“If only I were the Manager [or Director or VP or CEO]… then they would listen to me!” This is a common fallacy I’ve seen come up numerous times. When an individual’s project stalls, or they can’t make progress towards a key objective involving multiple stakeholders, regardless of whether it’s within their own team or cross-functionally, it’s tempting to ascribe blame to Title (or lack thereof). Unfortunately, while it may sound harsh, this is usually an indication of inexperience or immaturity. I don’t believe in any case that a title promotion alone will transform someone who is struggling in their role into a strong/top/highly effective performer.

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Sadly, at some point in your career, you are going to have a peer, boss, or direct report face some type of tough personal challenge. What that is will vary greatly, but you will know it when it happens… it could be the passing of a family member, a natural disaster that displaces them, or a really bad illness.

When this (unfortunately) happens, it’s important to Go Big. Go above and beyond. Demonstrate compassion when it really matters. Beyond the altruistic reasons, these are the milestone moments that people remember long into the future. When you’re down and out, those that step up and support you make a meaningful impression. And this is a case where actions speak much louder than words: approve their time off, cover them while they are gone, intercept that pesky client or sales prospect so they don’t have to think about it. It will mean something.

My business partner, Amin, is exceptional at this and I have learned a lot observing how he handles these types of situations. To use a very minor/micro version of a personal example. In early 2021, Julia and I got COVID. This was still in the earlier period (pre-vaccine) when it was scary, and there was still a stigma around it; most people in Canada didn’t have a 1^st-degree connection that had been infected. In the first 24 hours, Amin and his wife Maleka asked if they could help in anyway: we of course said no, not to bother, we would be fine. The next day, unannounced, they showed up in the backyard with a huge bag of goodies (some of our favourite foods, medicine, etc.). This really stuck with me: taking action to help goes much further than simply offering it. Demonstrating compassion through action without burdening the recipient with the need to ask is going big.

Unmet, unspoken expectations can breed resentment. It happens all the time. Let’s say you’re having a conversation with your direct report, Robyn, about a new billing process that was recently implemented, and you both wholeheartedly agree it’s not working. It’s causing your clients a lot of frustration. Robyn says she has a few ideas on ways to improve the process and she’ll make sure to sort it out. Two weeks go by, and you keep hearing new stories from other folks in the organization about upset clients complaining about the billing changes. Then, you start getting annoyed with Robyn. She said she had ideas, and she was going to take care of it! Of course, you never actually explicitly discussed when she would take care of it. In the meantime, Robyn has four other projects on the go, which she believes are much higher priority, and accordingly, she has planned to tackle the billing process issues at the end of the month. So Robyn has no concept of your slowly building resentment because neither of you actually spoke clearly about what the expectation was.

Setting clear expectations is an undervalued and incredibly important skill set. So often, we create our own version of expectations, without explicitly clarifying them. We leave a conversation with someone, each having a very different set of expectations for priority, importance, and timeline.

There’s so much written about the value of providing your team members with autonomy and avoiding ‘micromanagement’. If you’re onboarding a new employee and speaking to them about how they like to be managed, there’s a good chance you’ll hear that they do NOT want to be micromanaged. Which makes sense of course. However, there is a huge difference between setting clear expectations and micromanaging someone.  

I know my own aversion to micromanaging my team has on occasion led to the unintentional consequence of being too vague on expectation setting, which is ultimately problematic for everyone. Being extremely clear and mutually agreeing upon deadlines (including specific dates and times), and quality and scope of work expectations, can save everyone a headache and avoid the resentment that is bred from unmet and unspoken expectations.