BehavioralPeople Management

How do you measure your progress in developing and improving as a manager?

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Expert Answer

Anonymous

4.6Exceptional
Continuous improvement and evolution as a leader and manager are crucial for staying effective and relevant. Here are some steps to achieve this:

1. Self-Reflection and Self-Assessment

  • Regular Reflection: Set aside time regularly to reflect on your actions, decisions, and their outcomes.
  • Seek Feedback: Actively seek feedback from peers, team members, and mentors to understand your strengths and areas for improvement.

2. Continuous Learning

  • Stay Updated: Keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in your industry.
  • Professional Development: Attend workshops, seminars, and conferences. Enroll in courses that enhance your leadership and technical skills.
  • Read Widely: Read books, articles, and research papers on leadership, management, and your specific field.

3. Setting Personal Goals

  • Identify Goals: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for your professional growth.
  • Review and Adjust: Regularly review your progress towards these goals and adjust them as needed.

4. Mentorship and Networking

  • Find Mentors: Seek out mentors who can provide guidance, advice, and support.
  • Network: Build and maintain a strong professional network. Engage with other leaders and managers to share experiences and learn from each other.

5. Adopt New Technologies and Tools

  • Explore Tools: Stay open to new tools and technologies that can enhance productivity and management effectiveness.
  • Implement Best Practices: Adopt best practices from other industries and adapt them to your context.

6. Enhancing Emotional Intelligence

  • Self-Awareness: Develop a deep understanding of your own emotions and how they affect your behavior and decision-making.
  • Empathy: Work on understanding and empathizing with the emotions and perspectives of others.

7. Developing Soft Skills

  • Communication: Continuously work on improving your communication skills, both verbal and non-verbal.
  • Conflict Resolution: Learn and practice effective conflict resolution techniques.
  • Time Management: Hone your time management skills to balance various responsibilities efficiently.

8. Encouraging Innovation and Creativity

  • Foster a Creative Environment: Create an environment where team members feel encouraged to share innovative ideas.
  • Lead by Example: Demonstrate creativity and innovation in your approach to problem-solving and decision-making.

9. Building a High-Performance Culture

  • Set High Standards: Establish and communicate high standards for performance and behavior.
  • Recognition and Rewards: Recognize and reward high performance to motivate and retain top talent.

10. Focus on Team Development

  • Skill Development: Invest in the continuous development of your team’s skills through training and professional development opportunities.
  • Empowerment: Empower team members by delegating responsibilities and providing autonomy in their roles.

11. Feedback and Improvement Loops

  • Regular Feedback: Provide and receive regular feedback through one-on-one meetings, performance reviews, and informal check-ins.
  • Iterative Improvement: Use feedback to make iterative improvements in your leadership and management practices.

12. Promote a Healthy Work-Life Balance

  • Model Behavior: Lead by example in maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
  • Support Your Team: Encourage your team to take breaks, manage stress, and maintain a balanced lifestyle.

13. Reflecting on Mistakes

  • Learn from Mistakes: When things go wrong, analyze what happened, identify lessons learned, and apply those lessons to prevent future issues.
  • Foster a Growth Mindset: Cultivate a mindset that views challenges and failures as opportunities for growth and learning.
By consistently focusing on these areas, you can continue to grow and evolve as a leader and manager, ultimately driving better outcomes for your team and organization.

Anonymous

4.6Exceptional
As a manager, there are a few things I am looking at the measure my progress and improvement.
The first thing I look at is having clear measurable success metrics for the team that aligns with the org and company and working towards meeting that goal. My current team is responsible for delivering mission-critical messages to our end users. We have various metrics tracking the reliability of our backend systems and the deliverability of our messages. To make sure we are tracking our success metrics, we do a monthly review of our core metrics and have in-person discussions if there are any potential problems or a way to improve our metrics.
The other thing I look at is people management. There are two main areas here. One is growing people and the other is doing performance management. For performance management, I have continuous conversations around performance and expectations utilizing my 1-1 time with my reports so there is no surprise when there is a performance issue. When I had someone who was marked as below expectation, the person agreed with the ratings because we had continuous conversations. While the IC was improving and got back on track, the annual performance review looked at the past year and the IC wasn’t surprised by the rating. For growing people, I also utilize 1-1 time and discuss individuals' short-term and long-term goals. I discuss with my reports where are growth areas, and how we can find opportunities to help them grow. For example, I had a mid-level engineer who was interested in improving their technical leadership skill and getting more involved in defining and scoping projects phase. I started inviting the IC to meetings with stakeholders and had a quick sync after such meetings to discuss the meeting and describe why I answered some questions in a certain way. The IC is now one of the senior engineers in the team and he is effectively leading projects involving multiple teams.
I also try to make sure I am not only handling my responsibilities well but also growing myself. I seek feedback so I can be aware of what I am doing well and where I need to improve. I do two things. I have my reports meet with my manager once a quarter where they can provide feedback to my manager without me being present, and later my lead will relay the feed to me with his input as well. The other thing is my current company does pulse surveys twice a year. When the survey results are out, I have my team get together and discuss the results and provide more context without me being present. I review the final outcome and create action items as needed. For example, one of the feedback I got was improving the overall recognition of our work. I started announcing our project deliveries and impact on the broader group and also announced some achievements through senior leadership. Later it reflected on the future pulse survey with increased score.

Anonymous

4.2Exceptional
I am actively working on few things like Time Management where I am working on delegating tasks to my team effectively and sparing my time to spend on more high impact initiatives like strategic planning, team's performance tracking and improvements. I am also working on balancing the technical and managerial responsiblities by asserting some time every day to catchup on the latest technology trends and participating in the team's technical discussions to ensure Im proficient with technical aspects along with the busy schedule of managerial adminsitrative activities. I learnt to give constructive feedback with more data points and help the report understand the session is about the betterment of one's performance

Anonymous

2.8Fair
I will operate an open door policy where my employees will have a regular feedback and continuous encouragement and motivation to drive results 
  • How do you measure your progress in developing and improving as a manager?
  • What are some areas in which you feel you could improve, or weaknesses you are actively working on developing?
  • What are some skills or abilities you see as areas for improvement in your current role?
  • Can you describe a specific situation in which you faced a challenge as a manager and how you addressed it?
  • Are there any traits or tendencies you've recognized in yourself that you are actively working to change or improve?
  • Can you share any goals you have for personal and professional development in your current role?
  • How do you actively seek feedback from your team and others to inform your self-improvement efforts?
  • Can you discuss a time when you received feedback that was difficult to hear, and how you responded to it?
  • What steps do you take to continuously improve and evolve as a leader and manager?
  • How do you stay current with industry trends and advancements, and how do you incorporate that learning into your management approach?
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Interview question asked to candidates interviewing at top companies: How do you measure your progress in developing and improving as a manager?.