Direct to Indirect Management.  If your team is five people, you can develop a personal relationship with each individual where you understand the details of their work, what they are good at, and maybe even the hobbies they enjoy outside the office.

Direct To Indirect Management

If your team is 30 people, you can’t manage them all directly, at least not to the same degree. If you did weekly 30-minute one-on-ones with everyone, that alone would take 15 hours — nearly half of the workweek. Add in time to follow up on any action items, and you’d barely be able to do anything else. When I got to more than eight reports, I started to feel like I didn’t have enough hours in the day to support everyone well while also thinking about hiring, ensuring high-quality design work, and contributing to product strategy.

People Treat You Differently.  Some years ago, when my team had grown beyond the point where I knew everybody personally, I attended a review where three designers presented their latest work. I gave them my feedback. Before we ended, I asked if there were any thoughts or questions about what I had said. Everyone shook their heads No. I left thinking that it was a good and productive meeting.

People Treat You Like You’re Someone With Status

Later in the day, I saw one of my direct reports who looked upset. “I caught up with the team and they’re not feeling good about the review this morning,” he told me. I thought he was joking. “What? Why?” “They didn’t agree with your feedback,” he said. “But why didn’t they tell me that?” I asked. My subordinate paused. “Well Julie, you’re kind of a big deal — they were intimidated.”It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone refer to me as “kind of a big deal.” It was hard to compute. When did I become the kind of person who intimidated others? I’d always been known as approachable.

What I learned is that it didn’t matter how I saw myself. When people don’t know you well and see that you’re in a position of authority, they’re less likely to tell you the ugly truth and challenge you when they think you’re wrong, even if you’d like them to. They might think it’s your prerogative to call the shots. They might not want to disappoint you or have you think badly of them. Or they might be trying to make your life easier by not burdening you with new problems or imposing on your time.

Be aware of this dynamic. <ul><li>Are your suggestions being taken as orders? </li><li>Are your questions coming off as judgements? </li><li>Are you presuming that things are rosier than they really are because you’re not hearing the full story?</li></ul>

The more you look after, the more likely it is that something under your purview isn’t going as well as it could be. It might be projects falling behind schedule, miscommunications that need to be cleared up, or people who aren’t getting what they need. At any given moment, I can list dozens of areas that I could be working to improve.

Choose What’s Most Important 

But at the end of the day, you are only one individual with a limited amount of time. You can’t do everything, so you must prioritize. What are the most important topics for you to pay attention to, and where are you going to draw the line? Perfectionism is not an option. It took me a long time to get comfortable operating in a world where I had to pick and choose what mattered the most, and not let the sheer number of possibilities overwhelm me.

People-Centric Skills Matter Most.  I remember hearing about a CEO who made the executives on his team switch roles every few years, like a game of musical chairs. I was skeptical. How could a sales executive be expected to know how to run an engineering organization, or a chief financial officer become a strong chief marketing officer?

People & Their Ideas Matter. Treat Them Well. 

As teams grow, managers spend less time on the specific craft of their discipline. What matters more is that they can get the best out of a group of people. For example, no CEO is an expert across sales and design, engineering and communications, finance and human resources. And yet, she is tasked with building and leading an organization that does all of those things.

At higher levels of management, the job starts to converge regardless of background. Success becomes more about mastering a few key skills: hiring exceptional leaders, building self-reliant teams, establishing a clear vision, and communicating well. People who master those skills will be well-equipped to lead teams of any size.

The core principles are the same, but the day-to-day changes a lot.

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

creativity

Creativity

humanresources

Human Resources

As Your Team Gets Bigger, Your Leadership Style Has to Adapt

We live in a culture steeped in toxic positivity. Everyone has to perform upbeat, socially acceptable attitudes 24/7. We treat negative emotions as contagious. We don’t let anyone express sadness or vulnerability, because we’re afraid we’ll catch it. We force everyone to find a silver lining. We expect them to tack a happy ending onto every story, even if they have to lie. If they can’t, we invalidate them. We dictate how they should feel, and how they should express themselves.

Toxic Positivity 

Abusers rely on invalidation to ensure everyone in their lives continues putting up with their bullshit. It’s become widespread lately, as the supreme leaders of late capitalism look for ways to keep us in our lousy jobs, telling us to smile as they buy up ludicrous amounts of farmland and real estate. Their media machines are hard at work assuring us there’s nothing to worry about. We should celebrate owning nothing. We should stop panicking about new variants of deadly diseases, and just get back to work.

Toxic Positivity Invalidation

It doesn’t just respond. It says you’re wrong to feel the way you do. It tells you how you should feel. It tells you how you should express your thoughts and feelings. It also tells you when, and where. It trivializes your experience by comparing it to people who “have it worse.” Sometimes there’s a cursory preface that says, “I know you’re angry, but …” The point of invalidation isn’t to have a dialogue, or to get you to see things from their perspective. It’s to make you feel guilty. It’s to make the conversation about your mistakes.

Toxic Positivity: Invalidation (cont.)

Invalidation rests on its own logical fallacy, that people who don’t speak out against unfairness or injustice they’re facing because they’re all full of grit and resilience. The truth is, many people don’t speak out against injustice and abuse because they’re just like I used to be. They’re scared. They’ve been conditioned to accept it. Anytime they do speak up, nobody listens to them. They experience shame and embarrassment.

Toxic Positivity: Truths

This society lets people with power and influence get away with pretending they’re mature and self-aware when they’re not. It cedes space to them, over and over. It lets corrupt politicians and billionaires set the world’s moral agenda. It lets them shame us into silence, because nobody wants to be labeled as “negative.” Nobody wants to be told they’re “just complaining.” Abusive societies want the weak to either get stronger on their own, or suffer in silence. They consider that virtuous. Abusive societies tell you to smile, regardless of how you’re actually feeling.

We Live In Abusive Toxic Positivity Society 

It’s easy to silence someone by telling them someone else has it worse. It’s even easier to make them feel guilty for expressing criticism or pointing out hypocrisy. You can play whatabout with their emotions until they wish they’d never said anything in the first place.

You don’t respond to abuse with empathy. You don’t sit down with abusers over coffee and listen to “their side.”

Invalidation happens everywhere these days, especially cults of wannabe entrepreneurs who worship at the altar of “personal responsibility.” Ask anyone with a little firsthand experience. We have…

As Your Team Gets Bigger, Your Leadership Style Has to Adapt

Toxic Positivity is Turning Us Into Terrible People

Megan Joy Williams