What Has Being A Manager Taught Me About Work?
- Manage expectations, manage projects, but don’t manage time
- Maker’s Schedule: fewer meetings, shorter meetings, more time for focused, uninterrupted work
- Manager’s Schedule: for bosses. Highly structured, always know where you’re going next 1
- Give people more responsibility, flexibility, and power
- Stay out of the weeds. Less detail is better in most cases.
- Create an environment where people can thrive
- Always believe in your staff, especially when they don’t believe in themselves
- My fundamental responsibility is to equip people with the tools they need to succeed.
What Has Being A Manager Taught Me About Myself?
- I’m a better manager when my team feels empowered, listened to, and respected.
- Managing people’s emotional frailties and personal problems will always be difficult for me, as I value privacy, and don’t want to meddle.
- There is such a thing as being too aloof.
- You will either learn to get over your own insecurities/imposter syndrome, or you will fail.
- The line between too much process and too little is paper-thin: too much process and projects become mired in overhead. Too little, and people will lose their way.
- Being a manager highlights the worst parts of my cynical, distrustful nature.
- Being a manager highlights the best parts of my empathetic, ride-or-die nature.
- I am happiest when I am leading — not managing — others.
Published by Cecily Walker
Cecily is a mid-management, mid-career library professional who works on community digital initiatives. She's spoken at library and design conferences in Canada and the United States, and is interested in equity, justice, and the intersection of critical race, gender, and sexuality theory and librarianship. When she's not being a humourless feminist, you can find her holding court on Twitter or riding a Vespa around town where she entertains fantasies of being Batgirl.
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