s not about feeling good, it’s about managing the time well and spending it in the right places .

So let’s bring this all together. The counterintuitive habits of effective managers aren’t really counterintuitive once you understand what management is actually for. It’s not about being liked by everyone.

It’s not about having all the answers. It’s not about being available 24 7 or always staying strategic and high level management is about developing people, making good decisions with imperfect information, creating the conditions where your team can do their best work and achieve results. And that means being honest about what you don’t know.

It means pushing people even when it’s uncomfortable, because that’s how they grow. It also means to zoom in on details and then zoom back out. High level it means developing leaders who will eventually surpass you or leave, and it means listening more than you speak and knowing when to do nothing at all.

Plus. Protect your focus ruthlessly, and be transparent about your own growth areas and weaknesses. These habits might not be. What the traditional management books.

Tell us to do. But if you talk to any truly effective manager, the ones whose teams consistently perform at high levels, whose people stick around and grow into leadership roles themselves, those whose organization actually thrive over time. The leaders who build the entourage, right? You will find those patterns again and again.

So here’s my challenge for you. Pick one of these habits, choose one and experiment with it this week. Maybe you’ll admit like you don’t have the answers or you explore solutions together with that.

Maybe you’ll practice doing nothing when your instinct tells you to jump in and solve the problem for someone else. Maybe you ask more questions and talk less in your next one-on-one meeting. Start small and see what happens. Pay attention to the results.

And over all of this, remember that becoming great manager isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being intentional, honest, and constantly learning and adapting these bouncing act are not easy to navigate. So if you feel like, man, I really don’t quite know or haven’t gotten this down yet, that’s all part of the process. Most leaders, even though it’s great leaders who do these things, they still find themselves messing up here or there

On those habits, as long as you fully understand what good management means and how some of these habits. Feel and seem counterintuitive, but are actually the right thing to do in order to effectively lead a team, then you are on the right path.

So if you found this insightful and useful, please share it with a friend, a colleague, a coworker, or your boss, or bring it to your leadership team and talk about these different things, and then reflect on the different habits. As a group and what you pick up in your team, and in your organization.

And of course, we always value ratings on the podcast apps or subscribing to our YouTube channel. All the details are linked below. Thanks so much and I’ll be back next week with our other episode of the Manage Track podcast.

Bye for now. 

If you enjoy this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader. People love to work with. This includes a free master class on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it at archova.org/masterclass. 

The second resource is my best-selling book, the confident and competent new manager, how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out at archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. 

You can find all those links, in the show notes down below.