If my manager cannot tell me what to focus on next,where my long term gaps are,I feel they are not doing they job (not paying attention to me / not caring enough). My sister has even changed jobs over a manager who failed to provide any actionable feedback over a year (she's very ambitious and thus expects direction / support for improvement from her leadership & support structure).
I want to improve and advance and do better; "nice job" is nice to hear (no sarcasm; we all need it in our lives:) but doesn't alone help me move the needle. I personally strive for a "great job! here's what to focus on next / even better if..." from a good manager or mentor.
(I may not be a majority and I recognize that. I'm comfy in absolute metrics - I hate being told "awesome job!" all the time in a meaningless attempt at validation. I'm happy to hear I'm a 3 out of 100 on some specific axis I'm new at, as long as you help me reach 3.5 tomorrow and 4 next week).
Why does the desire for a coach/mentor mean your current immediate manager has to be it? Hell my concept of ambition involves not being overly concerned with your current immediate managers opinion of your skillset because you’ll have moved on to newer and greater things soon anyway, and your ambitious sister changing jobs after a year would seem entirely reasonable to me even if her manager was superb.
Even if my immediate manager was such a superstar in my field that I would otherwise love to have them as my coach if they weren’t my manager, I’d still be reluctant to treat them as such because of all the conflict of interest. What’s best for me, my growth, my career isn’t necessarily what’s best for the company, team, or them.
Thanks for responding! I appreciate the discussion, even if we may not agree :)
First, I 100% agree that one should seek coaches and mentors outside of their boss, team, and even department/organization/practice. Somebody to provide broad, long-term perspective and awareness; open up eyes beyond the immediate.
However, in practical terms, your team lead / boss / manager should have the most immediate awareness and visibility of what you're doing and how, and would be able to provide most granular and tactical feedback. Some of it may be technical-skillset oriented, but a lot of it would be around business priorities and how to best achieved them - focus and prioritization. If they are unable or unwilling to provide that mentorship and guidance effectively, I hold it against them and I feel they are not performing their duties to the fullest - that is the gist of my original point.
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That does bring us to our point of likely disagreement though: There is a very vocal sentiment on HN that individuals and teams/companies inherently do not align, and we as employees should not stay long / invest in the teams and companies, and treat them as very temporary allies at best, if not passive permanent antagonists. Come in, take / learn what we need, depart. I will put forward that an organization where employees, teams, and business pervasively do not align in their interest and goals, is at best dynamically unstable and more realistically inherently dysfunctional. While company may survive some percentage of prima donas, writ large, if every employee had distinct differing goals from the team and business, that is pure Brownian motion - moving fast but going nowhere.
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Beyond organizational, down to personal - much of it may come to individuals and personalities. Some people (hopefully many!) may agree with business goals, like their teams, and want to support them long term, grow something together. I've been in the same company for almost two decades, love many (not all! :) of the people I've been surrounded on many & various teams in that time, and have sought leaders/managers/bosses I respect, appreciate and want to learn from (our personal agency and ability to choose/move does not only exist between jobs & companies; a little attention and initiative will enable a lot of agency and self-guided direction within a company). I've partnered with my bosses and managers wherever I went, tried to understand their perspective and goals even when our styles didn't match, and looked to learn something from them all even if I would've done it differently (at least once, that was a formidable challenge:). My sister and her husband on the other hand have changed jobs every 18-24 months, and have complained, moaned and grown frustrated/stressed with every.single.one of them; and have never seen something big to completion. At some point one asks - is it everybody else, or is it you (and your attitude? :). And contrary to common wisdom , my salary has tended to keep ahead of theirs - a person with skills and initiative may be able to grow within a company as much as by skipping.
My 100 Croatian Lipa, as always :). This is not to say that my way is the only way, it empathically is not - but I also think treating your team lead / boss / manager with deep-rooted suspicion and antagonism, with reluctance to find a way to learn from them and ally with them, seek knowledge and mentorship anywhere but the leader closest to you, is also not the universally best / happiest path either. I think we should expect, encourage, and demand more of our team leads and managers.
If my manager cannot tell me what to focus on next,where my long term gaps are,I feel they are not doing they job (not paying attention to me / not caring enough). My sister has even changed jobs over a manager who failed to provide any actionable feedback over a year (she's very ambitious and thus expects direction / support for improvement from her leadership & support structure).
I want to improve and advance and do better; "nice job" is nice to hear (no sarcasm; we all need it in our lives:) but doesn't alone help me move the needle. I personally strive for a "great job! here's what to focus on next / even better if..." from a good manager or mentor.
(I may not be a majority and I recognize that. I'm comfy in absolute metrics - I hate being told "awesome job!" all the time in a meaningless attempt at validation. I'm happy to hear I'm a 3 out of 100 on some specific axis I'm new at, as long as you help me reach 3.5 tomorrow and 4 next week).