The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You

For example, if you’re looking for a decision on pricing, and people start chiming in with suggestions for new features, say that you’ll separately find time to discuss the latter topic, and then steer the conversation back toward the intended agenda.

Managers so often think of the role as being in service to something else—the mission of the organization, the goals of the team, the needs of others—that it’s easy to forget about the most important character in your management journey: you.

If others find you defensive, you’ll get less feedback in the future, which will only hurt your growth.

What’s something that’s inspired you in your work recently? This sheds light on what the candidate thinks is interesting or valuable.

Instead of thinking, What am I not doing well?, focus on all the ways you’re winning.

The power of diversity helps our team avoid biases, make better decisions, and think more creatively.

As such, how I interacted with my manager could be summarized in one neat statement: Don’t mess it up. I considered it a failure if my manager had to get involved in something I was responsible for.

We resolved to find other ways to invest in design education and building relationships, including sharing a detailed write-up of the meeting notes and hosting more leadership

What kinds of challenges are interesting to you and why? Can you describe a favorite project? This tells me what a candidate is passionate about. What do you consider your greatest strengths? What would your peers agree are your areas of growth? This question gets both at a candidate’s self-awareness and what his actual strengths and weaknesses mig