Wouter van Heddeghem’s Post

Middle managers aren't the big executives leading the company or the lower level team members bringing in new perspectives. But they are heroes in their own right.👇 I was excited to see this article by David Brooks and agree with his assessment that, at their best, middle managers “are the unsung heroes of our age.” Not surprisingly, the comments indicate that many people’s experience of #Management falls far short of the ideal David describes in this article. The comment that that middle managers “are largely (an incompetent) class of bureaucratic sycophants keeping a fundamentally unfair system afloat” seems to capture too many people’s experience. I’m now wondering how many have thought that about me at different points in my career. Given the work I do working with mid and senior level #Executives every day, I have a few thoughts: 💡 We’re all “middle managers” in some way. The CEO is caught between the board, investors, employees, and their family. Front line employees are caught between their boss, peers, customers, and family. We’re all struggling to manage competing priorities. Sometimes we handle that tension well, sometimes we don’t. 💡 As in any field, management talent is not evenly distributed. Assuming a bell-curve distribution, most of us will spend most of our careers working for mediocre managers with a precious few great ones along the way. And, hopefully, only one or two truly toxic ones. It’s just math. 💡 Don’t confuse the person with their performance. The vast majority of managers are good, caring people, doing the best they can with the skills, mindsets, and self-awareness they have at the time. Even if we, and they themselves, wished they could do better. People are so busy trying to manage what’s in front of them, without another model, they can easily fall into the trap of checking their humanity at the door in service of getting the job done, or even just getting through the day... And yet, the vast majority of them get up the next day and try again. Let’s give people an adequate model for managing the competing priorities and contradictions they face and help them develop the emotional intelligence, resilience, and courage they will need to implement it. Read the full article at the link below and tell me: What have your experiences with Middle Managers been like? https://lnkd.in/gtWXhaeK #Authenticity #ConnectionMindset

⛰ Why Are Good Managers So Hard to Find? I recently came across an insightful interview with Julian Birkinshaw, a Professor at London Business School, about the challenges of effective management. The interview helps explain why good or great management is far more complex than just good intentions. Birkinshaw argues that good management is not necessarily about knowing what we should do but rather understanding why we often don't do it. **𝐈𝐧 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬, 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠? In my own experience, this nuance is not discussed or debated enough. I've developed the habit of using "company memos" during key decision-making moments to create a record that allows us to revisit and understand the reasons behind our decisions. This habit has proved indispensable numerous times in my career. This practice has helped me understand the complexities of decision-making and, more importantly, how to improve and optimize how we make decisions. The decision-making process is difficult, and we can miss opportunities if we fail to appreciate how challenging this task is, especially in an organizational setting. ⏹ Birkinshaw emphasizes two key aspects: ✔ Self-Awareness: It is crucial to recognize our own strengths and weaknesses. By understanding ourselves better, we can adapt our management style to be more effective. ✔ Balancing the Big Picture and Details: Great managers can "zoom in and zoom out"—they see the overarching goals but also understand the day-to-day details that affect their teams. Without this balance, leaders risk becoming disconnected or micromanagers. 🕯 Birkinshaw also points out that most managers receive little to no training before taking on their roles, highlighting the importance of continuous learning and understanding in decision-making. Effective management is a continuous journey that requires effort, empathy, and adaptability. #Management #Leadership #EffectiveManagement #SelfAwareness #ContinuousLearning #LeadershipSkills #Capital #DecisionMaking

Management isn't slogans and strategy. It's the sum of your small, daily actions. Our team doesn't listen to what we say. They study (and mimic) how we show up. Our team doesn't remember the perks. They remember how we made them feel. Our team doesn't want to be "managed." They want to be guided by a leader who respects them. Respect doesn't mean: ❌ Perks to offset the pain ❌ Hoping they'll "figure it out" ❌ Throwing them in the deep end ❌ Big bonuses to make up for no balance Respect means: ✅ Clear, ambitious goals ✅ Autonomy to pursue them ✅ Fair rewards for delivering value ✅ Competent, high-energy teammates Respect is creating a culture where everyone can do their best work. And doing their best work makes others better. - Mutual accountability - Mutual ambition - Mutual support - Mutual respect Unfortunately, no one is training managers this way. In fact, no one is training managers at all. Only 15% of new managers get any formal training. That means 85% of managers trained themselves. ❌ By borrowing habits from their leadership ❌ By repeating the rewarded behaviors ❌ By mimicking their managers If those people are all strong role models, we're all set. But if not, we're just setting more managers up to fail. If we want to train new managers to lead, We should start by untraining them. My checklist is a good place to start. What habits do you see the best managers using? Drop them in the comments. 📌 Want a copy of my Untraining Managers checklist? 1. Follow Dave Kline 2. Like the post 3. Repost to your network 4. Subscribe to: https://lnkd.in/gCcg-JKS You'll get access to this sheet + 75 more playbooks and resources for free.

Dave, You’re absolutely right. It’s a significant issue that only about 15% of new managers receive formal trainingAd1. This lack of training can be seen even in larger businesses, where one might expect more robust development programs. Formal training for new managers is crucial because it equips them with essential skills in leadership, communication, and team management. Without this training, new managers often struggle with their responsibilities, which can lead to higher turnover rates and lower employee morale

The 7 Deadly Sins of Mediocre Managers. (and how to avoid them) 1. Don't Set Expectations You probably did the job you now manage, and you take for granted the 100 lessons you have learned over time. Hold secret expectations: your habits = their heartache. Tip: Align on Goals (the what) & Approach (the how) 2. Don't Delegate You keep your old work, but now you have a new role, too. Tasks pile on as you go under. And your team waits. Patiently at first. Then vocally. Then with their feet. Tip: Delegate before you're comfortable. 3. Don't Build Trust Without trust, small things (gestures, comments) have big impacts. And big things (critical feedback, unsexy assignments) are crushing. Tip: Lead with questions. Let them self-assess first. 4. Don't Provide Clarity Guess matters? Your words, habits, and actions. Your priorities, decisions, and indecisions. Words matter. But what you do is who you are. Tip: Act intentionally. Slow is smooth & smooth is fast. 5. Don't Act Decisively You should - Lead with curiosity and humility - Seek data and wise counsel But they're only valuable when used to act. Tip: Declare your mode: "Debating" vs "Deciding" 6. Don't Hold People Accountable The magic formula for high-performing teams: - Set ambitiously high standards - Hire extremely talented people - Believe they'll achieve them - Challenge them directly Tip: Align incentives and make the scoreboard public. 7. Don't Help People Outgrow Them Leaders know they're only as good as the people they're leading. If you cap their upside, you'll only attract talent willing to settle. Humble & Hungry >> Accepting & Average Tip: Build a brand as a talent accelerant. Stars will come to you. Perhaps I committed the Sin of Omission... Tell me which management sin I missed in the comments. And while this can seem overwhelming, awareness of common mistakes helps you avoid them. Even better? A proven management system and an engaged community of peers. It's a cheat code that separates impactful leaders from mediocre managers. Our next cohort starts April 30th. After 8 live modules over 4 weeks, you'll have a working system to: - Manage up w/ finesse - Do less & delegate more - Catch & fix problems early - Attract & develop your team http://mgmtaccelerator.com See why 800+ leaders said it was worth 25x what they paid.

Highly recommend the program if you are leading a team of managers or individual contributors. Worth >10x the investment! Talk to me if you want to know more about it

A dilemma managers can face when delegating is having only two choices: Delegate or don’t. This kind of thinking is a trap. There are gradations of delegation – it’s not all or nothing. When you consider delegating a large project or set of responsibilities to someone, you may think, “This person isn’t ready for all of this.” You may be correct, but that doesn’t mean you can’t delegate any of it. You can start delegating sections of it – pieces that are larger than tasks and require real decision-making – while keeping the remaining parts. As the other person demonstrates the ability to manage those sections, you can shift more of the remainder to them. Eventually, you’ve delegated the whole thing, even though you didn’t start that way. Imagine you’re a Talent Development manager who runs a twice-yearly leadership development retreat for emerging managers in your organization. Part of the project you're responsible for is selecting a date and location. You’d like to delegate this to one of your employees, but you know that dealing with Legal and Procurement around signing the contracts is complicated and something they probably can’t handle. Rather than keep the whole thing yourself, your direct report to do the research and make a proposal for date and location. You establish some constraints (time of year, dates to avoid, budget, geographic area, etc.) and specify what information you need to handle the contracting phase. You tell them you plan to stress test their recommendation, but as long as they work within those constraints unless something unforeseen happens, you’ll go with what they decide. By doing this, you’ve delegated a part of the overall site selection process they can handle and started preparing them for the rest. Some managers think, “If I can’t delegate the whole thing to someone, I might as well do it myself.” Handing off less than 100% means you need to coordinate, and coordination always has costs. Effective managers see that not as a cost but as an investment in their people – one that pays dividends over time.

When was the last time you audited your manager skills? The best leaders measure and act on their areas of improvement. Here's how.👇 No one wants to be a bad manager. But it's often hard to know where you need to improve, especially if you get vague upward feedback and you don't have clarity on the different skills you need to build. That's where this 🔍 360-degree manager audit 🔍 comes in. We've designed a 10-question survey for managers, their peers and managers, and direct reports to take. The idea is to measure yourself and compare it to anonymous feedback from others. For the following questions, measure 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree): 1️⃣ I feel very confident in my ability to think strategically and lead my team. 2️⃣ I am always an advocate and coach for my team's career and development. 3️⃣ I always give monthly effective 1:1 behavioral feedback to my teammates. 4️⃣ I always give each teammate weekly specific praise for good work. 5️⃣ I walk away from each 1:1 feeling they were effective and a good use of time. 6️⃣ I am always very responsive to my team’s ideas or concerns. 7️⃣ I ask good questions and get feedback from my team on a weekly basis. 8️⃣ I manage my time well and have time for my work, team, and meetings. 9️⃣ Each person can clearly describe the outcomes I expect from them. 🔟 My teammates always feel comfortable going to me with safety concerns. Once you're ready, duplicate this survey and gather anonymous feedback on these same questions. You'll need to adjust it slightly so the questions make sense, for example, "I feel very confident in this manager's ability to think strategically..." Tell your team, "I'm trying to assess my manager strengths, weaknesses, and blindspots. Could you help me fill out this 3 min, anonymous survey? Please answer honestly and go with your gut!" Review the anonymous feedback and see how you can improve! It's okay to have blindspots, and revealing them can be a catalyst for growth. This survey also scales well for L&D and People Ops leaders. Help your managers measure their blindspots at scale. Send me a DM and I can send over a survey template for you to use. What skills are you looking to build? Inspired by Russ Laraway's 12-point manager effectiveness survey. If you haven't already, grab your copy of "When They Win, You Win" here: https://a.co/d/dL8qP8n #management #leadership #peopleops #peopleexperience #performance

Managers maketh teams... it sounds simple, but over time I’ve learned it’s so much more than that. Most of us have had different managers—whether at the same job or across different positions. When I worked in retail, I noticed how a manager’s presence could change the entire culture, morale, and work ethic of the team, even when the company’s values remained the same. One manager could uplift a team that wasn’t feeling its best, while another could bring the opposite energy. From there, I moved on to other jobs, each teaching me something new. I learned that managers are often the face of the company for their team, acting as a filter for company news—good, bad, or otherwise—and keeping their teams on task while maintaining morale, even when other departments might be struggling. Then I joined The Davey Tree Expert Company, where I learned an even deeper lesson about leadership. My current manager, has shown me what it means to go beyond just managing people. While I always tried to care for the people I worked with, she has raised the bar. There’s an old saying: “Whatever you’re doing, someone is probably doing it better.” While this could be seen as a discouraging thought—that you’ll never be the best or someone will always be better than you—I see it as an opportunity to always learn and grow. She is a prime example of that. In leadership, I thought I was doing a good job of supporting my team, but her approach has taught me so much more. She cares deeply about her team, paying attention to not just what people say, but how they work, how they think, and what helps them succeed. She’s genuinely invested in understanding how people are doing—personally and professionally—and follows through on that care in a way that goes beyond words. I’ve watched her in action—how she handles constructive conversations, how she truly listens to understand people’s challenges, and how she helps each person overcome their individual roadblocks. There’s so much I admire about her, and I try to express my appreciation whenever I can. But this isn’t just about complimenting my current manager. If you see someone doing something better, different, or even worse than you, ask yourself, "What can I learn from this person or this situation?" Even if you think you're great at something, be greater by learning from others, even if it's a different way. Doing so will help you grow and continue to develop in your career, no matter where you are or who you're working with.

"Nobody writes poems about middle managers. Nobody gets too romantic about the person who runs a department at a company, or supervises a construction crew, or serves as principal at a school, manager at a restaurant or deacon at a church. But I’ve come to believe that these folks are the unsung heroes of our age." Love this article on the Quiet Magic of Middle Managers in the New York Times: https://lnkd.in/eWdazGTX For so long being a manager has been looked down upon. Stuck in the middle, caught in a web of approvals, passing requests up and down the organisation, supervising people and monitoring task completion. Management has been seen as a necessary step on the ladder, but one that most want to get through and out the other side as quickly as possible. On to bigger and better things... As the article suggests, we're missing a big trick. A talented people manager can be the glue in an organisation, even a community. Their habits and rituals with their teams create strong cultures, and this can ripple across organisations. The impact of a people manager who is motivated by understanding others, helping others, who, above everything else, wants to see their team develop and grow, is huge. These managers can bring work to life. They create teams people want to be a part of. They build human connections and nurture networks of trust. And this is the lifeblood in thriving organisational cultures and businesses. So - it's time to identify and develop Human Managers! 1️⃣ Focus management roles on spending time with people - that's where the magic happens 2️⃣ Identify people with the genuine motivation, skills and potential to do just this (offer different progression routes for those who don't want to do this) 3️⃣ Take away the management tasks that keep managers away from their teams and help them develop their skills in building strong relatiomnships with people ❤️ 🧠 Human Managers are a key component in the Make It Human vision for a human-focused future of work. Join the Make It Human Club for regular updates on how we can create better, brighter, more fulfilling experiences of work (it's free!): https://lnkd.in/ehzwFBK2 #PeopleManagement #NewEra #HumanSkills #MiddleManagement #Engagement #Productivity #Innovation #Loyalty #Trust